HELP WITH DIGITAL CAMERA FOCUS
Camera tips

Focusing on a small flower can be difficult with a Digital Camera, some do not show a focus point, and it is only lately that they have the facility to look through the lens as the affordable film slr's.  Your old camera probably is a 2 megapixel model that was state of the art no more than 1 to 2 years ago and with a small addition to your set-up, quite a good focus on a flower can be made quite simply.

Your normal set-up may include a bench for the plant, a back-drop, a camera stand and digital camera.

Before you set-up next time, check your camera connections, the one to look out for is Video-Out and you should have received a cable to fit this socket when you bought the camera.  This cable will connect your camera to a portable television if it has the Video connector, normally yellow and on the front of the set.

Make sure that the camera is off and the television off before connecting, switch on the camera and television (set to channel AV), you now have a usable screen that is about 70 x bigger in area and using this increase can help you focus on the correct flower part.

Whilst the television for some reason does not give a spot-on picture, bugs are noticed right away, any flower or leaf damage can also be seen.  By using the camera zoom you can fill the screen with 1 flower from F.lycioides because what you see on the television screen is the full width and height of the picture, by using this you should get more usable pixels in the picture and not end up trimming to size after downloading.

The following pictures were taken using the same set up mentioned above.  Camera setting A(aperture), f11 stop.

Please take care when using electrical gadgets in the greenhouse.

Camera tips