Earlier this month my wife and I visited The National Home Show in Toronto. This show also includes a flower and garden event called Canada Blooms. This article shares a number of images from Canada Blooms, including some macro flower photographs. These were captured hand-held in the floral arrangement display area.
I knew from visits to this event in previous years that the lighting in the Canada Blooms display area tends to be quite poor. I thought it would be interesting to take a Nikon 1 J5 with some extension tubes as well as an Olympus TG-5 to see what I could capture.
NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.
In order to document some gardening ideas and concepts I often capture some images for my wife. I quickly discovered this was quicker to accomplish by using the TG-5. This was especially true in situations where I shot at f/2 in very low light.
The Olympus TG-5 is priced quite a bit higher than other cameras in its category. One of the reasons for that is that the zoom lens in the TG-5 starts at f/2, rather than f/3.5 which is common in competitive cameras. The TG-5 also can capture RAW files which I find very helpful. The sensor in the TG-5 uses BSI technology.
Being able to shoot at f/2 and still get a sufficient amount of depth-of-field allowed me to shoot at a decent ISO setting. This is important given the tiny sensor in the TG-5.
I was even able to get some reasonable results when shooting at 1/13th of a second, indicating that the image stabilization in the TG-5 performs decently well.
These images are not ‘mission critical’ in terms of the required quality for an outing such as this. Suffice to say I was pleased with the results achieved given the lightening conditions.
I couldn’t resist using the Microscopic mode on my Olympus TG-5 to capture some extreme close ups of some of the flowers used in the floral displays. All of the images I capture using the microscopic mode are done using the Olympus LG-1 LED Light Guide. This is a ‘must have’ accessory to do this kind of work.
In Microscopic mode the TG-5 will focus as close as only one centimetre away from the subject.
As I play around more and more with the Olympus TG-5, I’m starting to get used to how to work with this semi-automatic camera. I’d rather have more direct control with settings… but it is what it is.
My Nikon 1 gear ended up sitting in my camera bag for most of the show as the TG-5 provided quite snappy auto focusing performance in the low light. One never knows if an outing was successful until images are up on a computer screen. Based on these images from Canada Blooms, I’d give the outing a passing grade.
The only regret that I had during our visit to Canada Blooms was that I left my spare battery for the TG-5 at home. I was having quite a bit of fun and I would have shot more frames if I would have not run out of battery power.
Technical Note:
All photographs in this article were captured hand-held using camera gear as per the EXIF data. All images were produced from RAW files using DxO PhotoLab and CS6.
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I’d be interested to know what mode you used for the non-microscopic mode shots. In other words, aperture mode set to f2 or ‘P’ or ‘iAuto’ modes. Great results!
Hi Colin,
I always use Aperture mode when using the TG-5. I set an ISO range based on lighting conditions, trying to keep it as low as reasonable.
Tom
Looks like an amazing event to go to. Love all the plants in the second photo! That last photo of the hairy flower is so wonderful. Seems to be a wonderful camera for you to explore events like this with.
Thanks Joni… I’m glad you enjoyed the article and images! As is the case with any piece of photographic gear… it’s key to determine how to best utilize the capabilities of a camera to try to get the most out of it. The Olympus TG-5 does have some shortcomings… but was actually pretty well suited to this particular event and the subject matter.
Tom