Natural Backgrounds in the Garden

MarkB1

No tricks, just holding the leaf in front of a flower and varying numbers for variations in BG, no mystery. I hold the leaf (in this case) and move to front of various flowers blooming right now and aim for my best and take what I get. It is always more pleasing to me, the natural colours and variations.

Lord Vetinari

Wonderful series mark - lovely colour and light although as before a bit too saturated for my taste.
With backgrounds I tend to do what I can to get something behind the subject, often just leaves of the same plant but I do sometimes pick the leaf the bug is on mainly so I can place it on a hard surface for easier shooting, then I'm either using the surface itself or purposely putting leaves on it for background. I have been known to use artificial backgrounds though. I've got a packet of coloured plastic lizards in my garden jacket for background with small bugs
Brian v.

MarkB1

Plastic Lizards, that's funny ... I have tried synthetic colours and they do work but often just don't look right to me, and the opportunities are too few to get any real practise. Artificial backgrounds can be good for night shooting, which I do little of these days - might try again for that elusive, last to bed down in the field, Neon Cuckoo Bee that requires surround lighting (with my low DR, base ISO cam).

Thing is, with my internally zooming/focusing FZ50/achromats I have a relatively fixed working distance of 2" (with 2 achromats stacked) so I don't need a surface to rest (it) on while the auto focus is good and I can change settings with one hand.

I have been looking for a better version of the FZ, any brand, for higher tech specs for wider DR, high ISO use (anything off base 100) and better resolution - so I can half the detail you get with yours. Alas, nothing that auto focuses well, that I know of.