My garden photography gear and how I use it

It should be pretty obvious that I'm primarily a plant and garden photographer.  I'm also currently 75, reasonably fit for my age, but without the strength and energy of even 10 years ago.  Three to four hours intensive walking and photography in a garden is about my limit and I can't carry a lot of weight.  So I have to be selective in what I use to get the quality shots I need without exhaustion kicking in.

Which has led me to my current Olympus/OM system garden photography line-up.

I use two bodies - not just for redundancy / just in case reasons but to allow me to switch body lens combinations quickly without having to field swap lenses.  The two bodies are the older OM-D EM-1 MkII and the newer OM Systems OM-1, both bought used from MPB.  Both bodies are set up with the focus bracketing I've described in an earlier post, the better stabilised OM-1 with a 5 shot bracket and the EM1 MkII with a three shot bracket.  Both bodies produce excellent 20Mpx RAW files and readily generate publication quality images.  Why two older bodies?  Budget limitations - and they still do the job.  Each body has spare batteries though with my working day limitations I rarely need them for both cameras.

The three lenses I take with me are the :

• OM Systems 8-25mm f4 PRO.  This is my wide angle to normal lens for garden scenes, allowing me to rapidly frame a shot both where space is limited or the vista needs a wide angles approach.  I actually bought this one new during an Amazon sale and it's served me very well in the two years I've owned it.  

8mm

12mm

21mm

25mm

I usually use this lens on the EM1 MkII and, in many cases, with manual focus on (the manual focus clutch is a wonderful thing!).  Why manual focus?  Because with the focus peaking set on I can far more accurately judge whether all the scene is going to be in focus.  And if it's not - well that's where the focus bracketing comes in.  With a wide angle zoom depth of field is large but even then it sometimes needs to be augmented.

• Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro.  Life size reproduction in a tiny, lightweight body with image quality to match my two PRO lenses.  For small flowers, fine detail and, of course insects.

Of course, even with the IBIS of my two bodies close up and macro work needs extra stabilisation, particularly for ground level work like the snowdrops above.  While I carry a full size tripod in the car I often find I can manage with a little Gorilla pod tripod.  It's very versatile and doesn't get in peoples way.

• 40-150mm f2.8 PRO.  My most versatile lens for its ability to isolate subjects against backgrounds, pick out plants at the back of borders or flowers on trees as well as as allowing me to take compressed field of view garden scenes.  Add in the 1.4x teleconverter and I have an effective 420mm close focusing reach.

   

Geranium x oxonianum f. thurstoniana

Tulip tree flowers high in the branches

Snoe

Do I miss the gap between 25 and 40mm?  No.  If it saves me weight it's a very minor limitation requiring only a step back or forward.  Plus I carry a 72mm filter thread circular polarising filter which fits both the 8-25mm and 40-150mm lenses.  One less thing to carry.

I very rarely need more than this.  It all fits in a single, not very large camera bag and comes in at a little over 4kg.  Manageable for me.  And even then I usually distribute the weight a little more easily by taking a separate camera bag with the OM-1 + 40-150mm and teleconverter in one bag, the rest in the other bag, slung on opposite sides of my ageing body.

Yes, I could carry less - but I couldn't get the results that sell my images to books, magazines and papers worldwide.

In which I encounter a Privet hawk-moth

I had my moth trap out overnight yesterday.  Not the best conditions, a bit cool, blustery and, judging by the ground, some overnight rain.  Needless to say I ended up with only two moths in the trap, a Shuttle-shaped Dart, and a Heart and Dart.

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Heart and Dart

Neither spectacular and two I'd photographed before.  Another early morning with minimal results.  There's been a few of those recently as the weather's been a tad unkind.

Then yesterday evening I went out to water the plants and sitting on my hosepipe was a Privet Hawk-moth, Sphinx ligustri, a relatively common hawk-moth but one I'd never seen or photographed before.  Watering could wait.

Out came my normal moth photography kit of OM-1, Olympus 60mm macro, and STF-8 twin flash, set to Manual exposure, 1/250 sec, and f8.  The moth was very amenable to being moved around and posed (I use a feather to avoid any chance of accidental damage) and I got a few decent shots with the usual limitations of not quite enough depth of field.

Sphinx ligustri

But the evening sun was shining so I decided to try some hand held focus stacking while I still had an amenable subject.  The intention was to get some shots from different angles and still have most of the subject in focus.  The soft evening light brought out the colour of this beautiful moth and, with the greater light intensity, allowed me to use the twin flash for fill in without the usual problem of not enough power to sustain continuous flashes in a focus stack.  

I think it worked.

The moth was then released unharmed into the shelter of one of my palm trees

 Uploading images to Alamy

I went out to The Garden House on Monday (for reference 11 May 2026) for my usual weekly photo tour and came back with 812 images.  Of those maybe a dozen will end up on Alamy for licencing.  Why only a dozen?  And what do I look for when deciding which of the 812.

Well firstly there are a lot of files that are part of the type of focus stack I've described in a recent post.  This produces 5 ORF files and a in-camera stacked JPG.  After stacking in Photoshop I end up with a single potentially usable file and six files I don't really need. (though I do tend to keep the ORF files).  Not every shot is part of a stack but enough generally are to significantly reduce the images available for selection.  Of my initial 812 shots 600 may be part of stacks which then generates a potential 100 images to select from.  Quite a few less.

So this...

...is distilled down to this:

A rather nice focus stacked shot of Deutzia x elegantissima 'Rosealind'.  Cropped, cleaned up very slightly to remove a few stacking artifacts, it's now one I'd quite happily upload.

Step two is to discard the rubbish.  Failed stacks, accidental shutter presses, shots that include labels (always photograph plant labels even if it's plants you know well) that are no longer needed after the images have been captioned, poor compositions etc etc.  I'm not looking for images to include.  I'm looking for images to exclude.  

For example this shot of Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing' with it's good separation of the subject from a pleasant, blurred background that still shows some context I uploaded:

Whereas this one, with its dark and messy background I excluded.  Technically it's good enough to pass Alamy QC.  But it's not going to stand out among the other 130 images of the same subject.  Not all attempts work.

Which brings me to step three.  What is already on Alamy, both my own and others images of the same subject?  Is an image worth uploading? Sometimes it's easy to decide.  Is the image of a new to me subject?  If so, take the best shot(s) I can, process well, caption and keyword accurately and upload as long as I consider they meet Alamy's QC standards.  I ignore the other three thousand images of the same subject unless mine really are inferior and will forever be overlooked.  

Then there are the numerous times when I already have multiple images of a subject on Alamy.  I don't want to compete with myself so any new shots have to be superior to what I've already had on sale for a while.  In which case I seriously have to think about discarding some of my old images and replacing them with the new.

Then there's selection step four.  I generate dozens, if not hundreds, of images of The Garden House monthly.  Do I really want to saturate my portfolio with hundreds of images of just one garden.  No.  A reasonable number, taken through the year, chosen for the light and composition, are far more effective than simply uploading everything that's of a decent technical standard.  And that's another set of images excluded.

So, that's how 812 images becomes maybe a dozen uploaded.  Maybe a few more, oft times less.  But I think it gives me a better, more curated portfolio.

The damselflies are out

Well, one damselfly at least.  That's the large red damselfly, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, a western Palearctic species usually the first to emerge in spring in the UK. And once emerged they're interested in two things: feeding and mating.

A quick trip down to the pond at Efford Marsh, one of many local nature reserves in Plymouth, found first a red male that had already taken a bite out of a small green weevil (nettle weevil perhaps?) and was obviously eying it up for another go...

...followed by a mating pair who graduated from the initial joining to the classic damselfly mating wheel.

All shots taken with the OM-1 and 100-400mm MKII, ISO 400 and wide open aperture.  I love the close focusing on the 100-400mm and the ability to smooth out the backgrounds due to the long focal lengths of this super telephoto lens.

I'm looking forward to getting more damsel and dragonfly shots once they start emerging as the weather warms up.  I got a few dragonfly in flight shots last year with the 40-150 f2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter but struggled for range over water.  Hopefully the extra reach will increase my opportunities.

 Butterfly photography again

Years back I published a post on the Canon 55-250mm EFS as a budget friendly butterfly lens on my Canon APS-C bodies.  Times have moved on, I now use Olympus/OM Systems micro 4/3 equipment, and a recent day at The Garden House when I managed to capture these male and female Orange Tip butterflies (Anthocharis cardamines) feeding on Sweet Rocket, Hesperis matronalis, reminded me of how I now use my Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 PRO and 1.4 x teleconverter as my go to combination for shooting these flying flowers.

The native lens has a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m - just over 2 ft - and a magnification at 150mm of 0.21x. By adding the 1.4x teleconverter the minimum focusing distance stays the same but the magnification increases at the now 210mm end to 0.3, allowing tighter framing.  This is the difference:

150mm on native lens

210mm on native lens + 1.4x teleconverter

Effectively I have the equivalent in full frame terms of a close focusing 100-400mm f4 zoom (actually 112-420mm if you need to quibble).  All with Olympus / OM systems PRO image quality and rugged weatherproof build.  Any compromise in image quality from adding the teleconverter is hardly noticeable.  Yes it's a little heavier than my previous Canon 80D/55-250mm combination but the results are far better.

As I've referenced in previous posts, the combination on the OM-1 it also effectively supports hand held focus stacking.  So a five image stack with a compliant subject such as this Green-veined white butterfly (Pieris napi) provides me with both greater depth of field on the subject and even better background blur and separation than the f9 aperture I was using for the previous shots.

The full image, slightly cropped

100% crop of the butterfly head

In the field this combination of relatively light weight, great stabilisation with the Olympus/OM System IBIS, close focusing to throw more pixels on the subject while keeping a good working distance, handheld stacking and excellent image quality means that I have far more flexibility when pursuing butterflies in their habitat.  As demonstrated by these few shots from previous years

Brimstone

Green veined white in flight

Meadow brown feeding on yarrow

So, a combination that's yielding excellent results in a compact and relatively lightweight package, and, just as importantly, within my budget.  Yes I might lust after the new 50-200mm f2.8 PRO but that's way beyond what I can earn from my image sales - and that sets the budget.

 

OM System 100-400mm MK II - some lessons learned

I mentioned in my recent post that I'd acquired the Mk II iteration of the OM 100-400mm for it's sync IS.  I also mentioned that I hadn't had that much chance to use it to it's full potential due to the weather being pretty rubbish.  It's still early days but now I've had a better opportunity. with sunny conditions, a visit to Lopwell Dam, where the tidal waters of the Tamar meets the fresh water of the River Tavy, and a couple of hours spare to try some bird photography.  Missing was a great variety of birds but there were a few around.  And a few lessons were learned.

Lesson 1:  Working with 400mm

I was working from the bank and these Canada Geese were on a low tide island about 50 metres away.  Hand holding with both arms supported on a fence rail gave me reasonably sharp shot at ISO 800, 1/1250 sec, f6.3 (wide open).  I've cropped in a little but not excessively.  Examined closely I'd have been better upping the ISO to 1600 to give a slightly sharper - less motion blur - shot at 1/2500 sec.  No wonder other photographers routinely use higher ISOs to keep the speed up, albeit with an increase in noise..

Another part of the flock were on the water, a little closer, allowing me to get some reflection images.  Same settings as before but the goose was larger in the frame giving a little more detail on the feathers.

Again, I've cropped a little to give a better framed image.

The lessons learned?  Even for big birds 400mm on a wide estuary is only just enough reach unless they come close.  Without the camouflage of a hide, most don't.  And 1/1250 sec shutter speed is barely enough.  Take a hit with higher ISOs and noisier images to sharpen the shots.

Lesson 2: Lets try the 1.4x teleconverter

Want more reach?  Add a teleconverter.  As I only own the Olympus 1.4x that was my only choice. 400mm became 560mm; hence more pixels on the birds. That's the upside.  The downside is that that I'm down to f9 wide open, f10 for preference to allow for the slight reduction in wide open image quality from the extra glass.  That means higher ISO to keep shutter speeds up.  Is it worth it to get capture images where more distant birds appear larger in the frame?

Yes.

I'd added the teleconverter when, on the distant bank opposite, a cormorant landed to dry it's wings.  ISO up to 1/1250, f10, 1/1600 sec and shot taken.  I'd popped the camera on a tripod for this as I'd previously found that adding the 1.4x was a bit much for my shaky handholding.  Here's the result:

Lessons learned?  The 1.4x works - but it has a cost, particularly on a slow lens such as the 100-400mm.  With modern noise reduction (more on this in a separate post later) it's worth the risk but there's always that downside.  

Although it can work very well...

Lesson 3:  Try baiting

As photographers do, we chat.  By chance I met up with a more experienced bird shooter and after some conversation he suggested trying a bit of baiting on a fence rail by the estuary bank.  He had some seed, put it out, and within a minute I had a Dunnock landing for a feed.

Then a male chaffinch.

Followed in quick succession by a cock pheasant who'd sauntered down the road in greedy anticipation.

I still had the 1.4x teleconverter on so I had to go to ISO 1600.  Even that was marginal for the Dunnock at 1/320 sec though the detail is certainly there.  As for the pheasant it's not hard to imagine the delight when their flamboyance was first introduced to the UK.

Lessons learned?  Baiting works if done regularly.  The spot these final two shots were taken is regularly baited by other birders.  I'll be joining their number and carry seed with me next time I'm at Lopwell.  Secondly, although I didn't need the 1.4x - straight 400mm would have been enough - it actually held up very well at closer range.

A satisfying day,

Hand held focus stacking

One of the reasons I first tried and then fully switched to Olympus / OM Systems cameras and lenses was the built in focus stacking and bracketing computational facility.  For a lot of my plant portrait, and macro work I need a combination of good depth of field with clean(ish) backgrounds to give both subject separation and sharp focus across as much of the subject as possible.  This image of the spring flowering shrub, Stachyurus praecox 'Rubriflora' is a good example:

Although both stacking and bracketing modes work by taking a sequence of images with a progressive adjustment of the focal plane they work slightly differently.  Bracketing allows up to 999 images, moving the focal plane through the image from the frontmost point chosen.  The images can then be combined into a single image using stacking software (I use Photoshop but others are available). Stacking takes up to 15 images both before and behind the initial focal point and then combines them in camera into a single JPG. When RAW shooting is used the original RAW files are saved with either option but stacking also generates JPGs with the RAW files.  Either method works well to generate images with the necessary characteristics of depth of field across the subject and separation from the background but for best results both require a stable tripod to keep the stack of images aligned.

But using a tripod is not always possible. Which brings me to hand-held focus stacking.  At 75 my hands and posture are not as steady as once they were.  OK, I shake a little. It was only with the more recent purchase of the OM-1 body and it's insanely effective 7 stop IBIS that I've been able to explore hand held focus stacking.

So what works for me?  After experimenting I've set up and assigned to a Custom Function the following:  

• Focus bracketing - set from Camera settings menu 2 and Computational modes menu - ON
• Number of shots = 5
• Differential = 3
• ISO 250mm - to keep noise low
• Aperture f3.2 - to provide the subject to background separation.

I find this works well to give me both a better depth of field across the subject and, when feasible, subject separation.  As with this image of Erythronium tuolumnense, one of the North American trout lilies, taken in a fairly crowded planting.

Or this shot of Snake's Head Fritillaries in a wildflower meadow.

All the images so far were taken were taken with my 40-150 f2.8 PRO lens.  This combines superb image quality, extremely fast transitions between the stacked shots, and close focusing, ideal for plant portraits...

...lichens...

... or larger insect shots, albeit with the 1.4x teleconverter attached:

Also working well is my 60mm macro.  I don't expect to get the depth of field attainable with tripod mounted shots but anything that produces better results than a single shot with a wide aperture is worth while.  Such as this little Heliophilus pendulus hoverfly, photographed in natural light by the side of my little pond. It's not all in focus (abdomen and top wing) but it's given me better depth of field across the eyes and thorax.

What hasn't worked that well is my newly acquired 100-400mm MK II.  Yes, the sync IS is great for single hand held shots but the transition speed between stack shots and the weight of the lens conspire to produce too much movement and blur in the final images.

The only niggle I do have is with the Automatic JPG production.  This is both a boon and a curse.  The boon is that I can immediately see an the in camera stacked shot to see if it has worked and not produced blur or ghosting as images haven't aligned.  The curse is that I also generate 6 JPGs per stack, 5 of which are useless for my immediate workflow and a stacked JPG that I also have to delete if I've done a RAW stack.  

Of course, hand held focus stacking is subject to the same limitations of any bracketing / stacking operation.  Subjects must be still and / or the wind almost zero.  But even so it's a valuable technique to provide a good depth of field on the subject with background separation where appropriate.

 . 

Updates and equipment overview

I'm very conscious of neglecting this blog over the last two years.  I could use pressures of work as an excuse - but I'm retired so that doesn't really work.  The truth is I haven't had much to say - but that's beginning to change so, time for some updates.

My Alamy experience

Alamy continues to be a reasonable part time income generator.  I'm now up to 3255 licences since January 14th 2014, producing $60,104 dollars is revenue.  Add in infringement and collection service payments, subtract commission, convert to UK £s and thus far I've ended up with £21,447 and 20p in my business bank account.  Respectable, but not spectacular, it does allow me to upgrade equipment as needed.  More on this further down.

There's been a fair few $$$ licences along the way although, in common with most Alamy contributors, the average price per licence seems to be dropping year on year.  That, coupled with - in my case - declining sales has reduced my annual revenue over the last three years.  Though there has been some good results such as this front cover of Gardener's World magazine in August 2025.

From an EM-5 Mk II image

Equipment updates

This time last year the price of a good used /Olympus / OM systems OM-1 had dropped below my threshold £1000 limit and I bought one.  I'm glad I did.  The improvement over my EM-1 MkII is substantial, particularly in higher ISO capability, much improved stabilisation, and far faster shooting speeds and focus stacking performance.  Add in subject detection and I could far more easily take action shots of mine and my daughters dogs.  Shots like this:

35+ mph, head on, animal eye detect on, eyes perfectly in focus, one of a sequence of shots also in focus'  Pleased with that - especially when coupled with my next purchase.

By autumn 2025 I'd earned enough to buy an additional lens.  With the introduction of the OM 100-400mm MkII second hand MKI versions flooded the used market and I seriously considered buying one.  Then Black Friday hit, the MKII version became available under £1000, and I bought one.  Why?  Because I do like to do the odd bit of bird photography.  I'd been using my 40-150mm f2.8 PRO + 1,4x teleconverter but it doesn't have the reach needed.  So this, with both syncIS and double the reach has enabled me to do some more serios bird photography.

Well that was the plan but the weather hasn't really co-operated.  Dull and gloomy mostly but, occasionally, it's brightened up enough for some shooting.  Early days yet - its still bird onna stick time at the moment - but the quality is there:  Now for some flight shots.

Techniques and ways of working update

The advent of the OM-1 has made one big difference to my way of working in gardens.  I now routinely carry the OM-1 with the 40-150mm F2,8 attached and my EM-1 MkII with the 8-25mm f4 attached.  Rather than swapping lenses all the time, I simply swap between the two combos.  I tend to use manual focus with peaking on for the EM- 1 MkII to give me the greatest depth of field for the wider angle shots.  With the OM-1 combo I'm increasingly using handheld focus stacking, the combination of camera IBIS and lens autofocus speed allowing 4-6 shot in camera stacks with better background separation than generated from simply stopping down the aperture. For example:

Of course, it's no good in windy conditions and I have to delete the unwanted JPEGs also generated with the RAW files but it's a technique I'm increasingly reliant on.

Website updates

I talked about my website update to begin to develop my print etc venture.  As a bonus I'm also offering a free download of a PDF version of a presentation I produced for The Garden House's 80th Birthday celebrations last year.  This has hundreds of my images and accompanying text to provide a comprehensive overview of the features and development of the garden as the seasons progress. From our snowdrop festival days of January into early March, to the glories of the spring garden. From the bright flowering of summer days to superb autumn colour, and including the garden wildlife, the sequence provides a visual and narrative history of the 10 acre garden over a single year.

Download Here