The sunflowers from my last post were shot on a cloudy day. As a rule, cloudy days are better for shooting flowers. The bright sun and shadows of a sunny day can sometimes be detrimental to your efforts, On sunny days I usually use the sun as a back light, showing off the detail in blooms and leaves. Back light can really ad a bit of drama to your images. The photo below shows the use of back lighting.
For the top image I wanted to get the sun in the photo, make it really dramatic. I had brought along my old D70 body for just this photo. To get the correct exposure for the sun and sky, I had to really crank up my exposure. The photo was shot at 1/2500 second and f11. The sky was great, but the flowers in the foreground were way too dark. There is a fluke in the design of the D70. The normal top sync speed with a flash is 1/250 second. Due to the design flaw, you can set the camera to manual, hook up a flash with a sync cord(not having the flash directly on the camera's hot shoe) and shoot at whatever shutter speed you want.
I had the flash on a long cord, and held it to the left of the camera, coming in at an angle. Got the sky, and the big bloom in the foreground is dramatically highlighted.
Flash is a lot more fun when used creatively.
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