This year is a busy year for flower photo lovers. After cherry blossom, golden trumpet tree and cotton tree, lotus is at its best in summer time. Different from other flower subjects, photographing lotus requires a slightly different set of skills. In this article, we will talk about the equipment and the shooting tips you need to know.

Lotus has a few different names in Chinese. Lotus and sleeping lotus, however, are two different plants. Although they look similar, the two are totally different in taxonomy. The leaves of lotus come out of the water and are in a perfect round shape without slits, while the leaves of sleeping lotus float on the water and there are slits around the edge of the leaves. Besides, the petals of lotus are wider, while the petals of sleeping lotus are more slender. And the two have different blossom periods – that’s what important to photo lovers. Lotus blooms in summer from May to September while sleeping lotus blooms throughout the year.

The poem “The Love of Lotus” by Dunyi Zhou is familiar to most of us. One of the characteristics of lotus is that “It raises cleanly above ripples of water and can only be admired from afar, but not to be sullied nor debased.” Simply put, lotus grows from the bottom of a muddy pond, making it impossible to shoot up close. Therefore, in lotus photography, we need a telephoto lens with focal length of 200mm or longer. For example, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM with a large aperture and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM with even longer reach that aids in capturing the lotus at the centre of the pond are nice options. Besides, with the use of large aperture and telephoto lens, a blurry background can be created to make the subject stand out.

Apart from using a shallow depth of field, use of lighting and color contrast can also accentuate the beauty of lotus. For camera settings, we can use the “Landscape” picture style that shows vivid colors and rich gradation, and increase the contrast and color saturation levels a bit based on personal preference. For composition, we can use a monochrome background such as a dark pond or deep green leaves. We can also use a small aperture, low ISO and maximum flash sync speed (e.g. 1/200s) to reduce the ambient lights effect to create a darker background and use a high flash output power to keep the subject optimally exposed.

Lotus has a long blossom period. The flower is in different shape and beauty during different phases of bloom. The budding flower, flower with crown-like opened petals, the mature lotus showing the seed pod and lotus with falling petals have their own unique beauty. When shooting, we can try capture lotuses in different phases of bloom in one picture to enrich the composition.

To photograph sleeping lotus which floats on the water, we can include the reflection in the composition. In general, we should shoot on a calm day, when there is a clear reflection in the pond. Although it’s largely by luck, it still requires a certain technique. A front or side lighting will give you a more apparent reflection. As the reflection is dimmer than the subject itself, we can use a Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter to balance the light on both sides to achieve a clearer reflection. Sometimes we can take picture of merely the reflection to depict the hazy beauty of sleeping lotus.

Although lotus is our subject, we should also pay attention to the surrounding environment. There are many insects and creatures in the pond, for example bee, dragonfly, damselfly and frog, and it would be a nice idea to include them in the composition to add a sense of vitality to your photos. Besides, we can take close-up shots of lotus with dew drops clinging onto the flower in the morning or after rain.

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Opening Hour: 7:30am - 5:30pm
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How to go: Take Exit B at Tai Wo Hau MTR Station and walk for 15 minutes; change to bus no. 43X at Shing Mun Tunnels Bus Interchange; or take minibus no. 32M at Kwai Fong MTR Station and get off at Shek Kwai House bus stop

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How to go: Take Exit C2 at Diamond Hill MTR Station and walk for around 10 minutes

Address: Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin
Opening Hour: Open 24 hours
How to go: Take Exit A at University MTR Station and walk for around 5 minutes