Forgot to mention that detail. A lot of the subject material I have access to is on trial growing fields, ie. typically a narrow 10ft row of a single flower variety in bloom, a couple of feet away from similar adjoining rows of slightly different varieties.
Oh-Kay.... so restricted access is probably your most significant issue here, and likely as much or more so than the focus range, or anything else.
Constantly get annoyed by terrible quality product photos showing flower plants with blown highlights, over saturation, poor DOF, etc ..... maybe aiming for some nice bokeh - but in some cases, it might demand a wider shot of a plant a couple of feet high where capturing foliage well is equally important.
Well, Bokah, is oh-so much NOT a property endowed by the lens, or a big aperture, for ALL so many get so pretentiouse about the hardware and rave about the number and shape of aperture blades, etc.
Its mainly a facet of the scenary.... you need high-lights and low-lights, and a back-ground condusive to producing pools of contrast, like light filtering through foliage or fairy-lights on a Christmas tree, to produce the features of bokah, for better or worse.
If you were in the same position and had to pick one lens to shoot with, what sort of spec would you pick?
Given the cicumstances.... I would most likely pick from the bag, and I would most likely use my M42 adapter, and the Ziess 50 or the Hanimex 135 primes... both are super cheap on 2nd hand market, and have close enough near focus distances, The Pentacon 29mm, would probably also pressed into service.
Small perversion, to the idea of using a long-lens to get out-of-focus back-ground, at shorter focus ranges, you can actually achieve as much or more.
Remember, the 'critical focus' zone, between near focus and infinity, tends to become longer and further from the camera, the longer the lens, and so tends to suggest longer lenses for oof back-ground effects, but, the Depth of Field is a % of focus range, and having to back up to get a subject in frame, with a longer lens, can mean you actually get more Depth-of-Focus and less 'oof' and potential bokah than with a shorter lens.
On a Crop-Sensor digital, the 'normal' angle of view lens is around 35mm, the equivilent of a 50 on Full-Frame / 35mm film; so you can go as low as a 29mm prime, for close focus, and still achieve a lot of back-ground oof-ing, and be less likely to 'over-cook' it from too much aperture and too much very fast focus fade, totally dissociating the subject from the back-ground as though photo-shopped into the picture.
Tripod would be pretty much essential, and to get low down angles, without picking flowers and studio staging them, that would beg one without leg-bracing and the adjustability to limbo that low.
Next conundrum wouyld be lighting.. the all important facet-of-fotograffy....
Here, suspicion about your complaints of blown high-lights and washed out colours, suggests harsh flash was used.... which in the field, working to a price, likely was direct on camera flash, or even worse macro-ring.
Working 'in the field', with natural light, then the problems would be to control contrast and get light where you want it.... A-N-D... THIS if anything I suspect is the most important ingredient in the recipe.
For Bokah, you need those multiple 'pools' of bright and dark to diffuse into rings.. you actually WANT contrast in some of the scene...
BUT at the same time, you want an even lighting on the actual flower to reveal detail and colour and texture... but... with enough shaddow to reveal the texture, and create shaddow to explain the form of petals and leaves and such....
THIS would make it difficult to get a flattering photo, even if you were to completely stage it in the studio... working 'in the field'... you REALLY have a tough time... and will likely need 'stage' the subject as well as you can, working with what you got, from space, through back-ground, and available light.
WHICH would make the lens-choice a much smaller part of the overall equation....
So, using my M42 legacy lenses on an adapter.... meh... they are more than good enough, and conveniently to hand, and/or cheap!!
Manual focus is also handy for closer-up subjects, especially on a tripod where you can be pretty sure that the focus didtance isn't going to change much.
These 'old' legacy primes dont have ultra-fast apertures, but they are fast enough; the Ziess 50 for example being an f2 lens, not far off that of contemprary AF-S35 or 50.. number of aperture blades and flat sides? Very much personal preference, even in the world of Bokah effliction; more blades and curved blades supposedly give a 'smoother' bokah, but old low tech lenses with flat blades and less of them, even ones that aren't so well made and make a wobbly pentacon, rather than a circle, are often aplauded for 'nicer' Bokah thats more obviouse and less clinical...
But, designed for manual focus, focusing by eye rather than dot, you can be much more discerning where YOU want to focus, rather than the electronics, and the focus ring usually has a much longer and more refined range of critical focus travel to do it by eye.
There's a few advantages to going old legacy lens here, that can be exploited. Not least that given the other concerns, an old legacy lens and adapter is 'cheap'. if you have to buy them!
Small side issue, on Nikon legacy adapters; length of the Nikon mirror housing, tends to push the lens ahead of the mount, an adapter even more so. Consequently the better adapters that allow 'infinity focus' have a 'retro-focus' lens element in them to 'correct' infinity focus of lens mounted on it... cheaper ones without, or a more expensive one with it removed... act like a short extension tube and bring near focus closer whils loosing far focus.... hmmm..... close focus adapter rings?
But onwards; success here will have littl;e to do with the lens choice; its the lighting, its the back-ground, and in that 'in the field' restricted work-space, 'staging' the subject as well as you can.
I would be pondering reflectors to bounce light into the subject where I wanted it, and possibly even artificial back-grounds, for when the natural isn't as conducive as it could be. I would be pondering artificial lighting, and off-camer flash, or portable light stacks... even if that was little more than a torch gaffer taped to a tomato cane 'improvisation'... probably similar with reflectors and bulldog clips in the absence of extra hindering hands TBH...
Basically, contemplating studio techniques, and thinking "If I cant take Mohamad to the mountain... how do I bring the mountain to Mohamad?"
Craft not Kit...
In which, your 18-55 can probably be used to get far more from it, the AF-S35 & 50, great lenses, I actually bought for my daughter, with nice fast apartures, some more... B-U-T.. those particularly, will still NOT do the job for you... daughter loved them, and they could deliver a lot of oof-effects very easily wacking the aperture wide... but, without the craft to set the stage, take control of the scene and the lighting, and look and understand what it is thats getting the 'effect' you like, particularly by way of Bokah, you'll never get the best you could from them lenses.
It's really not a question of lenses, or ultimately kit, it IS a question of craft.
WHICH takes me off on a tangent of shooting RAW and how much post-process you might try and do.....
You want to saturate colour? Under expose; shade the subject, dont shoot it at mid-day, wait until the sun's going down! Maybe even use a polarising filter.... PRIMARY way to get the image you want should be 'Clean in Camera'. There's only a limited amount of things you can do in post, and the advantages of shooting in "RAW" or in Nikon NEF format, are, to my mind HUGELY over inflated.
What can you do to a RAW image? You cant change the shutter speed; you cant change the aperture; you cant change the lens! ALL you can really do is alter the amount of electric amplification from the sensor, and diddle the response curves between high-light and shaddow for each red/green/blue colour layer......
It is NOT the place to suggest you start trying to get the pictures you hope for, its where they 'may' be polished up a little, if they are any-good to start with, which takes us back NOT to whats on the front of the camera but what is in-front of it.... and the absolute start point, staging your shot, and controlling light... craft not kit.
If you have to rush off and buy some gear? Well, my mother is a horticulture lecturer.... not my genre I hate things wot grow, probably why, actually, but still; BEST big of kit you can buy? PROBABLY a roll of that green Florists wire! Use it to hold flower heads where you want them; use it to hold inconvenient leaves out the way; use it to attach a sheet of paper or a bit of tin-foil on the next useful acquisition, a pack of garden canes, as 'in the field' studio reflectors!
Stop looking in the brochures; start thinking out the box!
BUT, ultimately... has to be asked WHY do you need or want better flower pictures? Mother had very good reasons, for lectures; to show students; not a photographer, a gardener, ACTUALLY photo's don't need be that good... no one is marking them for artistic merit! And a little point and press compact, was for three or four decades, more than good enough..... though she DID always have a roll of florists wire in her pocket..... which offers what suggestion for what you are about?
but you may not get the whole subject in if you've got limited room to back up.
Flower?? Tulip!!
Cup of butter
