I don't know about everyone else, but I get up early to photograph...the first ones by 6:00 AM and later as they open fully, but always try to beat the sun.

kay

I usually start about 11 am, but sometimes I get a few shots with my phone earlier than that. My phone usually makes the colors too bright.

Nancy

Nan, that is what I'm finding with my phone. Some photos are so good, I wonder if they are taken with cameras

We take most of our pictures with a Nikon D5100. It was a bit pricey, but it has a special flower setting. I don't know if that is just a gimmick, but we have been happy with it. My daughter has a cheap Nikon that photographed reds much better than the previous camera I used.

Nancy

I usually go out around 7 and get what I can. Anything not open I go back for when I can catch them in the shade. Some don't get any shade til evening but often there are some clouds. I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH25 that I am very happy with. It has intelligent auto as one of the settings, and it usually chooses the close-up flower setting. However, sometimes too much light is reflecting and I choose the sunset setting. It seems to filter out the extra light. Sometimes it filters out too much & is too dark and I just have to go with the auto setting. Certain colors look wrong in the sunset setting. I've been taking pics of each in both settings, compare and trash the one less like the actual.

I'm the fish out of water here as I don't usually take photos until noon or a little later. I do this in order to get a more accurate image of what the color of the daylily will be after the morning sun has worked on it for hours. However, most of my daylilies are in pots, so with the smaller pots at least, I can move them in under my porch away from glaring mid day sunshine (and almost as importantly - Oklahoma winds) if need be, to photograph them. In Vermont you aren't dealing with 90 -100 temperatures, 30 mph winds and harsh Oklahoma sun so, I would think that color fading, and petal melting isn't much of a problem on most days, and I'd listen to those northerners who know how to do it right. .........Maryl

I START taking photos in the morning but will continue to take photos into the early afternoon, depending on how cool (or hot) the day is. If it is a cool morning, some blooms haven't opened fully and I wait for the heat of the day to get them in their glory. If it's going to be blazing hot I try to get most pictures before noontime. But....I have taken photos many times in late afternoon just because I didn't get to them early. And I don't know a thing about operating a camera......I just point and shoot....lol.

When you guys say "flower setting" do you mean the normal close up "macro" setting, the symbol of which is a flower?

Or do you truly mean a real setting for photographing flowers?

Mine has a close up setting and flowers is one of the things listed for it.

I am with Celeste, actually.. Most of mine are early, out of necessity since the sun is out here at 7:00AM and affects the colors. But some need to be taken later and some I take for the sun affects, so they are later. And I use a Canon Mark 5 7D EOS with a lens selected for flower pics.

kay

My Sony SLR has a flower symbol as one of its settings.