"Everything's Better with Blue Bonnets on It"

Many of you are too young to associate with this old jingle. I would guess Blue Bonnet was one of our first margarines. Yes I know, blue bonnets are from Texas; these are referred to as lupine, but they all look the same to me. I hope I don't get any hate mail from the lone star state. This was taken about 20 minutes after sunset and the light was quite low. A 2 second exposure was needed, so a still air helped keep the grasses and lupine sharp. Meanwhile, the cool ambient light has increased the saturation of color from the lupines. Processing these almost electric blue colored flowers requires some restraint, otherwise the blue can get out of hand. Thanks for your thoughts. The Larger preview is best!!

Thanks for taking a look. I hope you will enjoy the Larger preview!

Mark:

 

You haven't missed yet in the California Foothills series, or whatever you might call it. I can envision you wading through oceans of wildflowers shooting your winning images.

 

I'm looking at the blue cast to the highlights on the stone and wondering how much the cool color temp is holding back the vibrancy of the orange flowers and sunset hues. Just a thought.

beautiful! Wonderful image..well done!

Your title brought a smile to my face and your photograph a smile to my eyes. This is just another in the line of your wonderful work. I think that CS4 should be in your Easter basket so that you can have all the world in focus. I must get out and try some exposures and give the multi- focused facet a spin and give your a report. I think it could be the answer to our problems.

Thanks Marc, Amey and Leo. Marc, yes I know it is on the cool side. I do think this is a strong match for the mood of the light on this evening. Straight out of the camera, this was quite blue, so warming has been applied. No doubt, it could be pushed more in an effort to "color correct" an obvious ambient cast, but occasionally I like to live with what I saw. Much like snow becoming blue in cool light, I like the effect of some cooling to convey things like temp and time of day. Leo, I have been doing more fine tuning with my settings. I have read about "sweet spots" from lens combinations of hyperfocal and aperture settings. What I have learned is that most lenses perform better at larger apertures when it comes to being in focus. So I began opening up. This is where my problems began. I then looked at some older files at F16 and found them full of depth and also quite sharp. So I have gone back to using F16 and I am quite happy. Meanwhile, I have found that if I avoid the widest setting for my zoom, things also improve edge to edge. Maybe my sharpening is not optimum for this web version, but the true res file is also quite sharp, enough for my expectations at least.

pleasant, relaxing, beautiful. recognizable style and technical perfection. very well done.

Love the image love the title oh, you clever one. Happy Easter,rek/

Stunning image. I am still searching for my perfect bluebonnets in Texas. Well done.

Thank you Zsolt, Richard and Bill. I appreciate the positive comments!

Beautiful, . . . all of them.

 

 

Cheers; Bela

Great color and tone, Mark.

 

Well done...

Mark and Leo:

 

Regarding aperture, sharpness and all that... Since our lenses are indeed sharpest at moderate apertures (easy to test; I've done this and it's quite revealing), I use f/10 or so whenever I can, then hand blend the series of shots in PS covering the entire distance range from the camera. I've been told there is also an automatic blending routine for this in CS4; I think it might be under Auto-blend layers.

WOW - so detailed! What I like most is the gentle and seamless transition between the blue and the yellow flowers.

And I like the very simple composition - two triangles, that's it. A great example for masterly landscape photography.

Thanks Bela, Jerry, Marc and Dirk! Marc, I'm aware of that feature in CS4. I have CS3 and will probably wait for CS5 to upgrade. I recently blended a multi-focused pano in which I adjusted the focal plane as I rotated the camera. I simply used the photomerge action in CS3, which did quite well. Dirk, I often shoot for color and light without full attention to comp. Simpler comps work better when a subject has so much detail. In this case, I wanted to capture the lupine after the light was fading, which intensified the blue. I have seen many shots of these flowers near midday, which is about the worst time to catch them. This is a blend of three exposures. Thanks again!

Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!........huge sigh of awe and contentment at this beauty!

Thanks Kim,always good to hear from you and thanks for commenting on a couple of others!