most recent "Spring Blues"

Spring does not give me the "blues", but this image sure has them. I wanted to provide a more unique visual interpretation of this scene, so I employed two techniques that, until now, I have only experimented with. While the camera was on a tripod, I made three separate frames, all at the same exposure but at different focal planes. In the first frame, I focused primarily on the nearest blooms to make sure they were tack sharp. I then exposed another frame after focusing on the middle-ground blooms. Finally, a third frame was taken focusing on the furthest blooms and the horizon. I then changed my exposure from a metering of the sky to make sure I was capturing the full range of light in the scene. To finish things off, I panned the camera upward to take in more sky, so a total of five frames were needed to assemble the final scene. The various focal frames were hand blended using layer masks, but they would need some minor work using edit/align layers to make sure they registered. Then, the final sky exposures were manually stitched by extending the canvas. In the full resolution version, the flowers are sharp from the nearest to the horizon. Even the tiny hairs on the flower stems are visible. Without the use of the "focus slice" technique. I never could have achieved the extreme depth of field I desired in the final image. Thanks for taking a gander and I would love to hear your thoughts!

The tonality and its dynamic range are very beautiful. Amazing DOF. Thanks alot for your technical procedure explanation.

Great work, Mark ... lovely done. I appreciate your excellent explanation. Regards

Again, veeeeeeery nice... Regards.

Spring has finally come to California! A technically well presented image bringing out sharpness on every plane of focus suppose to be only be achieved in a large format camera. My eyes are not yet trained to see long vertical images but I like the format exhibited here. Beautiful different shades of blue both from the flowers and the sky. Excellent image, Mark. Congratulations! - Lester

....love the uplifting format also...

Wow Mark! Stunning. Thank you for sharing the details of your technique. Sounds like a lot of work, but well worth the effort. This is fantastic!

Mark, I'm getting a headache just reading how you got this but I do like the result a lot. It would look great printed, I'm sure.

Thank you Museeb, Ricardo, Marta, Lester, Michael, Linda and Jeff! I appreciate the kind remarks!

Amazing!
A beautiful composition with clarity and natural colors Marc

You get plenty of ooohs,  aaaahs and a great bit atta boy for this on Mark. Bringing sping to my screne, keep em comin' my friend at least until the weather breaks here im Western Michigan.  Best regards, rek.

Thanks Tony and Richard! So good to hear from you!!

Mark...  I have to admit the slim, vertical format takes a little getting used to, but I can't argue with the result.  Spectacular detail, color and presence.  Good stuff.. Mike

Yup..spectacular detail... and I like this unique approach!

A superb technical execution!