Toad Lily

Very cool, Carolyn. Beautiful composition and colors.
Mauro

I love the black BG and the very vibrant color. Superb work.

Carolyn, a lovely view of a unique plant. I assume the extremely small focal opening was for depth of field. I would like to have seen a blend of several shots, which I think would have given you better detail. If the plant held still for an 8/10ths second, It should have been fine for a blend. Worth looking at the next time you go out. This is a solid image as is.

Phil, I still haven't learned how to do blending of photos. I'm not sure whether my editing program, Elements 7, even allows me that capability. Does anyone know if this is possible and if not, what do you all suggest I use to do blending? I haven't really checked into this at all but I guess I better keep up with the times.

Very nice, Carolyn though I like the stacking idea. F/29 means diffraction kicks in to kill fine detail but I think you did admirably well to pull this off so nicely in one single shot.

Carolyn, IMO when you have such a solid dark BG, a very small focal opening is a very good and practical solution to get a good DOF.
However, if you are looking for a clear soft BG, a small focal opening does'nt work and then you loose DOF. In this case the stack is a good solution to have a nice result, because you can blend several shots with different focus, at a very large opening. You can do this "manually" with PS ( with the help of layers and masks ) or you can use a specific software. I use Heliconfocus and I'm quite satisfied with the results (see my last posts ).
The only problem is that it is a very, very time consuming operation...both when you take pictures and when you work out them !!!
Greetings.
Mauro

Carolyn, in addition I can tell you that you can download HF, free of charge, for a tryal of one month and then buy it on the web, if you are really interested in the product.
Mauro

Beautiful work as posted Carolyn. I suspect Helicon Focus is still available for trial demos if you want to download it and play with it. I never leave home without it.

The bg works really well here.

pat

Carolyn:
Beautiful image. The patterns of the flower and leaves adds interest. Well done.

Hi Carolyn Love this composition, lines and color
Albert Darmo

A beautiful photo of a beautiful flower, Carolyn. I love the leaves almost as much as the flowers. The composition and the movement created by the leaves are splendid. I love the image.
Take care.

Like the flow of the leaves, the varying stages of the flowers and the overall composition with the black background. In fact, I have no suggestions to improve it... it is a great image as is.