More Blue Bells

I personally prefer this image to your previous one, John. I think it's a question of the value of the trunk across the fg and the lovely play of leaves among the flowers. My only nit would be that my eye is drawn to the twigs top L - somehow I would like to have seen them eliminated. Nice, though, as is !

I can only echo Ian's thoughts. A small crop right at the last blue bells would take care of this, and also lessen the effect of the decayed log/stump(?), thereby increasing the prominence of the bluebells. I have one technical issue—given that the idea of a focus stack is to completely detail the subject and leave a nice bokeh of essential background, only the detail is here. However, I have no objection to the focus per se; it just seems to me that much the same could be achieved with a smaller focal opening.

Ian; I'm posting an altered version that may address your nit. I think it is an improvement, though I would not want to get rid of the other dead stem.

Phil: Although I appreciate your comments, as I do all comments, I do think differently regarding a few points. First, the decaying log/stump, for me, as the photographer, is an essential element, having to do with a contrast illustrating the cycle of life in the woods, not something I would want to delete in order to increase the prominence of the flowers as the point of the image I am trying to make has to do with the balance between the two. Otherwise, I would excluded the decaying log/stump from the composition.

Secondly, I disagree with your generalized implication that the sole purpose of focus stacking to produce a well-focused image with a great un-focused bokeh in the background. It is true that it can be used very effectively that way. However, I'm sure you would agree that, like any method, the variety of potential artistic intents is not limited to a single objective.

Finally,with 300mm focal length a distance-to-subject of approximately six feet, a subject distance of about a two feet in depth, and a focus stack that includes 22 images required for the image posted, the suggestion you made that stopping down from f/8 to, say, f/22 or even f/32 could be substituted for focus stacking and achieve the same objective reallly doesn't work if you do the calculations.

But I do appreciate the recommendation and will consider trying stopping down further in the future in situations like this to make apples-to-apples comparisons.