Crow Poison

This shot from a year ago has finally become relevant again. I was testing how well my then-brand new 70-200 lens would work for flower closeups. I used an extension tube to reduce the minimum focusing distance. I made several exposures with different areas in focus, because supposedly CS4 could extend depth of field by merging multiple shots. That feature turned out to be pretty well hidden (Edit/Auto-Align Layers followed by Edit/Auto-Blend Layers) but it worked fairly well for this image.

Yes it did. I would like to see your lens line up someday. I think it might be like going to a camera store.

Nice work, John. Thanks for the rundown on CS4 auto-blending. Can you describe your approach to taking the shot? I assume you shaded the background? The flowers seem to be lit by direct sunlight; so with the low-angle light you didn't need to use some kind of screen to diffuse it?

The late afternoon sun was pretty harsh, so I put a diffuser as close to the flowers as possible. I used an umbrella to shade the background, which the camera saw as black.

that's nice john. and thanks for sharing the hidden trick!

Nice work, John.