west marin wild iris portrait

Flo wrote in post #10056842
You could still have had the pollen and foreground petals in focus at the same time, no?

This lens is a 2.8 max aperture. To get any DOF I had it stopped down a bit. The OOF element and the relentless breeze (this shot is 1 second in 15 minutes of waiting) are the deciding factors as to how much DOF I was able to obtain. In a studio setting with quality light and a controlled backdrop piece of cake.

argyle wrote in post #10055965
That's a difficult call...I try to look for the "perfect" specimen what taking shots like these, but that's not always possible. Maybe a focus-stacked set of images taken at the same aperture would capture the entire flower in focus with the same out-of-focus background? The main difficulty with a focus stack is capturing each image in non-breezy conditions...

Breezy conditions, soft overcast light, a tiny twig sitting on one of the petals. I'm tall and to get this shot I spent at least 1/2 hour hunched. It is the inconvenience of obtaining the capture that is constantly working against getting a good capture. At least for me.

I am somewhat satisfied with this image as the thrust of identity is in focus.