Another experiment - ho hum!

Today's photo was taken at Rancho San Rafael park. I decided to take a walk around the arboretum, then around this little lake looking for something that interested me.

I decided to take this view, and to try a new technique that I have read about. The goal is to get everything in the photo from the foreground to the background perfectly sharp. I have no idea if I did this right or not, but I thought I would give it a try. The article I read called it focus layering. With the camera mounted on a tripod, it involves taking multiple shots at various apertures and focusing on various things then merging them all together. So for this shot, I first focused on the foreground reeds starting with an aperture of f4.5. The next shot I focused on the rocks closest to me, then the middle rocks, etc. until I finally focused on the mountains with an aperture of f22. I took a total of 9 shots. I then merged the 9 shots using both Photoshop merge, and also HDR Efex. This is the HDR Efex merge. I used the "balanced" merge photo, then overlayed a black & white photo at 25% to bring out the shadow just a bit more. I left all color as shot by the camera.

As I said, I'm not sure if I got the process correct. It isn't as crisp as I would like. But, there was also just the slightest breeze which set some of the foliage moving. I am going to do some additional research and play around with this some more. I can see the value in something like this. But I am sure there is an easier way.

Go large to see the duck.

As always, your comments are very welcome.

Thank you also for your lovely comments on yesterday's Spring Flowers. I appreciate your kind comments, stars and favs!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.