Columbia Hills Wildflowers at sunrise

mattpayne11 · Apr 22, 2015

One of my favorite shots so far this spring taken from the Dalles Mountain Ranch near The Dalles just across the Columbia River in Washington.

Shot with the Nikon D800, Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 @14mm ~ four shots for the foreground at ISO 800 (focus stacking) and one for the mid/background at ISO 100.

FanBoy · Apr 22, 2015

Beautiful spring color! Your work came out nicely with focus stacking. I'll have to try it some time.

BrickHouse · Apr 22, 2015

Gorgeous!! Well-done.

JimMcClain · Apr 23, 2015

Beautifully crafted. Very nice to look at.

annamaria · Apr 23, 2015

Beautiful scene.

Dagwood56 · Apr 23, 2015

Beautiful!

southernlady97266 · Apr 23, 2015

Beautiful! Hubby and I are planning on going up to Rowena in the next couple of weeks, if we get a weekend of no rain.

Q4kntmare · Apr 23, 2015

How exactly is the focus stacking completed? Obviously your using a tripod, but do you keep your f-stop & shutter speed constant and just adjust your focal point 5 times?

Also, once you have all 5 pictures, what program are you using to stack the pictures? And does that program automate that process, or is that done manually.

I love the picture, and would love to learn new techniques like the one you are using.

Thanks.

mattpayne11 · Apr 23, 2015

Q4kntmare said:
How exactly is the focus stacking completed? Obviously your using a tripod, but do you keep your f-stop & shutter speed constant and just adjust your focal point 5 times?

Also, once you have all 5 pictures, what program are you using to stack the pictures? And does that program automate that process, or is that done manually.

I love the picture, and would love to learn new techniques like the one you are using.

Thanks.

Yes, you basically have it, I start as close to me as I need to, usually at f/11 or f/13 (sometimes f/16 if there is no wind). I use photoshop to combine all of the photos. There's actually a great tutorial on this technique on 500px that was posted this week.