These are all over the mountains at the moment in Korea (almost all of them pink). I saw this pair yesterday in afternoon backlight, and liked how the flowers’ structure was partially revealed.
Specific Feedback Requested
I wasn’t going to lug my tripod for an hour up a very steep hill for stacking - so I closed the shutter instead. Did I get away with this?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
D500 + 105mm macro f20 1/800 ISO 1000
Selected the flowers and raised Shadows and lowered Highlights in PS. Some BG darkening in TLC.Sharpened with Topaz Sharpen.
Mike, the lighting is quite striking and lovely. Your dof choice looks good. Getting the petals and the long sepals and stamen sharp in a single shot is always a challenge with the wild Azaleas. While there’s lots of advice about diffraction degrading sharpness at setting above f/22, I’ve done real life testing and can’t see any difference until I get to f/22 and even then, it’s only seen when viewing at 100%, so unless you’re planning to make a huge print, diffraction is not a “real world” worry. The local wild Azaleas won’t bloom for another month to 6 weeks.
You did pretty well with this difficult situation. The exposure looks really good as does the focus. I wish the outermost stamens were perfectly symmetrical, but that’s just my OCD showing. The layered effect the backlighting produced is really pleasing. Very 3D and sort of X-ray at the same time if you know what I mean.
Wild rhodies don’t grow up here in any profusion. I think we have some bog laurel or maybe a few stray rhodora, but not much in the way of laurels. I miss them.