Photographing in the garden again with a 300 mm f/4 Canon close focusing Lens @ f/4. At our condo our gardens are only 3 ft deep, so if I stop down for more depth of field, the background building or shrubs are distracting. A 150mm macro at f/ 2.8 is also too distracting for me. So the 300mm f/4 seems to work best for what I like. But a 300mm that close I have to combine image stacking for more depth of field for the areas I want sharper along with a series for a panorama to get the overall area I want to capture. If I back up I get more detail in the background, so I lose some of the softness in the background. Both series handheld and assembled in Photoshop. After you do a few it gets easier to get predictable results. At least most of the time! The featured image is a series of about 12 images. I also included a Balloon Flower & Hardy Lily while I was experimenting.

Another image stack and pano series after a rain – 300mm f/4 – 10 images 

Another 10 image combo of image stacking and pano

Simple 8 Image Stack and pano – horizontal formats – Balloon Flower

Dappled light 8 Image Stack / pano – Hardy Lily