Wildflowers are blooming profusely in Europe now, and I encountered this beautiful species of wild carnation (Dianthus superbus) in the Plitvice Lakes National Park. Because there was a slight wind, using a tripod was pointless. My Canon 100-400mm lens allows close focusing, so at 400mm I could focus to about 24 inches. Because I hand held the camera, the shutter speed had to be fairly fast. If I wanted to keep the ISO relatively low, this meant that a small lens aperture was out of the question. To insure sufficient depth of field so the entire face of the flower was sharp, I positioned the camera such that the plane of the digital sensor was parallel to the flower's face. My settings were 1/250, f/8, and 400 ISO. This image is cropped about 20% to make the flower fill more of the frame. I wish I had the extension tube set that I usually carry because that would have enabled me to fill the frame without cropping.
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