Castle Rock Open Space, Photo Stitching and Macros

[David]

Went out to the Castle Rock Open Space in nearby Walnut Creek this weekend. It's one of the few open spaces here that is both free and allows dogs off-leash. I took my K-7 and one lens -- Sigma 35 to 80 mm. This is my versatile lens and one of my two favorites. I wanted to take some stitched images to improve that skill and also see how much I could push the lens. Here is one of the stitched photos, made from four shots:



Still working on uploading these to Picasa. The files are so huge (one is more than 200 megs...) that Picasa won't take them and just locks up. So, tonight I'll make some smaller versions for online.

Here are a couple of the flower shots:

An orchid(?)


A small purple flower of some sort (f4):


A second shot of the purple flower at f9 or 11:


This is as macro as the lens gets: These flowers were less than one centimeter high:


That second purple flower shot is not at all to my liking. More a stylistic preference and the way the colors turned out in post-processing. Of these shots, that was the only that I tone balanced. Mostly, though, the mid-range aperture and the only-slightly-out-of-focus background are jarring to my eyes.