I posted a photograph of a developing Swamp Rose Mallow a few days ago. That flower had not fully opened yet. This specimen is a mature flower and is fully opened and on display. Mallows are beautiful flowers and they are one of my favorite families. I photographed this flower in the same area of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center as the other one. I was fortunate that the winds were low and that I was able to capture multiple layers without much movement. Long pedals and long styles lead to tiny movements which mess up the focus stack.
One of the things that get lost in photography is size. This is actually a very large plant with very large flowers. The plant can wind up being seven feet tall and the flowers are about 4-5 inches in diameter. It is a very fast-growing plant that needs a lot of sun to grow. It is found in wet areas, such as marshes, ponds, ditches, wet woods, and shorelines.
This image was taken with my Sony A7R II Digital Camera using my Sony 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/8, shutter speed at 1/200th of a second and the ISO set at 400. I used only natural light to light the subject. I used the Kirk FR-2 Focusing Rail to capture seven photographs and brought them together into one image using Photoshop and the Focus Stacking technique. I finished the image in Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro.
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© 2016 T. Kahler Photography
