Although the DOF may be a bit shallow for some tastes, I'm a big fan of it when it comes to macro flora. In this image we are looking straight down the pipe of a fresh spiralling hosta sprout. The area at bottom is an open leaf at ground level, with the spiralling stem above rising about 4 inches upwards. I tried a variety of comps in-camera, with this one being my favorite - mainly because anything at left or above was dark earth which kinda took away from the "soft" green feel of the image.
Daniel, there is a bit of noise here. You can either run NR or...you can try pulling the dark tones up a bit with either a curves adjustment or a screen blend mode with reduced opacity. Either way should give you a pristine BG for this lovely image.
Hey Daniel,
I am finally getting around to the softer side......especially when it's very well done. Agree about the NR.....but easy fix and the comp is super!