In 2014, a coworker and I were fortunate enough to attend a conference held at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The conference was ok, but the free time we made for ourselves was better.
The time of our conference coincided with Epcot’s annual food and wine festival. My coworker, a fellow conference attendee, and I decided to go check out the event. With my camera in hand, we hopped on the Disney shuttle bus and made the short ride to Epcot.
Before we had left for Epcot, I had done an internet search regarding Disney’s policy regarding camera tripods. The only thing I could find was that “large” tripods were prohibited. Of course, there was nothing that defined what was considered “large.” But to avoid any potential hassles, I decided to leave my tripod home and just shoot handheld.
One of our first stops was the Le Cellier Steakhouse, and that was where I found these flowers. I was captivated by all the contrasting colors: yellow, blue, purple, and red. But, I was also fascinated by the straight and diagonal lines the colors created.
The flowers were in open shade, which presented a dilemma. I needed to use a small aperture to ensure the entire frame was sharp, but this would result in a slow shutter speed unless I raised the ISO. However, raising the ISO to a setting that would allow a small aperture and faster shutter speed would cause a noticeable amount of digital noise.
Deciding to take a chance, I set the aperture at 400 and the aperture at f/16. This resulted in a shutter speed of 1/15 second. I recomposed the image, crossed my fingers (figuratively), and pressed the shutter button.
When I was finally able to review the picture on my computer, it originally looked fine. But, when I enlarged it to 100%, I discovered to my dismay that the image was not tack sharp. Because of this, I considered it a failure and, for years, didn’t give it a second thought for years.
Fast forward six years. As I was perusing my photo library a couple of months ago, I stumbled across the picture again. I wondered what would happen if I ran it through Topaz Labs’ Sharpen AI software, so I gave it a try.
Once the software finished doing its things, the results were amazing. The picture looked just as sharp as if I had used a tripod.
The photograph had the composition and colors that I liked. Now, it finally had the sharpness it deserved.