Champagne Glass Poppies, Merced River Canyon

My primary objective when composing these poppies was minimal DOF to blur the background poppies into a smear of color. A thin layer of clouds subdued the sun slightly, but it was still bright enough to easily allow ISO 100 at my wide open f2.8 aperture. I spot-metered on the brightest part of the closest poppy and dialed my shutter speed until my viewfinder indicator pointed at +1 2/3. I very carefully focused on the leading edge of the foreground poppy and gently squeezed my remote release trigger. While my luminosity histogram indicated I’d captured all the highlight detail, a check of the RGB histogram revealed a clipped yellow channel, so I dialed my shutter speed up 2/3 of a stop (faster) and re-shot.