On 4/28/2012 9:17 AM, Chris Trask wrote:
> Yesterday I took a hike into a remore area to locate and document a
> mutated specimen of Chaparral Honeysuckle that I had encountered last year.
> The weather was exceptionally mild, having had a small low pressure system
> pass through early Thursday that cooled things down and dropped a good amount
> of rain in the chaparral country to the north and east of Phoenix.
>
> We have a number of showy wild flowers in the chaparral country, and
> despite the drought conditions we're still having a good show, though you
> have to be more determined than usual to find them.
I greatly admire your botanic knowledge and the effort you make to visit your
local flora regularly.
But I feel a bit like the lad who found the Emperor's minimalist sartorial
choice unsettling. You find all these neat
flowers, then show blurry pictures of them. I tend to think that's not your
intent.
These are flowers in bright light; it shouldn't be hard to get them in focus.
It seems to me there must be something(s)
off in your equipment and/or technique.
If the missed focus were consistently off in one direction, I'd suspect mirror
misalignment or improperly seated focus
screen. But the Columbine seems to be entirely in front of the focal plane, the
Chokeberry has focus at the very back,
the Larkspur is only slightly back focused, only the very front edge of the
Mariposa Lily is in focus and it appears the
Clarkia is entirely behind the focal plane.
I suppose it's possible that your thrift store diving for stray, mongrel lenses
has gone awry, but there seem to be bits
of sharpness where the focal plane is. I do know you are apparently using
brands I wouldn't take for free, but doubt
that's much of the problem.
I'm wondering if the combination of your eyes and the small, dim tunnel that
passes for a viewfinder on the E-500 just
aren't a good combination for getting things in focus. I know others on this
list have given up on MF for most shooting
in favor of AF as their eyesight has weakened with age, or have found adapters
with focus confirm chips that work with
their cameras.
If I'm wrong, and you are using AF, it's not working, set wrong or being
misused.
I hope that you can find this critique useful. I love the stuff you shoot, but
would enjoy clear images of it even more.
Focus Me Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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