Challenges

Shrouded In Fog

We’ve all been challenged by the events this past year or more and I hope we find the path to better days in the near future. But, the damnpenic has not been the only challenge I have had to deal with recently. I have developed cataracts which have been been getting worse the last couple of months, This image is a bit like what my everyday life is like…always varying degrees of fogginess. It’s often hard to tell if what I see with my eyes is worth photographing and it has become increasingly more difficult to know if I am nailing focus. I look forward to the surgery next month and getting the worst eye sorted out.

Another challenge for me is that I am in the process of changing camera formats. I am moving from full frame Canons to Fujifilm medium format. Although I have yet to find buyers for my 5D Mk4 and 5D S, I have sold four of my six lenses. The two I have left are a Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro and a Tamron 10-24mm which is designed for an APS-C camera.so it vignettes on a full frame at wider than 15mm. Until I sell the two camera bodies these are the only lenses I have to work with. I has forced me to be creative with my shooting. As a backup, I do have a Sony RX100 Mk5, my iPhone 12 Pro and a DJI Mavic Air 2, so I’m not totally lost. If I really want to challenge myself, I can load some B&W film into my Nikon FM.

I look forward to having clearer vision and a new view finder to look through in the near future. It will give me a new focus in my work and life.

Focus Stacking

As time permits, I am continuing to learn more about focus stacking.  Since spring is doing it’s best to finally make an appearance in northern Minnesota, the garden is doing it’s best to respond.  A few small flowers have sprung up and it seemed a good opportunity to try capturing two small clumps of blooms.

The first group is a stack of 22 images, the second was 19.  If you look closely on the first, you will notice the tip of one leaf in the foreground where I missed focus.  I missed several on the second.  I’m excited by the possibilities of using focus stacking and look forward to applying it in other ways.

My set-up: Canon DSLR, Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro, ASUS Android tablet running DSLR Controller (works with most Canon DSLRs).  I export images from Lightroom as Photoshop layers, then use the Auto-Align if needed and Auto-Blend for combining the stack.  There are many videos on You-Tube that describe the technique.