I've been playing around and practicing "blurism" all week for the current technique challenge. It's not easy to get an image worthy of the blur. But it's been fun trying (except for cold hands). I'm proud of myself for figuring out how to force the blur on my camera with no manual focus. I put the focus on macro "focus with priority on very close subjects." And I set it to focus on the small area in the center of the frame. Then I hold my finger up in the center and force the camera to focus on the finger and take the finger away. I did get a certain number of shots that still contained the finger :-) Oh, how I wish I had direct manual control over the focus and could better adjust the amount of blur besides just how close or far from the camera can I put my finger and still get it to focus. Anyway, I spent some time out in the Deep Creek area today. This field is the "East Forty" on our land.
Good work around for the lack of manual focus. Your method suggests that you may be able to put different opaque materials in front of the lens which could give interesting effects.
