Last night after deciding to treat myself to a small whiskey, I noticed this bottle had never been opened. It got me to remembering. My DH and I brought this about 13 years ago at about 9:30 in the morning at a border crossing. I remember the time because Good Morning America was just ending when we left the motel. After the crossing we drove down to Acadia we stopped at the visitors center and that is where we heard a radio telling of the events in NY that morning. I asked if it was real and was told it was. We hoped back in our car and headed home. September 11, that year was no day to be out enjoying ones self. And I think we remembered this whenever we pulled this bottle out.
A moving story Joan... and I'm sure that you had fond thoughts of Jim as you enjoyed your 'wee dram'. BTW - Scotch is spelt 'whisky' - 'whiskey' is Irish - they both go down a treat chez-moi!
@vignouse Oh my I've learned something new and this is Canadian Whisky. By the way you know how they say when they show a video say from YouTube "no body was injured in the filming of this video." Well I can't say that. My tripod unbalanced and knocked over the whisky. Gone all over the trunk. I'm guarding this one in the shot better.
Knocked over a good whisky - words fail me Joan... you're supposed to knock it back, not over!
A flashlight is a very handy way of lighting scenes like this - I used a LED flashlight for my Black Tulips shot - and it works well here. With an aperture of only F3.5, the DoF is very shallow in this shot, so I would either have stopped down (probably to F11) to have got everything in focus and/or chosen where I was going to place my plane of focus.
In the candy shot, I can't find a point of focus - it is unsharp everywhere. At an aperture of F8 you should have had adequate DoF, so I'm wondering if you didn't use your tripod, or you still have an autofocus problem with that lens. Hope my comments help Joan - they're intended to be constructive.
@vignouse You know it would focus and than go out of focus on the candy. I was getting frustrated. I may have to take a trip to the camera shop. But I still think it's something I did. I am still experimenting with my fstops. I think I need to do what I read about focal lengths and shot for a few days at one f stop and see what my results are. I need to be able to think yeah this shot calls for this f stop.
@vignouse Another thing my pea brain is confusing is small fstop more light more clarity but really more clarity less area of clarity got to work my way through all of this. But not shooting in auto.
@joansmor Final thoughts - at past 2am I have to sleep - your light levels with the flashlight would have been fairly low and it's perfectly possible that the autofocus didn't have enough light to do it's job. In which case, you either need to use manual focus - not easy either in dim light but it can be done (ask me another time) - or do what I did in my tulip shot where I had exactly the same problem. Move your flashlight very close to the subject and half press the shutter button to autofocus: once you get the 'ping' and the green focus confirmation light in the viewfinder, release the shutter button and, being careful not to move anything, set the lens to manual focus. You can now go ahead and position your light for the best effect knowing that you have your composition and focus nailed. I'm off to bed!
Joan, I dreamed about this last night (how sad is that!) and realised that there is likely a more prosaic reason for this focussing problem: you may simply have been too close to your subject, i.e. closer than the minimum focussing distance for the focal length you were using.
@atwinfay My shots are improving because @vignouse is helping me see my errors and my good points. Having a bit of a camera problem. Iphones take some wonderful pictures. I decent camera and a good eye is all you really need. And a bit of courage to step outside you comfort zone.
@vignouse I on the other hand slept sound. And went to bed a 9pm that's about as late as I can stay. But of course I am still a working "blok" so I need to stay to a schedule. I think what you say and the fact that I was having trouble with the camera not being tight in the shoe and because it was a long shutter time I had to hold my finger on the camera too long. Two things - I need to figure out this shoe (if that is the right word) and I am buying a remote. Actually three I need to figure out timed release. But I also think you are right on the idea of being too close particularly on the candy. I did a 2 button reset and things seem to be going well but when I focused on things close to me I had the same problem until I think I changed focal lengths though I didn't realize what was happening. When you start to think you are going to make mistakes as you learn all the pieces of the triangle and put them together with focal length. Found a good thing on line about my camera.
@wildernesswillie Can I tease and say is it the picture you like or the subject. LOL I am going to try it again sometime and try to get it better in focus as my camera issues seem to be me and I had better luck yesterday.
February 10th, 2014
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A flashlight is a very handy way of lighting scenes like this - I used a LED flashlight for my Black Tulips shot - and it works well here. With an aperture of only F3.5, the DoF is very shallow in this shot, so I would either have stopped down (probably to F11) to have got everything in focus and/or chosen where I was going to place my plane of focus.
In the candy shot, I can't find a point of focus - it is unsharp everywhere. At an aperture of F8 you should have had adequate DoF, so I'm wondering if you didn't use your tripod, or you still have an autofocus problem with that lens. Hope my comments help Joan - they're intended to be constructive.