Flower, October 24, 2009

Flower closeup near Ponca, Nebraska, October 2009. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

This small arrangement of flowers stood out to me, so I made one of them stand out. Much of the finished photo is in the post-processing. Although the foreground flower stands out by being in focus, it was necessary to do some local adjustment to selectively darken the background. I like the color contrast on the left, and then the shift in color to pinks on the right. The character of the blurred portions is also pleasing; it feels like a good shift from semi-blurred to fully blurred.

Tree Outline, October 23, 2009

A tree on Binkard Hill, lit by electronic flash from multiple sides, October 2009. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

This tree in the front yard had an intriguing shape when briefly lit by the car's headlights, so I set up my camera on a tripod, locked open the shutter for about a minute, and ran around popping my flash a few times on the left and right sides. It's fairly symmetrical, with a kink in the trunk to give it some character. I like the remaining leaves. It's not quite spooky, but I'll take it as a bit of Halloween-time fun.

Is this lens soft?

I was reading about this lens and a bunch of people said it was soft. Is it soft? I don't want a soft lens. I think I wasn't looking for the softness when I bought the lens, but now I want to know. I mostly print wallets and 4x6's from the kiosk at the store. You know, you put your digital memory card in and get prints in 10 minutes? I looked at my 4x6's with a magnifying glass to see if I could find the softness, but I'm not sure. I also looked at the photos at 100% and 200% on the screen, but I'm not sure. I just want to make sure this lens is sharp, because soft lenses aren't what good photographers want. Maybe I should sell this lens and wait for them to make a second version with improved anti-softness.