Today, a further hardware tip.

One of the lenses I had looked at by Keno-san of Canada Camera Repair (see prior post) was my 50mm f/1.2L prime lens. It was never the sharpest, and I figured a $2,000+ lens should be pretty sharp even wide open. The inspection turned into a repair, but not a very expensive one – under $175 for the repair, including a new rear lens element.

Good news: it is indeed sharper than before: I can now use this lens in available light situations. (The lesson in this: lenses should last forever and a well adjusted lens is worth having – lenses are therefore worth inspecting and repairing.)

Here’s a handheld (both) shot at f/1.2:

And detail:

The testing process also prompts me to remind you of a few important things:

1. First of all: Do not be too critical. 50mm at f/1.2 is silly if you want more than a few millimeters of depth of field.
2. Best use a lens test kit.
3. Use a very small focus area to test focus. I used the “spot focus” option on the 1Dx.
4. Focus elsewhere, then come back and focus on your subject
5. Eliminate shake issues by using a tripod or fast shutter speed.
6. Avoid “fully open”. Every lens is better when stopped down a little. That is why you buy an f/1.2 lens: not just to use at f/1.2, but also so it’s sharp at, say, f/2.0. (just like an f/1.8 lens would be sharp perhaps at f/2.8).
7. Learn how consistent any issues are. A little back focus is fine, for instance, if your camera has a micro-adjust setting. But only if it is consistent.
8. Focus in bright light. Use your center focus point; have the camera perpendicular to the surface you are focusing on.
9. Focus is dependent on aperture, on distance from your subject, and on light intensity. If I adjust for close-by shots in my office, I need -15 on this lens; but at a distance, zero is what is needed. You need to adjust to an average that reflects what you shoot. Like (1 metre distance at f/2.8 in bright open shade”. Yes, this is complicated!

I used this setup:

That gets me to a micro-adjustment of around -15 for close-by shots (on a scale of -20 to +20): I focused on the “o”.

As said, this is complex. I would keep it simple; avoid shooting too wide open, shoot at least 1 metre away, say; and adjust lenses to an average (for you) situation.

For my 50mm lens, the conclusion is clear: “When shooting wide open, if the subject is very close by, apply a -10 to -15 micro-adjustment. But for subjects far away, or for shots at f/4 or smaller, apply no auto-adjustment. By default, therefore, leave it off.”

Yes, this stuff is indeed complicated. But so is flying an airplane: complexity is sometimes necessary for best results.

Apologies, dear reader, for the delay in posting, of late. Circumstances beyond my control, etc etc—but rest assured, regular posts will resume shortly. In the mean time, read some old posts: a treasure trove of information!

Meanwhile, granddaughter Addison:

And compare a beauty dish with a softbox:

Until soon!

Michael Willems

Today, a repeat of a 2015 post that is particularly useful for travel photographers.

With the camera on a tripod and exposure set to manual, I can take pictures like these, one by one:

…and on on. As said, I am using a tripod, so the only thing that varies is me (I used a self timer).

And then I can use Photoshop or the GIMP (the latter is a free equivalent) to do things like this very easily:

Or even this:

OK.. so a cool trick. You do this with layers and masks. Hellishly complicated user interface, but once you know the silly UI, the process itself is very simple. It’s the only thing I have the GIMP for.

So. Why would I think this is useful, other than for fun?

Well…. think. You can also use it the other way. Instead of replacing the wall by me, replace me by the wall. And now you can perhaps see a benefit looming.

No? Think on. You are at the Eiffel Tower. Or the Grand Canyon lookout point. Or whatever tourist attraction you can think of. What do you see? Tourists. Right. It attracts them: that’s why it is a tourist attraction.

But not in the same spot all the time. So all you need to do is the same I did here: take a bunch of pictures. Say 10-20 of them. So that you have each spot of attraction at least once without a covering tourist. Then you put them into layers—one each—in PS. And then you manually remove tourists. One by one, poof.. they disappear.

Or if you have the extended or Cloud version, you go one further: you use function File > Scripts > Statistics.  Now choose “median” and select the photos. And you end up automatically with an Eiffel tower without tourists, a Grand Canyone without other onlookers, and so on.

Cool? Yes, very. That warrants four backspaces and a “–ful”, in my opinion. And those of you as experienced as I am in IT (I am avoiding saying “as old as”) know that ^H (Control-H) is a backspace.

So there.