Come Roaring Back - Flower Power

Come Roaring Back - Flower Power, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

Been gone a while. Glad to be back.

I've had never seen a more impressive motorcycle than this particular one. I took several 10-shot HDR sequences of it before walking away for a while to look at other cars and motorcycles at this particular show. A bit later I was sitting on a curb packing away my camera when I remembered I had my Lens Baby with me, so I put it on the camera and returned to this bike for a few more shots.

Although I've had the Lens Baby Composer for a couple of years I still struggle with getting accurate focus. Three things have helped with this process. First was the purchase of an L type focusing screen. It more readily shows the difference between in and out-of-focus areas than my camera's normal screen, second I purchased an angle viewfinder/ 2X magnifier. This allows me to magnify my optical viewfinder by 200% to confirm focus is sharp, and finally I learned a simple technique from www.lensbaby.com about bracketing focus. Once I think I have obtained a sharp focus setting I will move the manual focus ring back and forth slightly while taking images. This gives me several shots to choose from with slightly different focus settings. One of these shots is almost always sharp.

Using the LCD display on the back of my camera isn't an option since it does not have a live view function. I am hoping to purchase the Sony A77 SLT Camera which features live view with 14x magnification as well as focus peaking. So soon I may be packing two cameras to car shows and trips just like my better half does now.