Golden dragon

After the frustration of the damsel fly yesterday, which I was convinced that I had the focus nailed and the problems that I have been experiencing with out of focus shots, I finally got around to doing a focus test.

I setup the camera on the tripod and framed a steel rule along its length. Focusing on the rule markings was difficult, so I used a toothpick and marked a few black dots on it for clarity and ease of focusing. With maximum zoom, F2.4 and 1/25th sec using the rim light, I took the shot. Blow me, it was a mile out. I could see from the markings on the rule that the focal plane was short by about 5mm. I confirmed this by shooting three more shots: at the apparent focus point, 5mm closer and 10mm closer. Sure enough, the 5mm closer shot was perfect.

I had suspected that this was the case and over the last week, when I had the opportunity to take several shots, I have been taking short and long shots and getting some good images, but with not taking notes, I had no idea which shots worked. When I shot the damsel, in the excitement I forgot to bracket the focus, such a shame, loss of a rare blip.

The next job was to work out the corrections at various distances and also check out the eyepiece diopter adjustment, to see if that was the cause of the problem. The eye piece adjuster made no difference, except that I discovered that it was clearer with my glasses on, when adjusted correctly, but I soon put the glasses away once I started shooting.

At the shortest focus distance, 20cm, I have to lean in about 5mm. At 80cm focus distance, I had to lean in 80mm. This is horrendous. I now have to learn how to use my camera all over again, so frustrating. Today's session's results are going to be very interesting. It is now 06:30am and I have been messing about with this experiment for nearly three hours. I will probably concentrate on the simple subjects that are plentiful today, like the black wasp and the darter butterfly.

I did four short sessions at the grove today, to continually check the focus progress. The knowledge of the focus problem helps, but is still hit and miss, but at least now I am getting a higher percentage of sharp shots. Only one of today's subjects was the focus just not quite there and it just happened to be my favorite, a spider wrestling with a wasp moth.

I chose today's blip because I haven't blipped a dragon for a while and this is a new one. It also demonstrates the progress that I made with the focusing after last nights experimentation. It was a difficult blip day with all the uncertainty, plus I managed to rip the scab off my healing toe while groveling around on my knees and elbows, but I am well pleased with the results and looking forward to tomorrows session. Hope you like the dragon.

Dave