So several (?) months ago, I finally got the lensbaby I've been wanting for years. Waiting wasn't altogether a bad thing—the new version has an in-lens method for changing the f-stop, whereas with the old kind, you had to insert these disks. Sounds like a pest.
One thing that does still have to be done manually, is focus, and I simply don't see well enough to be able tell, sometimes, whether something is in focus. Which is why I'm showing the image immediately below, even though the focus is on the leaf tip, instead of center flower. After going though a great many of these pictures on digiKam, this one is still my favorite.
I shot this on 17aug at around 9am at 1/200sec. Composer PRO, sweet 35 insert.
Though I use the excellent digiKam to download and tag my images, I still inspect them, for the most part, with geeqie (what used to be called gqview). After feeling like a dunce because I'd forgotten to switch a tab for tags (why won't this work? This program must be broken! I must have screwed up a setting, somehow...oh. There are three tabs to this right pane, and I needed to click on the second one. D'oh!) I realized why I'm still mostly plugging along with geeqie: digikam is indeed powerful, and it's got some great features (comparing focus in similar images, frex) but I need, easily, double the monitor real estate I currently have to really use it very effectively.
Geeqie, otoh, is an old program; so it's fast and works well with my (relatively) limited tech. (I know, I know, 64bit and 8gig of ram is not really that “limited”; until I start doing image stuff. CPUs are like torches: bigger is better.) Even more to the point, it works with my aging wetware, which just seems to be getting buggier and less reliable.
2nd attempt. Lowest apeture, +0.7ev, 1/250sec, at 9:12am. Apeture priority, manual focus
So I took a bunch more pictures this morning of the same flowers, and this one, I thought was the best of today's efforts. It's in focus, at least....
24jul20: added lensbaby, red tags.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
