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RE: Lake Superior Rocks & Gems - Spotted Agate
Those are beautiful pictures. I love that you love rocks (glowing ones) so much and even started a movement for it. That's ingenious and a great effort to foster community.
Pictures are great as usual, although some of it seem to be a little off focus. That could be that you are stretching your lens than it can go: going closer than the minimum focus distance. Since you have 24 MP and you need a tiny fraction of that to fill a web page, you can step back a bit and crop in post. I trust when you become Steem-rich you will buy a 100mm macro. Does Nikon make that too?
Amazing blog overall. Quality post. Lush images. Will check in the tag often.
Thank you so much for the support and feedback! I love being able to share my rockhounding finds with everyone! I bought the Nikon just to share sweet pictures on Steemit! I am pretty sure that I was at the minimum focus distance but I am also using manual focus with spot metering. Perhaps that's my problem -- I am still learning how to use this awesome camera and there's a lot of options! Next time I will play a little more with the distances to see if I can get a clearer shot.
I have considered cropping to get more detail, which may just be an added segment as I appreciate the quality I'm able to capture without cropping (I see cropping vs. scaling would give me more detail for the area that is focused). It's actually a good idea -- I'll take the most detail and crop it.
I do believe Nikon makes a 105 mm lens but I also spoke to the guy who owns the photography shop where I got the macro lens and he mentioned that the 'mm' part depends on how far away you want to be from your target. The best example he gave me was being able to zoom close to a spider that I don't want to get too close to. I will have to see what I can come up with on my next post.
I certainly plan on buying more lenses though! The one I really wanted was $1000 but that was too much. I'd like to have one of those big lenses that you mount to the tripod instead of the camera. One day...
The minimum focusing distance for the two lenses (60mm and 105mm) is 7 and 12 inches respectively. Unless you really need that extra working distance, what you have is more than enough. Just make the best of it. Read up how your auto focus select points work. Learn the different focus modes, and learn about back focus button for Nikon. @aperterikk has a brilliant video lesson on that on dtube: https://steemit.com/dtube/@aperterikk/u1g9yhix
His gear is Canon, I think, but you'll just have to refer to your manual and online articles to get a hang how it works on your system. Like I said, move back till the autofocus can work well. Take with the extra spaces in the frame, and crop in in post. 24 MP allows you a lot of room to do that.
Truth is, autofocus technology in recent cameras are pretty sophisticated and very rarely do you need to use manual focus. No one deserves that 😁
Following your blog and I'll look forward to those lovely rocks. Maybe soon I'll know enough to be initiated into "hounders league." 😉
You could well be on your way to shooting sports or wild life by then.
P.S. I should add this tip. When focusing with auto-focus, try to drop an auto focus select point on an area of the subject where there is higher contrast. Maybe a demarcation of a particular spot on the rock. Anything... just don't choose a flat spot on the subject. It helps the processors compute the focus.
Thanks for clarifying -- I am still learning all the proper verbage. When I compared the 60mm and the 105mm the clerk told me the 60 was good enough as well. I'll definitely try the auto focus and read up and check out that video.
I'd say since I've been using manual mode with manual focus it allows me the tedium that all other photographers have gone through in the past and will only help me understand my camera more.
Again I really appreciate the feedback! This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for as I grow my photography skills. Do you suggest I crop them all? I also understand I'd want to crop out the blurr? Is it common practice to consider the rule of thirds everytime I crop a picture?
Thanks for your time and answering my questions!
P.S. awesome tip! I watched a video that briefly told me about the auto focus select point so I had completely forgotten about that.
Good point you have there. It's a great idea to get a hang on manual focus. You never know when the machines will rise against man and we ought to be prepared for such onslaught.
Your composition is on point, in my opinion. You don't need to crop or always adhere to some compositional "rules". My suggestion of cropping is only so you can be able to take back the lens further, maybe up to a 10 inches distance, for optimal focus performance, and then crop later on to whatever you choose to have in your frame.
One thing is certain, you have a brilliant set of gears. Another is certain, you are learning really fast :)
I was looking for a perfect candidate to perform a crop on and I chose the moon picture above.
So I wanted to thank you again for the tip. So much detail that I was taking away by scaling the pictures instead of cropping first.
Well that certainly makes my day thank you! I did not consider optimal focus performance, I was simply focusing on minimum distance focus. Backing out a bit may just get me the desired results. I learned something today!
Wow. Now look at the details you were hiding 😊