Shadow Photo Contest - Duo Shadows

This photo is for the #shadowphoto contest by @melinda010100 with the guest judge for this week being @erikah

The theme for this week is Duo Shadows. You should check out This Post for the details.

Star Crossed Lovers

Olympus em5ii, 1/100th sec, f/16, ISO 250, 24mm

I used my 24mm Nikon lens on the Olympus which means I have to focus manually. I don't mind this, I actually like it a lot because it forces me to slow down and think. Shooting at f/16 helped to make a nice tight starburst off the reflection.

The Olympus camera provides focus peaking which is visible through the viewfinder as a sort of cloud or halo of red flickering around the bits which are in focus. This can help to get focus but there is another trick I found which works much better...

Confession: What's with all those cartoons you're always posting?

I'll show you why I keep doing it. First, here's the 'cartoon' version, below:

This is what I'm seeing through the viewfinder when I shoot in this mode. Now here's a closeup... this is how I can get perfect focus with the manual lens.

See all those little black dots on the back of the guitar headstock? Those little specks indicate the finest level of detail available in what I keep calling the "cartoon" mode. When I rotate the focus ring the tiniest amount, those dots will appear or disappear. That's the point I selected to focus on, and the "Key Line" Olympus art filter (the proper name) shows me when I nail it. This is WAY more precise than focus peaking.

Now since I'm shooting in both JPG and RAW, what I get is the cartoon jpg along with the RAW file which I can save and process as a normal photo - the first photo in this post.

As to why I keep posting the silly cartoons, it's because I'm a goof and I like them! :) Thanks for taking a look. You can click on any of these images to view them closer.