New DIY lens - massive f minimal DOF

Nifty "tilt-shift" effect eh? It's actually just the effect of an extremely narrow Depth Of Field. This image was captured with my 7D and my latest DIY lens, I call him Big-eff. There is no stop in this lens - right, no stop. So I can only give an approximation of what it would be. And it would be something less than f1.

This image is slightly underexposed. Camera image data shows: Shutter speed to be 1/8000s and ISO to be 200.
Yeah. Yikes.

The lens

This lens started life in the cinema. It actually was a projection lens. There are only three elements, a front element about 4 inches across, and two rear elements around an inch and a half each.

Here's Big-eff with a hacked together focus system and EOS adapter in one. Future posts may include a "how (and why) I did it" section. For now, enjoy more photographic oddities.









Look at the cute little fireplug!

Raw is my Green

Oh ye thronging mass of readers, pressed one against another, hoping to catch a faux pearl of knowledge. Hear me now. Hear me now.

So this blog post isn't about the next thing in dieting. It's tagged photography, fool! Maybe it should be tagged, photography fool. Anyway, here's the history. As soon as I learned what "green mode" on my camera was, I was horrified and disgusted. "You mean to tell me," I screamed in the direction of the rising sun, that birthplace of all quality optics; Japan, "this camera has aesthetic autopilot - and you actually insult me by suggesting I might need it? I curse you to the seventh generation!" The fist-pumping and spitting was just an instinctive impulse. You should have seen the look on the faces of the middle school graduates I was photographing at the time.

Your camera has green too of course, it's currently the spot your mode dial is set to. It's where your mode dial has always been set. Did you even know it could be turned? Maybe I should explain what "Green" is.

Some camera manufactures use different colors, but Green generally means "full auto." Which sounds cool if you're a rapper, or member of a militia, but a photog who shoots Green? It's a shame no one can recover from. You've opted out of being in control, instead you've let your camera pick the shutter speed, the aperture, and in some cases even the ISO. You want to, nay, you must get off the Green stuff!

 Now, Green has been a neglected spot on my dial for a long time. Long before I had a clue what I was doing. Well, ok, I'm still working on cluing myself in actually. And I admit, there have been times green mode would have resulted in an acceptable capture instead of a over/underexposed mess, but uh, yeah I guess it's just my prophet's pride that keeps me from twisting that little dial over to the Green square.

So what's a photo-dork to do? Easy answer: shoot raw. First, no one will accuse you of not being hard-core when you shoot raw. I mean, raw is more labor intensive to process, eats up more disk space (requiring you to carry more CF/SD cards), offers less guidance in post-processing, is a secret proprietary format, requires expensive or uber-geeky software to use... what's not to love! All those barriers mean you're on photographer who's in-the-know.

For those of you who are in-the-don't-know, I'll explain. RAW format files are basically unaltered data-dumps straight from the camera's sensor. There's a little processing, but generally what you have in a RAW file, is the record of what photons, at what frequency, hit where on the sensor. This is (seriously) cool because no data is lost to compression or in-camera processing. Raw also makes no adjustments for white-balance, no sharpening, no adjusting color, no exposure compensation, no wonderful artistic filters. With some cameras the white-balance value and other time-of-shot information is stored with the file. But only stored with the file, not applied to it in-camera. In post processing you can choose to accept the camera's assessment or apply your own, the benefit again is that no information is lost - till you save your RAW file in a printable/viewable format like JPG, PNG, GIF or whatever. And as an added bonus to all those intimidating barriers listed above, you can fix your bloopers and mess-ups from not shooting green, or P for that matter, more easily when working with a RAW file.

All those uncompressed bits and bytes, just might hold enough information to allow you to bring up some detail in those underexposed shadows. Maybe that blown-out sky, has some subtle remnant of the clouds that looked "just like a pony!" This extra, subtle, information can be a shot-saver, as you are able to "pull up" that faint information which likely would have been lost in in-camera compression and processing. When working with under/over exposed images in RAW format, generally, one is able to regain a couple stops on both ends. Yes, you gain a couple stops on both ends and you get extra cool cache.

Try it out now, no one is listening, just say it quietly to yourself "Tsk, I've forgotten my DSLR even has a blue, err.. green or whatever... setting. It's just one of those features I never use. Like, oh I don't know, like art filters or saving as JPEG." Feels nice don't it? So there you go! You get to amp-up cool photographer blah blah by saying things like "Oh, I always shoot raw!" and, "Huh, I didn't realize a camera of this quality even had a green mode!" I'm sure you can come up with some of your own. Feel free to submit portraits (in RAW please) displaying your curled lip, your furrowed brow, or your eyes in mid-roll - whilst glaring at your mode dial, set on Green.

Canon 7D, conspicuous consumption & "What do I really need?"

So, we live in pretty amazing times. In many ways. Lately, I've been thinking about consumerism and personal satisfaction. I've got a Canon 7D which is just an absolutely amazing device. Without listing boring specifications, suffice it to say: it's got bells whistles and more mega-pixels than a 20"x30" print could ever need.

Yet, I'm not happy with it. I mean, I am totally happy with it... but not really. Ah, the double minded man is like a wave of the sea...

I've noticed auto-focus is slightly off. In fact, more than 60% of my exposures are out of focus. Canon offered we OCD tweakers the option to micro-adjust auto-focus, but for reasons outline below, this doesn't seem to provide full satisfaction. But, should I be seeking satisfaction at all?

I guess I should clarify. I take snapshots. Of my wife, my dog, pretty flowers, landscapes. I'm not a professional, I'm what they in marketing call, an "enthusiast." I take pictures, save them to my computer, sometimes post them on the web, sometimes print them and give them as gifts or hang them on my walls.

From Pictures

I do some minor post-processing, and this is where the "trouble" starts. When I zoom in to 100% on the computer screen, some of the pores and hair follicles on the faces of portraiture subjects are "soft." Perhaps the mandible of an ant is out of focus (using a non-macro lens) nearly 60% of the time. It drives me crazy! I mean, I know the camera is capable of sharp captures, but so many of them are "soft" this way.

Ok, so if anyone is reading this, hopefully you're getting my sarcasm and self-deprecating humor, and yet "the truth is said in jest." Even though you're in on the joke, you may still be thinking "So what? The issue is so minor, as to be completely negligible - unless you're zooming in to 100% magnification - and why does anyone need to do that?" There is a serious question here.

Many questions actually. Like:

What do I need?


Should I expect a level of performance commensurate with my expenditure of cash? Or need the device's performance only match my own?

What monetary expense is justified by gaining what level of quality, features, etc?

Because something "should" perform a certain way, does that justify spending time and aggravation in pursuit of that performance?


I have a 35mm Mamiya film SLR that's really fun to shoot. The results are pleasing, even though processed at the Walgreen's photo-center. I can tell dog's have hair, because I recognize them as dogs - I can make out four legs and floppy ears. There's not a chance I could identify an individual hair on my mutt Phoebe's head by examining an exposure from my Mamiya. Yet, the pictures it produces are aesthetically and personally pleasing. I spent $24 on that Mamiya.

I've invested a lot of time, money and "heart" in this whiz-bang do-hickey of a camera. Why?

I find that often, the justification for my conspicuous consumption is invented long after the purchase. "I need it for my new blog.", "I'm going to start selling prints.", "I want to get into micro-stock photography." etc. etc. etc. But, where does the cycling drive to, spend, justify, be disappointed, repeat ad infinitum, ever end in satisfaction, or dare I say happiness.

So this personal rant, doesn't have any answers, doesn't offer any guidance, and only raises questions. Somehow, other people seem to either lack that nagging internal voice to seek for perfection in the material world, or know how to ignore it. Or at least have the sense not to voice it. For me, I know "turning it off" isn't an option. I'm fairly sure turning the internal dialog into a debate doesn't help. Voicing it is a call to be judged and condemned.

Will sending my 7D into Canon for auto-focus recalibration help? Should I sell it and give the money to the poor?

If anyone has figured some of this out, please take a minute and let me know how you have done so. Perhaps there are many people fighting this same battle here in the U.S. of A.

Buildings are falling in Chile, children are starving in Haiti, and I just read a quote "there are more slaves in the world today, than any other time in history," but I'm suffering too. My camera has soft-focus.