In The Beginning

I keep saying that I really should work with a real camera rather than a cellphone camera. This picture is a great example of why.

This picture needs about no depth of field to help those tall wildflowers to stand out. There’s a way to do it in the phone, but it takes along time to figure it out. Even when you do, you really can’t see what you are doing on the LCD in almost any kind of bright light.

I’m not sure why I haven’t, except to say that I seem to moving in some sort of sludge. Simple things take me days to complete. Complex things, well let’s just say I have a couple of framed prints that have been sitting on the floor for at least a year.

I read in The New York Times that this is not unusual. Many people, meaning a majority of people, are going through something similar after a year of lockdown and working from home.

I must admit to some confusion because I always work from home, or in a hotel room or something like that. I suppose for me it really means the freedom to move around the city easily. And, the freedom to travel.

I don’t know.

Here’s an example.

It took me until just before noon to have a coffee, do my stretches, lift light weights, and walk the dogs. This would normally be a two hour routine starting at about 8 am. For some reason, I’ve been sleeping an hour later, but still that shouldn’t slow the whole routine.

I don’t think it’s a result of the time change. For me, that lasts about four or five days. We are well beyond that.

Afternoons, when I really should be working a full speed, usually turns into the malaise of completing anything. If the truth be told, my afternoon’s work should take a few hours. I’ll be lucky to complete one task completely.

This has to stop.

This is not a great picture by any means. It is a teaching picture.

I wrote on the left hand side that the picture needs almost no depth of field, something like f 2 or f 2.8. That would have cause those tall wild flowers to pop out of the frame.

The color is also weird. I couldn’t get it back to where it should be. I reworked a brand new frame. Same thing. Wash, rinse and repeat.

I’m pretty sure the color fidelity would have been much better using a mirrorless or DSLR camera.

A friend of mine got into a discussion about resolution. She thinks her Nikon Z6 produces more resolution than a phone. That’s the only thing that’s not wrong with this picture.

The very fact that you can even see those tall wildflowers tells me that.

What you can do with a DSLR is focus more carefully even if you are using autofocus. And, you can see what you are doing in any kind of light.

That’s important.