I found myself attracted to these two sunflowers in a fallowed field that borders a trail I walk almost everyday. Since the field is situated next to an apartment complex’s parking lot, it seemed to me that the background would have muddied any image. Therefore, with the aperture value at 5.6, I composed this image following RAJ’s instructions for a technique called “Focus Locking.” First I composed the image with the sunflowers in the center, then pressed the shutter so that the flowers were in focus, and then with a half-pressed shutter I recomposed the image before pressing the shutter fully.
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/40 300mm 100 ISO
a meditative journey 
I think it turned out beautifully, Brenda.
Thank you…it is always great to read your feedback.
That is beautifully focused and composed, Brenda! So, When you recompose, the flowers are still in focus?
Your question invited me to ponder this for a bit as I could not recall if the flowers remained in focus as I moved the camera and then to experiment with the technique this morning. What I found was my attention is drawn away from the subject so it becomes mentally blurry and a full shutter press is accompanied by a trust in the technique.
Appreciate you take time to experiment this morning, Brenda! That is a brilliant technique. Thank you so much for sharing with me. 🙂
i love the composition. 🙂
Thank you for visiting and posting your feedback…positive comments are a welcomed gift.
Thank you, Brenda, for your contribution for XDrive sessions.
Nice shot of two happy flowers smiling at the viewers. Right technique to shoot off cantered subjects. You have achieved the sharpness on the flowers while rendering the background blurred. Alternatively, you could have done the manual focus in this situation too. This shot would look better if you took this shot in portrait mode as there are lots of unused area on the left. Also feels like the flowers are underexposed a stop. The reason being when you do the focus locking and recomposing the camera uses the exposure from the center when you finally took the shot. This is one of the issues while using the “focus locking” Also, The shutter speed you have used may not be fast enough and might have caused some motion blurs caused by the camera shake.
This critical review is part of XDrive Photography Learning sessions. Thank you
Raj
Thank you…I’ve come to appreciate your feedback. Is there a technique to manage the differences in exposure when using “focus locking” or is a correction generally done post processing? I hope in time my eye will be able to pick up exposure differences. Have begun to experiment with letting go of my dependence upon auto focus…trusting one’s own near-sighted vision is a challenge during manual focus.
Well it all depends, if your camera has exposure locking feature, first you do the exposure locking, and then you do your focus locking and take the shot. The advanced photographers do manual exposure settings so there is no problem, also they will do manual focus.
Post processing would help in the “post” photo session.. so if the mistake is done then only option is post. 🙂
Hope that clarifies further..
Yes, thank you.