Scenes from North Beach

Washed ashore
Washed ashore, North Beach, Racine, Wis. | Canon 1D Mark III and 70-200mm f/4L IS lens @ 70mm | Exposed 1/250 sec. @ f/8, ISO 400.

I am presently writing a full review of RawWorkflow’s LensAlign Pro–a product I briefly worked with in June–so I’ve been busy adjusting the autofocus performance of my cameras with several of my lenses.  While it’s nice to look at a test photo of a focus alignment ruler and see your depth-of-field falling exactly where it should, there’s no substitute for confirming that the changes are for the better than to go out and make some images!

Note that both images in this post were created at f/8, but for different reasons.  In the image of the feather and debris on the beach, I wanted to make sure that the feather, which was almost flat against the beach, as well as the taller matter, would all be rendered in sharp focus.  However, for the photograph of the Ring-billed Gull below, I was using a Canon 1.4x II teleconverter, and I always try to stop down either 2/3 or a full stop from wide open in order to eliminate the vignetting introduced by the teleconverter, and to counteract any loss of sharpness.

Ring-billed Gull stretching
Ring-billed Gull stretching, North Beach, Racine, Wis. | Canon 1D Mark III and 400mm DO IS lens with 1.4x II TC | Exposed 1/1600 sec. @ f/8, ISO 400.