Getting Creative

 I've been exploring a little bit more of  the bells and whistles on my Canon 77D.  With few exceptions, I've been pretty muck locked into using the camera's Aperture Priority (Av) mode.  Recently, I've tried shooting something with the Creative filters.

Here are some of the filter effects that you can use:

• Grainy B/W 
• Soft focus 
• Fish-eye - processed to simulate fish-eye lens shots
• Water painting - for images that look like water paintings
• Toy camera - simulates distinctive colors and vignetting of images from toy cameras
• Miniature - process to resemble miniature scale models, similar to tilt-shifting
•  HDR art standard - images resemble paintings with low contrast and flat gradation
•  HDR art vivid - images resemble vivid graphic art with flat gradation
• HDR art bold - images resemble oil paintings with vivid color and depth
• HDR art embossed - images resemble old, faded photos

Yesterday during my lunch break I tried the fish-eye effect on some daffodils.  Here's the result:

I'm going to have to try some of the other effects.   Since I rarely carry my LensBaby  Composer around, I can see where these creative filters will give it some real competition.

Repairing the focus on an SX-70

 First a little background.  Back in the summer of 2019, someone gave me a very unusual Polaroid SX-70 that was customized for scientific photography.  Later, in September, I removed the customization hardware and gave the camera a new skin.  

I then discovered that there was a problem with focus-to-infinity with this camera.   You can see the problem with one of the shots that I posted on my Flickr account.  Out to infinity, there has consistently been a bit of lens blur.

This brings me to a couple of weeks ago, when I searched for some repair solutions.  Flickr came to my rescue with some basic instructions.  All I had to do was remove the front housing rectangle around the lens opening.  I was able to pry it off quite easily.  Then I ran the focus out to infinity, where I could easily see the blur in the split screen focus.  I depressed the "idler wheel" as described and with a very slight turn of the gear, I was able to regain the focus-to-infinity.

Although I have a fresh pack of film, I'm waiting until Spring, when there will be much more to photograph in color.   I'm confident that I'll be able to achieve decent focus this time around.