Backyard Quick Shot

Japanese Dogwood (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 47mm; 1/160th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 400; JPEG file

Early yesterday (Saturday) morning was one of those dreary, rainy mornings.  However, it was a nice, gentle life-sustaining Spring rain.  The kind you appreciate.  As I sat reading the paper (electronically) I found myself periodically glancing outside through my patio doors to keep a watch on the rain.  Each time I did, the blossoms of my Japanese Dogwood tree kept attracting my attention.  Not to pass up an opportunity, I thought the situation demanded a quick image be made.  It would be a shame to pass up what looked to be an interesting opportunity to make a satisfying image.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my Olympus E-M1 Mark II with the 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens attached and headed to the back yard—in the rain.  My intention was to not take a lot of time or create anything sophisticated but just capture my memory of the Spring rain on the dogwood blossoms.

I set the Olympus controls on aperture priority, f/5.6, auto ISO, and the menu to automatically focus stack images. The issue I immediately noticed was that the wind was gently blowing as well.  Would the camera's automatic focus stacking feature be able to capture and merge the images to create a sharp image with sufficient depth of field with the blossoms slightly moving?  

I slowly walked around the tree looking at the clusters of blossoms.  I was looking for a pleasing composition.  The composition had to be satisfactory in the number and position of the blossoms as well as the background.  After all, I was in my back yard with many background items that would detract from the image if in the frame.  I settled on this one.

The image above is a JPEG, lightly edited, of the camera merged images.  Not the best.  Not sophisticated.  Not award winning but satisfying to me.  A nice way to remember that rainy morning during these trying times and home confinement.

Lesson learned:  Act on your impulse and make those images otherwise the opportunities presented to you will be repeatedly missed. 

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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