Never let your camera think for itself.

Okay, so originally my whole "unplugging" idea was to go back to film, hands down- due to quality and focus issues that I was encountered with the digital camera, and getting extremely frustrated at.

My lesson this weekend, taught me that, wow, a digital camera can actually create a decent shot-- IF you don't allow it to make any decisions itself.

Let me explain my thinking.

I've always shot on Manual, I choose the exposure, the fstop, the iso and anything else I possibly can... except for the focus. I always left it on auto focus, because I was shooting quicker things such as wildlife, and I've been just sort of whipping the camera around while i've been shooting landscapes. Until this weekend, when I switched over to manual focus.

Part of my reasoning for doing so is my 20-40 wide angle lens. I love this lens, but I haven't been able to use it due to the fact that it's had a consistent lack of focus no matter what camera it's on, the digital or the 35mm. Apparently, it's simply a lens that's sharp as hell-- but needs to be focused manually.

Check this out and let me show you what I mean. The first shot is the full composition- the 2nd shot is a zoom in of a close up on the trees leaves. Look at the detail-- i'm pretty impressed to be honest! I'm finally getting the sharpness that I expect- from a 10MP digital camera.

Who says that MPs matter?