Day 114 - Blowin' in the Wind

times, they are a'changing

Here's a thing I can't quite get my head around...how is the focus of the camera affected by the focus of my eyes (or lack thereof)?

I bet you've all been wondering the same, haven't you?

All my life I have had really very good eyesight.  Most of my family wear glasses, and my mum's never been able to see past the end of her nose without glasses, but I've always had crisp, clear vision - both close up, and at distance. 

Then I reached my forties, and things started to change.  As I stumbled towards 45, I started to notice that I was having to move things away a little in order to see them clearly.   By the time I'd reached my late forties, I'd begun to struggle to be able to hold things far enough away to be able to focus on them!  I slowly came to realise that I also had become much more light sensitive, in that I needed a lot of it in order to be able to read anything.

After much denial, I finally relented and went for an eye test, only to be told that I need reading glasses...great, that was money well spent!

So now I have some reading glasses that I mostly resist using...and then I'm repeatedly amazed at how clear everything is whenever I do get around to putting them on...

Bottom line - now I'm 50, I can't see anything nearer to my eyes than about 18" with any clarity, unless I wear glasses...and of course when I use a camera, I never wear glasses.

Now, Anna's camera is what's known as a "bridge" camera (or Compact DSLR). 

Light is directed through a series of lenses onto a light sensitive sensor.  The sensor creates a digital image of what it senses, and sends this to the viewfinder.  Inside the viewfinder is a tiny screen with a digital representation of the image.  

So if my eyes can't focus close up, and my eye is one inch away from a tiny screen, and the original high resolution digital image has been reduced to a very low resolution image in order to fit the tiny viewfinder screen...then how on Earth am I to discern when the camera is in focus when I take a picture?

(here's a clue: I can't!)

Interestingly though, when I used a true DSLR camera, where the view through the viewfinder is straight out of the front of the camera, I'm sure I could discern focus.  

But am I using the camera's lens to compensate for my eye's deficiencies?   If so, then won't the image be out of focus once my eyes are taken out of the equation?

How does the little screen in the Bridge compare to the actual view-through-the-lens DSLR, with respect to my ability to focus the damn thing?!

The answer (much like the photo above), is by no means clear.  Bob Dylan reckons it's blowin' in the wind, so maybe next time I'm up on a breezy edge, I'll listen out for it.  Until then, I'm a-pondering, and will update you when I have made some progress.

In the meantime, I quite like this photo, in spite of it's failings...

The colours are natural and pleasing, and the deadhead in the middle of the shot echoes my once perfect, but now failing eyesight.   The dying flower is a signpost to the beginning of the end of Spring, or maybe the end of the beginning of Spring...

Whilst tinged with sadness, the death of the flower also hints at change to come - and with change comes new life and new potential, for new adventures, and new opportunities...

I'm up for it...you?

;-)