Advent Candles
f/5.0, 0.3″, ISO-100, 41mm
I’ve said in the past that I’m not big on themed photos. That is, you tend not to see a bunch of Halloween pics from me around Oct 31. So here’s a Christmas photo in the latter part of January.
Our church was decorated for Advent on December 2. This is one of my favorites from the roughly 2 hours I spent at shooting. It was another excellent opportunity to try out my new tripod legs (I got the Oben 2310 AC).
For this shot I wanted the lights on the Christmas tree in the back to have a soft bokeh but I needed all of the candles to be sharply in focus. I think I came close to the effect I wanted, but the second candle from the left (which is closest to the camera) is slightly more out of focus than I would have liked. This is a good lesson in DOF for me, and one I often forget. I put the focus dot squarely on the wick of the large center candle. However, I failed to remember that the circle of influence for depth of field is weighted slightly to the rear. That is, there is less distance between the focal point forward than there is toward the back where objects will be in focus. Had I moved the camera backwards just a couple of inches, it is quite likely that all of the candles would have been nicely sharp.
Beautiful photo!!! So soft and warm!!!
Thank you!