Season Greetings from Buffalo LightWinter Morning with a Bite I love the air of a freezing winter morning. So fresh, so strong, so full of that special aroma. And yes, with a bite. Lake Erie frozen over, and so the Buffalo River, everything neat and clean covered with a white blanket of snow, the essential ingredient of a Buffalo winter.

The main road through the marina was well plowed but the entrances to the parking lot had lots of snow pushed into them. I parked outside on the street and walked to the marina. The sun was still sleeping and I liked how the diffused light accentuated the winter mood.

Then I noticed the lighthouse was in Christmas mode. Instead of a fresnel lens equipped light running into the distance over the lake there was a Christmas tree! I had never noticed that before neither did I hear about it.

Despite having all of that ice and snow available to me for a new photo of the lighthouse I was looking for a new perspective, for something different in more than just the season. This view through the trees framing the lighthouse fit the bill, and the two benches with a view seemed like a nice foreground add-on too. I was happy finding the scene and the perfect winter conditions.

This photographic expedition had a secondary purpose for me. I have lately been closely scrutinizing my technique and whether I was doing all I could to get the sharpest possible photos. That has me returning to topics like proper focusing, hyper focal distance, lens sharpness, diffraction, the impact of VR while on a tripod, and SW sharpening in post-production. I wanted to try some of these in the field and see what would get me the best sharpness of the main subject while providing the best fore to back sharpness too. No, I did not mess with all of that jungle of terms in a single morning, just the focusing distance - focusing on the foreground, middle ground to benefit from hyper focal distance, or the lighthouse in the back itself to maximize its sharpness.

In this photo taken at f/22 the focus was on the railing on the right, 11.9 meters away from the camera. Using Digital DoF for iPhone and plugging in 76 mm and f/22, it shows 8.75 meters for hyperfocal distance. Not a bad guess with the 11.9. Focusing at 11.9 gave me depth of field from 5.6 meters to infinity. I am happy with what I got but will spend more time testing different approaches to make sure I don't get sloppy and get the best possible photograph.

Have fun!

Please, use my links to shop on Amazon.com whether you buy one of the products I link to or anything else. Using my links keeps me going and costs you nothing. You can also use the Amazon search box in bottom left for anything not mentioned here. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it!