Yesterday, I had some Velvet 56 pictures posted in the Close Up section. I wasn't real happy with the landscapes because something about them bothered me, and it was the sharpness in those particular landscapes, but I had taken others at other times with that lens that didn't bother me. Now, I wondered what was it about these pictures that was nagging at me. I've reposted one of them as an example to refer to, and another taken earlier last summer for comparison.

Then it dawned on me that there is no specific subject in these pictures to focus on for sharp focus with the effect surrounding it. And if I crop the picture as I did on this example, the center of focus is thrown off and most of the picture is just soft to blurry! Yuk!

Then I came to this conclusion. The Velvet 56 (IMO) is best in landscapes where there is a clear subject on which the focus is placed and the rest becomes background, not a vista or general landscape where no one thing is dominant. The first picture had the focus down that street. I had cropped the right side off because I decided I didn't like the composition as much with it. Had I realized this before taking the picture with this lens, I would have perhaps focused on the yellow trees. But those trees are just as important to me as the rest of them and the perspective of the street.

Had I thought about all of this before taking that shot, I might have picked one of my conventional lenses to use for this shot.

The second picture works for me because there is a definite center of focus on a subject that I'm calling attention to.

I'd like to know what you guys think about this. Perhaps I'm way off base, and would love the feedback.

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