Question about focus, thoughts appreciated

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Wink Jones

Wink Jones

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I took this yesterday morning,

Yellow rose after the rain-.jpg
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My question is this. It appears that the center wrap of leaves is in focus, which is good, as that is where my single focus point was with my lens. Then the long leaf edge just nearer to the camera looks just a little out of focus to me, and the leaves and water drops closest to the camera appear to be back in focus.

Am I seeing this wrong?

Is it normal, or is the a defect with my inexpensive 55 - 300 lens?
 
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I think it is a great shot.

That is a classic depth of field issue. You could increase your depth of field and it would help the front of the flower but probably not the back.

Read up on "focus stacking" and watch Steve's video on the subject. It is really difficult to see what the closest point is sometimes. The flower is tilting slightly making it even more difficult to figure out where that closest point is. That is where "focus peaking" comes to the rescue. Unfortunately, the D500 does not have those features.

Maybe time to think about a Z6II and the Z 105mm Macro lens???
 
It could be related to the angle you are shooting at. Though there is such a thing as curvature of field in a lens where the focus wanders in and out rather than staying flat. I'd go with the angle though. If you think of the plane of sharp focus as being parallel to your sensor then if the camera is angled relative to the subject, the focus distance will run parallel to the sensor. So think of it as a plane projecting out equally from the flat of the sensor. The center of the flower and the dewdrop could be at the same focus distance given the angle.
 
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I have the Z9 on order. Hoping it will arrive by September
bleirer said:
It could be related to the angle you are shooting at. Though there is such a thing as curvature of field where the focus wanders in and out rather than staying flat. I'd go with the angle though. If you think of the plane of sharp focus as being parallel to your sensor then if the camera is angled relative to the subject the focus distance will run parallel to the sensor.
Click to expand...

Thank you both for mentioning the angles. The rose was slightly tilting towards me.

Nice to know I was not delusional.
 
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