I did not notice the texture on the snail shell until I loaded the photo into my PC.  Although this snail is not my favorite species, but I was surprised as its texture still can clearly be seen.  My favorite is the larger snail with prettier pattern on its shell.  I have learned a lesson that we cannot look down at normal things or things that are not our favorite.

I found this snail in the drain besides our garden.  The diameter of its shell is about 2cm.  I had to use macro mode to take these shots, the distance between camera lenses and snail was less then 7cm.  I imagined if I were using a DSLR, I would not be able to take this picture, because the camera is too big, the drain is too small and the snail was crawling on the side of the drain.  Worst if the DSLR does not have the live view feature and I would have to put my head into the drain to look through the view finder.  I have learned another lesson, if I have an SLR in the future; I will still bring a SemiPro camera along, just in case it may be needed where SLR is not possible.

The second picture is the angle where an SLR can do.  Shoot it above the drain and look down through the lenses vertically.

The snail had a slow motion that allowed me to take its picture clearly.  But here comes the focus problem.  I used the largest aperture and the nearest distance which caused the depth of field less than 1cm.  I have demonstrated it in one of the entries before.  The eyes of the snail are in focus but the head is not sharp.  Look at the first picture above and you will know.  Luckily in this position the shell pattern and the eyes are sharp except the head. 

I still remember an expert answer my question 10 years ago when I attended a photography workshop.  I asked one of the speakers how we should focus on an object if we cannot make the whole thing sharp.  He said that just to focus on the eyes of the object.  I remember it until now and every time I try to applied this theory.  However, if the snail eyes were sharp but not the shell pattern, I do not think that the outcome is nicer than the first picture above.  I feel that I was lucky because the snail was crawling in a position where it showed both its shell and eyes at a same distance to my camera lenses.

Another question comes to my mind.  We can use software to apply HDR for exposure, how about focusing?  Nowadays new intelligent cameras come with multiple face detection for the focusing; I have not came across with these cameras so far therefore I am still curious whether the camera use software to do a focusing HDR or it just increase the depth of field.

Is Okay if you do not understand what I say.  Think of this question.  Is it possible to focus on the nearest objects AND furthest object but let the object between in the middle blur?  It is possible using focus bracketing when taking the photo and merge them in HDR software.  But I do not think that a camera can do it on its own.  Sorry, because I am not quite sure how the multiple face detection works.

About HDR

I am also new to HDR, but if you have never come across to this word, let me explain.  It stands for High Dynamic Range.  Sometimes if you take a picture, either the sky is over-exposed or the foreground is under-exposed.  Exposure HRD is a way to make the photo perfect where it merges same photos but with different exposures (bracketing) into the perfect picture.  However it usually looks fakes.

There is another jargon you may need to know.  What is bracketing?  Exposure Bracketing is to take multiple pictures for a single shot where the exposure is in a range for example from -3 to +3 EV (exposure value) for +1 step each.  You will have 7 same pictures but each has different exposure.  It can be done manually or automatically by the camera that have bracketing feature.  Here I use exposure bracketing as an example.  There are also White Balance Bracketing, ISO bracketing and Focus bracketing.

This is another technical post.  Hope you are not bored.  I can write quite long if I talk about photography.