"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12 : 2

So winter has officially started...

We are now at that point where the trees have gone dormant, and the visiting wildlife of various birds and squirrels are busy doing their thing; gathering food and enjoying the scattering of feed that we have in our backyard...

Of course there is the urge for me with all these little creatures to plan out best ways to get shots with the camera. As is often the case they only want to stay still for a short time before they hippity-hop around, and I have to relocate them through the lens.

The Chickadee alone is truly a test for any photographer as they are so small and spastic that to even get them in the lens can be a triumph, let alone getting the picture in focus before they fly off to another branch.

Speaking of branches... As I'm sure any of you that live in especially colder climates will know, the lush amount of leaves that once were a mainstay on those branches have since fallen, leaving those branches exposed.

Being able to capture a bird or any subject on camera may not be so much of an issue, but rather maneuvering through the maze of those branches so that you don't get something blocking your subject can be.

Back in my auto days (not car sales) but when I first started photography, the very first few days - I would shoot everything in automatic. I was getting to know the new camera and just take some pictures with it, and have fun with the process. Manual settings would quickly prove to be important, but before that there was something even more vital that I was neglecting at first. Focus settings.

More specifically, autofocus points, or AF points. These are your "lock-on" squares that register in your viewfinder or screen that your target has achieved autofocus, letting you know typically with a sound and/or an illuminating glow that you're camera (should) be in focus and you're ready to shoot. And yet I was getting... some blurry pictures...

Well for one, there are different variations and amounts of those little squares being used for the focus depending on what you want the camera to do. There's the wide spread of multiple points to catch a good portion on the screen like a net, great for fast movement.

There's also a smaller cluster of maybe 9 in it's own square shape, that is more specific to a portion of the screen. And then there's also - the spot focus. A single AF point that is like a targeting reticule telling the camera that whatever the square is landing on, get that!

With the blurry pictures I mentioned, I would notice that the squares (I was using the spread setup) would pick something entirely off target from where I was aiming in the image, almost as if it was stubbornly trying to miss. But it was actually doing what I didn't know at the time I was telling it to do.

Looking at it now it would be a no-brainer but at that time I was so new at it, I thought put it on auto and shoot. But would the camera know what I was asking it to do? Not with the autofocus points set the way they were.

So where am I going with this? Am I going to land the plane? Tray tables up... Remember those branches I brought up earlier?

They were the culprit. The camera was targeting branches either in the foreground or background of the target, and so yeah they were sharp but not the bird! Keep in mind that professional photographers prefer a good depth of field, so that you get that buttery soft background behind your favorite subject, called bokeh.

Now yes, the picture should have blurry parts... But NOT my bird!!! Because I was using the multi-point spread, it was grabbing onto so many distractions that the focus was not on the target.

Needless to say, I realized I needed to make an adjustment as I was targeting the wrong thing. I went ahead and set my AF Points to one, right in the center - and now I was able to obtain the clarity I needed, right on target.

With that said, this is not meant to illustrate just photography related consequences... For any of you that are familiar with our articles, Alea and I are certainly going to tie this in to Scripture.

By The Grace of The Holy Spirit, we are going to publish multiple articles in this Spot Focus Series; a series that is going to (yes) focus on what the world teaches, the branches (i.e. distractions/traditions/false teachings) and what The Bible plainly says about it - the target.

Topics will cover a gamut of areas that are definitely blurry spiritual images being taught as "truth," and many of us may not even know about it; sadly causing the target to be missed.

We invite you to stay tuned as we will continue to cover these and other important (and fun) points of interest, and please let us know on our comment page your stories and input as we want to hear from you. The plane has landed. Thank you all, and stay safe... You are free to move about the cabin.

Until next time...