This weekend I had the opportunity to visit Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square Pennsylvania. They were hosting for the first time the American Dahlia Society’s National show and it was an opportunity to see an incredible variety of dahlias that I had never seen before.

Even though I tried to keep it simple, it didn’t stop me from packing the Canon 100mm Macro, the Canon 180mm Macro and the Lensbaby Velvet 85 into my kit and I looked forward to working with each of the lenses.

With the Canon 180mm Macro, it has a lens collar which allows me to capture a multiple exposure image in-camera. One of the techniques I tried was capturing one image completely out of focus, and then the next one in focus and having the two images combined together upon recording.

It’s a wonderfully creative feature offered in many Canon camera bodies and using Live-view you can see how the second (or multiple images) stack upon each other before you take the second image. With the Nikon system, you can select two images that you have already taken and combine them, which isn’t quite the same or as versatile as it is with Canon.

The combined image is the first one you see and other than just some minor adjustments in Lightroom, this is pretty much Straight Out of Camera.

For today’s tip – last week I sent in my primary camera body with the 100-400mm lens to Canon for servicing. As I have a nice collection of Canon gear, I’m able to be a member of the Canon Pro service. With this service I pay an annual fee and in exchange I have a two-day service turnaround period as well as a equipment loan program.

I tend to send my most used gear in about twice a year for a good cleaning and servicing as I am rather hard on my equipment. After all, we do get our cars serviced, so why not our camera gear?

So ask yourself, when was the last time you took the time to clean your camera, or even more important – has it ever been serviced? It’s a good downtime before autumn really kicks into gear to get ready for those Indian Summer days that are surely ahead.