The Shallow DOF paradox

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I love taking pictures wide open, and isolating stuff against a blurry background. It's irresistible. I have several lenses specifically for this purpose.

However, almost all my favorite photos that I've taken, save for portraits and very low light shots, are in focus across the frame. I discovered this while compliling a blurb book...almost none of the photos had any bokeh in 'em.

Discuss.
 
What aperture values did you use?

What aperture values did you use?

mabelsound said:
... However, almost all my favorite photos that I've taken, save for portraits and very low light shots, are in focus across the frame. I discovered this while compliling a blurb book...almost none of the photos had any bokeh in 'em.
Click to expand...

DOF depends on the aperture you use to shoot the picture. If you find you don't have or only have very little out-of-focus areas in your picture, chances are you used a rather small aperture (large number). You'll only find bokeh in OOF areas, and specifically only in highlights in OOF areas.

Also, lenses with a shorter focal length (< 35mm) feature a wider depth of field, so that you have to open them up very wide to get any OOF areas at all. Youl'll get a much more impressive bokeh if you use a longer lens at large apertures.

Thirdly, DOF becomes shallower, offering more OOF area the closer you move in to your subject. If you focus on something at say 5 ft, you're going to get a much shallower depth of field (and much more pronounced bokeh in the OOF areas) than if you focus on something 20 ft away - all at the same aperture and the same focal length.
 
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mabelsound said:
I love taking pictures wide open, and isolating stuff against a blurry background. It's irresistible. I have several lenses specifically for this purpose.

However, almost all my favorite photos that I've taken, save for portraits and very low light shots, are in focus across the frame. I discovered this while compliling a blurb book...almost none of the photos had any bokeh in 'em.

Discuss.
Click to expand...

Arjay said:
DOF depends on the aperture you used to shoot the picture. If you find you don't have or only have very little OOF areas in your picture, chances are you used a rather small aperture (large number). You'll only find bokeh in OOF areas, and specifically only in highlights in OOF areas.
Click to expand...

Agreed, plus....
The closer you are to your subject, the thinner the DOF will be. and yet another factor -- a 50 or 75 at f/2 will give less DOF than a fast 35 or 28 at f/2 --- At the same distance --
SO.....FL + Subject Distance + f/stop all play a role in the final DOF.
Hope this helps.

Edit:
If you a want thinner DOF...1st choice would be to get closer, (faster than changing a lens), or change the lens to a longer FL. and stay at the same distance. Because, if you adjust the FOV to "=" the shorter lens, you will lose the new DOF you want, believe it or not. Perspective will change though for the BG objects. I think that's right technique. If not, someone will correct me.
 
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I get what you're saying, Mabelsound, - when I first developed (no pun intended) more than a passing interest in photography, I used to try to get as much "in focus" as possible but the images I actually liked most often were the shallow DOF ones - like you but in reverse lol.
Oddly, it went against everything I thought (at the time) photography should be. I thing the trick is in knowing when to use shallow or massive DOF in general photography (i.e. not when taking specific "bokeh" shots to post on here 🙂 )
 
There were plenty of shots on your flick with shallow DOF.
I specifically remember

1. Photo of pile of books
2. Photo of berries on a branch / leaves on branch - diptych
3. Photo of a Chicken
4. Hatchet

Of course you've sworn off berries/leaves and books piles.

I think you're just going to f/8 and being there.

Have a look at what this guy does with an f/0.95 lens.
 
Hi all, I think the OP is 100% in the clear what the technical factors influencing DOF are in a given situation. The point of the post seems to be, that, while he takes pleasure in blurring parts of the scene (on purpose, and he knows just how to do it and probably selects his lenses with an eye on "fast" max. aperture and bokeh "quality") -- he ends up with keepers that are in focus back to front.
 
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What you think you like and what you really like don't necessarily match. Neither do your heroes' pictures and your own pictures.

Plus: ALL pictures have 'bokeh' in 'em, unless the plane of focus is virtually all there is in the picture and there's nothing even slightly out of focus. 'Bokeh' does not just mean 'the grossly out of focus bits'. It also refers to the slightly out of focus bits.

Cheers,

R.
 
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You take pictures with different lenses at different distances, in different lighting, using films of different sensitivities, so you get much depth of field and you get little. Either kind of picture can be good. What's the paradox?
 
So true, mabelsound.

Even if we love well used shallow depth of field, lenses in general give their best rendition in microcontrast and sharpness when several stops closed, and that usually helps to make some shots look "well done"... I've also noticed non-photographers in general prefer to see in focus as much of the frame as we can give them, no matter if things are near or far, or are relevant or irrelevant...


Cheers,

Juan
 
Benjamin said:
f/8 and be there.

f/1 and be on the internet.
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Ha ha ha!!! Love it.

Yeah guys, I'm very well acquainted with aperture and depth of field! And it's true, I put a lot of my shallow DOF pics on my flickr. But when it came time to compile this book, almost none of those made it in. I wasn't thinking about DOF at all, just sorting through the faves.

I think it's mostly because the kind of photography I'm best at is done in the daytime, on the street, where I usually have the lens at, yes!, f/8, and prefocus with the distance scale. The shallow DOF "look" is still appealing to me, but I just happened to be doing my best stuff at, say, 28mm and f/8.

Perhaps this year I should dedicate myself to a project where I make something more artistically satisfying out of these shallow-DOF techniques. A friend and I are talking about doing a show together called "Nothing Happens When You Stay At Home," composed entirely of photos taken in and around our houses. (you probably recognize the quote.) A good challenge, I think!

Thardy said:
Yeah, if multitudes on flickr know how to do it surely a college professor can.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily an English professor though! ;-)
 
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Ljós said:
Hi all, I think the OP is 100% in the clear what the technical factors influencing DOF are in a given situation. The point of the post seems to be, that, while he takes pleasure in blurring parts of the scene (on purpose, and he knows just how to do it and probably selects his lenses with an eye on "fast" max. aperture and bokeh "quality") -- he ends up with keepers that are in focus back to front.
Click to expand...

After reading a few more replies, you may be right....It seems like the OP liked deeper DOF in the past, and now, he wishes he had used a faster f/stop on some of these....

The other point, I guess, is that as we get more experience on how to adjust our gear to get the desired result, we tend to want less DOF for similar subjects from our past results.
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
Even if we love well used shallow depth of field, lenses in general give their best rendition in microcontrast and sharpness when several stops closed, and that usually helps to make some shots look "well done"...
Click to expand...

Certainly most lenses are at their sharpest between, say, f/5.6 and f/11, but I've never really been much for sharpness. I'm very happy to let the lens show its character at wide apertures. I think this is more the result of the kind of photography I tend to do stopped down.
 
DNG said:
After reading a few more replies, you may be right....It seems like the OP liked deeper DOF in the past, and now, he wishes he had used a faster f/stop on some of these....
Click to expand...

No, not at all! When I'm shooting, I often think about DOF. But when it came time to just look at the pictures as I might in a gallery or art book, I wasn't thinking about it in the least. It just didn't cross my mind until I had the group of pics for the book complied--and then I suddenly realized--hey, where's all that bokeh I'm supposedly so obsessed with? The fact is, the nerd in me may be obsessed with it, but the artist in me (there's gotta be one in there somewhere) only cares about getting the image I want.
 
DNG said:
After reading a few more replies, you may be right....It seems like the OP liked deeper DOF in the past, and now, he wishes he had used a faster f/stop on some of these....

The other point, I guess, is that as we get more experience on how to adjust our gear to get the desired result, we tend to want less DOF for similar subjects from our past results.
Click to expand...

mabelsound said:
No, not at all! When I'm shooting, I often think about DOF. But when it came time to just look at the pictures as I might in a gallery or art book, I wasn't thinking about it in the least. It just didn't cross my mind until I had the group of pics for the book complied--and then I suddenly realized--hey, where's all that bokeh I'm supposedly so obsessed with? The fact is, the nerd in me may be obsessed with it, but the artist in me (there's gotta be one in there somewhere) only cares about getting the image I want.
Click to expand...

Well, I was way off :bang:....
Oh well...Maybe I should wait for a few more replies before I add 2c..But, an interesting discussion never the less.
 
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