Shallow Depth of Field in Landscapes

[Sparrow]

... well yes obviously. But you can say that about anything you take to its metaphysical extreme ... I can do it within limits

Gestalt perception works with averages or tendencies ... and for me as a designer it is important to understand how people perceive this sort of thing ... I've just looked back and I still find photos where some of the subject is blurred, jarring ... and I'm still surprised others find it attractive (classic landscapes that is not the bokeh shots)

 

[hitmanh]

... well yes obviously. But you can say that about anything you take to its metaphysical extreme ... I can do it within limits

Gestalt perception works with averages or tendencies ... and for me as a designer it is important to understand how people perceive this sort of thing ... I've just looked back and I still find photos where some of the subject is blurred, jarring ... and I'm still surprised others find it attractive (classic landscapes that is not the bokeh shots)

I find your surprise at this...er... surprising! Isn't this just a cultural expectation (ie you expect landscapes to have deep depth of focus because landscapes nearly always have deep depth of focus)? I'm not surprised by these, but I'm enjoying the variety and new take on what, for me, is normally a rather uninteresting form of photography.

 

[Sparrow]

ha, don't get me wrong ... I find most landscape boring, I'm interested in the way others see it not the genre itself

PS 'cultural expectation' perhaps that's it ... perhaps we have so much of a photographer culture on here that our perception is altered

 

[gnuyork]

A lot of the images using short depth of field being posted here aren't really landscapes in the true sense IMO ... more towards still life.

yup, exactly.

 

[robry]

Sorry for the canoscan 9000:s limitations,
I have a "The Swedish Woods" ongoing project..
http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/qurZtH]IMG_0026p by robrylx, on Flickr[/URL]

 

[BLKRCAT]

 

[asilda]

Really like this shot!

Looking for them is an interesting exercise.

Here is one with "front bokeh":

Not sure about that one myself.

 

[Sparrow]

Really like this shot!

... yes me too, but the DOF is irrelevant in this instance, the subject is isolated by the atmospherics for the most part.

How it should be, a normal view rather than a contrivance of the photographer's technique

 

[Sparrow]

Sorry for the canoscan 9000:s limitations,
I have a "The Swedish Woods" ongoing project..

http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/qurZtH]IMG_0026p by robrylx, on Flickr[/URL]

A very Nordic Noir feel to that ... like a painting by Kurt Wallander's father

 

[rhl-oregon]

This may not look like daylight to some, but is just a rainy Oregon spring afternoon. When i drive this highway, I have a game --to take a shot of these trees at 50-60mph with whatever camera I'm packing. This day it was the DP3m, which selected the closest plane (passenger window), leaving the oaks just recognizable. I think the camera made a better choice than I would have.

 

[rhl-oregon]

Here are the same oaks seen by a Bronica RF645 @f4 1/500 infinty focus, probably HP5. The Bronica's 65mm lens is about half the focal length of the DP3m.

 

[Mark Schretlen]

I find your surprise at this...er... surprising! Isn't this just a cultural expectation (ie you expect landscapes to have deep depth of focus because landscapes nearly always have deep depth of focus)? I'm not surprised by these, but I'm enjoying the variety and new take on what, for me, is normally a rather uninteresting form of photography.

ha, don't get me wrong ... I find most landscape boring, I'm interested in the way others see it not the genre itself

I think that a lot of people find landscapes boring, hence, it is the challenge. Particularly if one can achieve a not-so-boring landscape without obvious processing dramatics.

I prefer subtle subject isolation in landscapes, and sometimes shallow DOF is effective for this, but I hope it doesn't become some sort of landscape fad (a la HDR).

 

[ferider]

Really like this shot!

Thanks guys !

 

[Mcary]

Do images that use fog to limit how far into a scene one can observe count as shallow DOF in a Landscape?

 

[Sparrow]

Do images that use fog to limit how far into a scene one can observe count as shallow DOF in a Landscape?

... not really, that looks quite normal ... just how the world looks

I was thinking of shots contrived to isolate some element or other in a way one wouldn't see in real life, that looks like a misty morning somewhere in Devon or Somerset last summer

 

[codester80]

I think limited DOF in a landscape only works when there is some strong element that is being isolated by the DOF.
The jarring effect of shallow DOF landscapes comes from how our vision works. Our DOF is not unlimited. Instead our eyes move over a scene quickly giving the illusion of great depth of field. Try looking at a single point in a landscape, a tree for example, and force yourself not to shift your eyes. Can you clearly see the rest of the scene before you? No, it's blurry. It's through the pan-and-scan technique our eyes trick us into believing there is greater DOF to our vision.
With this in mind, it's difficult to look at a photograph with limited DOF. We are drawn to the object in focus first but our eyes naturally want to wander over the scene to put the rest of the scene into focus but we are unable to see the scene in focus resulting in the jarring effect. It defies expectations of vision in the real world.
A very strong focal point with the use of shallow DOF can mimic what we see when focusing on a single object and can be pleasing. The tree photo or bamboo being examples. I find the focal point needs to dominate the image in order for the shallow DOF to be effective. Otherwise, it's just a bokeh image of which there are too many. Why worry about image sharpness of lenses if you're only worried about the rendering of blurry parts of an image? Crazy.

 

[Brian Legge]

 

[Sparrow]

[...]

... that's the type of thing I find discordant, I can't enjoy the other aspects of the scene because I want to see the detail of that rock, and want to know what those little blurred dots are, people? cars? something else?

I lose all sense of scale in the OOF areas

 

[kuuan]

generally imo anything that can be done ( in photography ) also has it's place, so does bokeh aesthetic in daylight landscape photography and not only for close focusing.
just do it well, the dreamy effect achieved may just make the image.