Sickly out of focus backgrounds

Here. You don't see Confederate Ironclads in your M9 viewfinder everyday.

DOF at F1.1 is really much deeper than you expect at mid-range.



No much DOF required for this F1.1 shot.



But notice how the muzzle blasts look like good Bokeh.
 
Sorry for the duplication, but I have to repost this from another thread (dogs): it displays both topics discussed here, gimmicky frozen motion and sickly out of focus - neither sharp nor creamy. Hah, beat that:

 
This thread is billed as SICKLY out of focus and not one person has even gotten slightly DIZZY!

I'm trying, people. Would someone at least get a little nauseated!

I swear, Summarit, wide-open, flowers at close-focus with leaves of the tree line behind them!
 
When I first discovered bokeh I went nuts for it. Everyhting at f2 at a minimum. However I soon realised that I even good quality bokeh (ie, no hard edged circles etc) was distracting from the subject in my contextual portraits. Indeed looking at lots of other people's pics I realised that I preferred oof that was demure but nevertheless present. Such bokeh gives a more classic look, doesn't distract from the subject and makes for a more attractive pic in my opinion. I think in time the bokeh craze will mature and people will begin to discover a balance. I can't imagine that it will pass away completely, as so many crazes do, since p&s photos where everything is so sharply in focus will always push the more advanced in to the arms of bokeh.
 
Roger Hicks said:
...
An interesting parallel is with 'frozen motion' shots when 1/1000 second shutter speeds became widely available: I think I recall that these became popular for a while. What is curious is that they are much less common now, even though we have 1/2000 and faster speeds to play with. This argues first, that 'because they can' is not necessarily a compelling argument, and second, that 'frozen motion' shots are probably even more difficult to do well than shallow d-o-f shots in good light.
...
Click to expand...
I think the ' frozen moments' are still alive and well in sports photography, and ironically, they are then often combined with OOF backgrounds.
The picture in this link ( by Pim Ras) is a nice example, although the bokeh is a little harsh. I have no doubt that these shots are very difficult to do well.

Dirk
 
delft said:
I think the ' frozen moments' are still alive and well in sports photography, and ironically, they are then often combined with OOF backgrounds.
The picture in this link ( by Pim Ras) is a nice example, although the bokeh is a little harsh. I have no doubt that these shots are very difficult to do well.

Dirk
Click to expand...

I imagine that the photographer was much more concerned with getting the athlete doing his thing than bokeh.

Think about all the factors involved to fill the frame and freeze the image.
 
This is with a Hybrid lens, front section of a Canon 50/1.5 with a rear module from a J-3.

I got the focal length correct, and RF coupled it.

picture.php


Wide-open at F1.5. The contrast and rendering of the lens is unique.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
This is with a Hybrid lens, front section of a Canon 50/1.5 with a rear module from a J-3.

I got the focal length correct, and RF coupled it.

picture.php


Wide-open at F1.5. The contrast and rendering of the lens is unique.
Click to expand...

Looks like something from Photo Techniques or maybe Camera Arts magazine.
 
Not sure Andy, maybe you could post another dozen shots or so. Then we could make up our mind.
 
She does look a little bit Dizzy to me.

FINALLY!

Interesting results with the two Summarits on the M9. Turns out both of them are optimized for F2.8, and that both front-focus at F1.5. Dante Stella always maintained that the Summarit was optimized for stop-down work. I might change the shim out on one of them to optimize for F1.5. The difference was noticeable. I am a bit anal that way.
 
'Sickly' and 'nauseating' don't mean the same thing. And as I said early on, this was NOT intended to be a bokeh thread. It's about QUANTITY of o-o-f, not quality.

I find it odd, too, that some people seem implicitly to deny that there are ever fashions in photography, or that sometimes, these fashions are so over-used that become tiresome clichés. Anyone else remember Spanish fishermen mending nets, nudes lit through slatted shutters, and other clichés of the 50s and 60s? Ultra-shallow d-o-f (and HDR, for that matter) are equivalent clichés de nos jours. It's not that they're never any good. It just that there comes a time when you (or at least I) say, "Oh, no, not that again," and even the good stuff is dragged down by association with endless repetition of the same trick.

Cheers,

R.
 
So your telling me that some people shoot like I do and they are not just testing if they got the shim on their lenses right! What are they thinking.

This thread is like telling your Kid brother - "Stop doing that, it bothers me!" They just cannot resist.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
So your telling me that some people shoot like I do and they are not just testing if they got the shim on their lenses right! What are they thinking.

This thread is like telling your Kid brother - "Stop doing that, it bothers me!" They just cannot resist.
Click to expand...

Dear Brian,

Well, one person doesn't make a fashion. You decided long ago that you want to shoot this way, whether purely to test shimming or for fun, and I wish you the very best of luck. I was thinking more of those who see shallow d-o-f; think 'oh, wow, I can do that'; who do it; and who fail to see that they've just made another dull, me-too picture.

Of course, dull, me-too pictures are nothing unusual. We all make them, some more often than others. But when the technique is all that there is to a picture, and it's such a fashionable techhnique, it's not a bad idea to think about why you are doing it and whether it is successful. 'You', obviously, in the sense of 'one'. and not 'Brian'.

Cheers,

R.
 
In a strange way, I actually agree with Roger (that doesn’t happen often...) and I also agree with lorriman, just because you can shoot wide open all the time doesn’t mean you should.

You asked the question who's sick now, well, I threw up long ago and that's not good. Me being a tight arsed Scotsman and all that, throwing up is not good... It means I have to pay twice!

More seriously, Roger has a very good point. Bokeh is subjective, just like HDR... Too much of it and your sick off it for life...
 
Having a surreal streak in both my aesthetic sensibilities and my sense of humour can I just say how interesting the visual perception discussion has been, and how refreshing is is to see a moderator disrupting the thread ...
 
Sparrow said:
Having a surreal streak in both my aesthetic sensibilities and my sense of humour can I just say how interesting the visual perception discussion has been, and how refreshing is is to see a moderator disrupting the thread ...
Click to expand...


I had noticed this as well... Hope I don't get banned for my comments! 🙂🙂🙂
 
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