Sickly out of focus backgrounds

GSN I agree. However, these limitations are enough for an artist to exploit and create art by hiding things, emphasizing things, editing things in and out and generally giving an entirely different impression of reality than reality itself (and I'm not talking about photoshop).

Things simply look different when photographed.
 
That's some serious photography. None of that sickly out of focus background; just a healthy, focused-on-its-gradient background.

Although, is that a true representation of space back there? I smell light trickery.
 
GSNfan said:
Despite everything that you listed, still it is a photograph that is in your passport and not a painting or something else to 'show' what you look like.
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1. I did not say that photography is not useful. Obviously, it is useful.

2. Photography for scientific or legal documentation is generally performed under strictly defined conditions (camera position, focal length, FOV, lighting, background, subject pose, presence of scale bars, etc.). The reason for this is simple: objectivity can be obtained only by clamping a series of variables so that the selection biases I mention above are constrained and valid comparison between photographs becomes possible.

The "camera" used for your passport photo is not just a light-tight box and a sensor. It includes all of the legal specifications for image capture and presentation. That is what makes a passport photo a quasi-objective document.

Photography can be used in an objective manner, if done for specific purposes within the context of a series of specific rules and conditions. So can pen-and-ink illustration. So can written description. That does not mean that any of these media is inherently objective or factual.
 
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Unnecessary or distracting use of out of focus backgrounds and foregrounds can be a pain in the bum simply by virtue of producing those two reactions. Consider a busy railway station: full of people and action and most of the time you are probably going to try to catch the whole i.e. bags of depth of field. Then suppose you see a mother and child amongst the crowds in the station: she is squatting down to wipe ice-cream from the kid's face, oblivious to the world around them (this is a shot I missed in Berlin main station a few weeks ago which serves me right for having the camera in the bottom of the rucksack). Now a wafer thin layer of focus just deep enough to catch the both of them may well be ideal. Why? Because it's about something universal and it is certainly not specific to the railway station, (you might consider the railway station in this context to be itself a distraction) therefore an OOF background may be ideal, it would certainly be an option to consider. Ideally you would get both types of shot and compare them.

I wonder if shallow DOF gets used so much in RF photography rather like going to extremes of zoom focal length does by beginners in SLR photography: because it is there and because you can. The effects which the various types of camera/lens technology offer are wonderful but they surely should not be used to the point where they become dominating limitations
 
AndySig said:
Unnecessary or distracting use of out of focus backgrounds and foregrounds can be a pain in the bum simply by virtue of producing those two reactions. Consider a busy railway station: full of people and action and most of the time you are probably going to try to catch the whole i.e. bags of depth of field. Then suppose you see a mother and child amongst the crowds in the station: she is squatting down to wipe ice-cream from the kid's face, oblivious to the world around them (this is a shot I missed in Berlin main station a few weeks ago which serves me right for having the camera in the bottom of the rucksack). Now a wafer thin layer of focus just deep enough to catch the both of them may well be ideal. Why? Because it's about something universal and it is certainly not specific to the railway station, (you might consider the railway station in this context to be itself a distraction) therefore an OOF background may be ideal, it would certainly be an option to consider. Ideally you would get both types of shot and compare them.

I wonder if shallow DOF gets used so much in RF photography rather like going to extremes of zoom focal length does by beginners in SLR photography: because it is there and because you can. The effects which the various types of camera/lens technology offer are wonderful but they surely should not be used to the point where they become dominating limitations
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Precisely, though I'd add one rider. If you shot quickly (as you'd have to) and then found that despite the shallow d-o-f the background was distracting (for whatever reason) then the shot would be to some extent a failure -- just as it could be a failure for any one of a hundred other reasons.

The pictures I was complaining about in the original post are not the ones that succeed, but the ones that fail, where the photographer apparently says "It's out of focus, so it doesn't matter, even if it looks like hell" or worse still "Putting it out of focus shows that I am brimming with artistic talent and can afford fast lenses."

In other words, I'm arguing that some people are insensitive to (or even proud of) truly rotten backgrounds, and that a bad out-of-focus background is the exact equivalent of the tree growing out of someone's head: a failure to pay attention to the whole picture.

Good out of focus backgrounds, that aren't distracting, are fine, but it's hardly worth repeating this, as plenty seem to have decided that I am against shallow d-o-f on principle, and others will say "It's a matter of taste so why discuss it?" The latter is of course easily dismissed with "Why discuss anything?"

Cheers,

R.
 
AndySig said:
Unnecessary or distracting use of out of focus backgrounds and foregrounds can be a pain in the bum simply by virtue of producing those two reactions. Consider a busy railway station: full of people and action and most of the time you are probably going to try to catch the whole i.e. bags of depth of field. Then suppose you see a mother and child amongst the crowds in the station: she is squatting down to wipe ice-cream from the kid's face, oblivious to the world around them (this is a shot I missed in Berlin main station a few weeks ago which serves me right for having the camera in the bottom of the rucksack). Now a wafer thin layer of focus just deep enough to catch the both of them may well be ideal. Why? Because it's about something universal and it is certainly not specific to the railway station, (you might consider the railway station in this context to be itself a distraction) therefore an OOF background may be ideal, it would certainly be an option to consider. Ideally you would get both types of shot and compare them.

I wonder if shallow DOF gets used so much in RF photography rather like going to extremes of zoom focal length does by beginners in SLR photography: because it is there and because you can. The effects which the various types of camera/lens technology offer are wonderful but they surely should not be used to the point where they become dominating limitations
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That's the reason Seal wears his M9 rather than put it in a bag. 😉
 
Display in a Museum.

50/1.1 Nokton, wide-open and closest focus, on the M9, ISO 2500.









aside from needing the speed of the lens for the shot, I did not want too much of the background being resolved.
 
AndySig said:
I wonder if shallow DOF gets used so much in RF photography rather like going to extremes of zoom focal length does by beginners in SLR photography: because it is there and because you can. The effects which the various types of camera/lens technology offer are wonderful but they surely should not be used to the point where they become dominating limitations
Click to expand...


Indoors, where most of the time available light is precious (well, to those who aren't carrying around a strobe), you'll see lots of shallow DOF shots due to the fact that you're trying to get as much light into that frame as you can.

I should also add that, while you gave a very reasonable example, when one considers one thing "unnecessary", others consider it "normal". For example, film is unnecessary in this day and age, when you consider the penetration and presence of all things "digital". I can see the same arguments used by the "digital purists" against the "film Luddites" about sickly chemicals (and silver mining) and high carbon footprints.

Our liking or disliking how an image was made is not enough to make it necessary or unnecessary (or distracting or focusing..."distracting" is such an overused catch-all shorthand adjective in the realm of photography that it no longer means much other than "I don't like it") imvho, of course.
 
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Gabriel M.A. said:
Indoors, where most of the time available light is precious (well, to those who aren't carrying around a strobe), you'll see lots of shallow DOF shots due to the fact that you're trying to get as much light into that frame as you can.

I should also add that, while you gave a very reasonable example, when one considers one thing "unnecessary", others consider it "normal". For example, film is unnecessary in this day and age, when you consider the penetration and presence of all things "digital". I can see the same arguments used by the "digital purists" against the "film Luddites" about sickly chemicals (and silver mining) and high carbon footprints.

Our liking or disliking how an image was made is not enough to make it necessary or unnecessary (or distracting or focusing..."distracting" is such an overused catch-all shorthand adjective in the realm of photography that it no longer means much other than "I don't like it") imvho, of course.
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Or it might mean "I was distracted by it," which is rather more specific than "I didn't like it."

Different people are distracted by different things (and dislike different things) which is why it may be a good idea to try to analyze why one dislikes one thing or is distracted by another.

For that matter, 'dislike' means different things. I dislike more flower shots than portraits, because I find the subject matter less interesting. This doesn't mean: that I dislike all flower shots: just that I am not as apt to like them.

Cgheers,

R.
 
I also dislike more flower shots than portraits, not because they're flowers, but because they tend to be done in a "look, it's a pretty flower" way that doesn't convey the "look, I believe this flower to be so pretty I put some real thought into this shot" way.

By that token, I also wouldn't mean to characterize most of these flower shots as "sickly overdone flower shots". Surely, sick means many things also (be it "kid" lingo for "nice" or "medical" lingo for "not healthy"), but adjective-conscious characterizations would lead one to believe that little room for argument has been left.

And many people get very distracted by these (adjective-conscious characterizations), even if our distraction leads us in different ways through different paths, as the previous eight pages have demonstrated.

One must thread careful of turning on UV lights in a dimly-lit Summer night, for while some are blind to them, some are innately drawn. Bits galore for the lightbulb owners.

Where was I? Distracted. So much to chew on in this thread, even if the fat is nice and chewy, I wonder if some accidental staining isn't just part of the course.

Oy. This allergy medication must be kicking in.

Well, I guess all of this goes to show that, in the end, it's really all a matter of taste. Some things prevail, others die off, whether rightly or not. And hardly anywhere else outside of Photography can we see this seemingly-democratic exercise at work so organically.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Indoors, where most of the time available light is precious (well, to those who aren't carrying around a strobe), you'll see lots of shallow DOF shots due to the fact that you're trying to get as much light into that frame as you can.

I should also add that, while you gave a very reasonable example, when one considers one thing "unnecessary", others consider it "normal". For example, film is unnecessary in this day and age, when you consider the penetration and presence of all things "digital". I can see the same arguments used by the "digital purists" against the "film Luddites" about sickly chemicals (and silver mining) and high carbon footprints.

Our liking or disliking how an image was made is not enough to make it necessary or unnecessary (or distracting or focusing..."distracting" is such an overused catch-all shorthand adjective in the realm of photography that it no longer means much other than "I don't like it") imvho, of course.
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I wonder if an OOF background is "distracting" when you can make something out in it which keeps catching your eye but this becomes frustrating because obviously you haven't got a clear look at it. So perhaps an OOF background should be OOF to the point of being more or less abstract unless of course it is "more of the same" e.g. one bit of a plant is in focus so that you know what it is that you are missing.

To return to the mother and child, it seems to me there are three main options:

a. Everything in focus.

b. Background OOF.

c. Everything in focus but long exposure so that all movement is blurred (perhaps the most effective version for that scenario).

It does of course depend on how you are trying to depict your subject and indeed, as you imply, what options are open to you due to light levels etc. The key must be to consider the effects of OOF backgrounds when you do have the option.
 
AndySig said:
I wonder if an OOF background is "distracting" when you can make something out in it which keeps catching your eye but this becomes frustrating because obviously you haven't got a clear look at it. So perhaps an OOF background should be OOF to the point of being more or less abstract unless of course it is "more of the same" e.g. one bit of a plant is in focus so that you know what it is that you are missing.

To return to the mother and child, it seems to me there are three main options:

a. Everything in focus.

b. Background OOF.

c. Everything in focus but long exposure so that all movement is blurred (perhaps the most effective version for that scenario).

It does of course depend on how you are trying to depict your subject and indeed, as you imply, what options are open to you due to light levels etc. The key must be to consider the effects of OOF backgrounds when you do have the option.
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Dear Andy,

A brilliant analysis. Thanks very much indeed.

EDIT: And, of course, the principal subject, the bit that's in focus, should be interesting enough to hold your attention in its own right, not just something you glance at and then start looking for something worth looking at.

Cheers,

R.
 
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