Sickly out of focus backgrounds

[tlitody]

I think you are assuming that everyone who uses a DSLR is stupid.

No I don't assume anyone is stupid until they show me they are. I assume that some know what they are doing whereas some don't. And some think think they know what they are doing when they don't. And some know but take short cuts or don't have time to think about it. And some that know are lazy and aren't too worried about it.
This apllies to any type of camera user not just dslr. But its easier with a prime manual focus lens and dof scale to learn and/or check what you are doing.

 

[igi]

To answer Roger's question, yes it must have been due to technology's march which then was explored by countless pro photographers and later snapped up by the masses.

Yup, it's just normal.

 

[Vics]

Ive noticed that when folks buy fast lenses, it's not to get better focusing, or brighter finder in an SLR, the way it was when I started. I think that their photos are concerned only with their fast lens. Here and on flickr, you can see hundreds of pictures of a sharp twig in the close foreground and everything else blurred out. It's self-referential photography.

 

[jsrockit]

Ive noticed that when folks buy fast lenses, it's not to get better focusing, or brighter finder in an SLR, the way it was when I started.

Well those things do not apply to rangefinders.

I've always bought fast lenses in order to make photos in more situations and to have more depth of field options.

 

[yanidel]

heh, I was thinking about bringing up Yanick's photography as well, but it seemed to easy a card to play! 😀 but I think we have to admit that in most of his shots the background is still more or less distinguishable, and he certainly composes his shots rather thoughtfully as well.

Thanks Simon and Kully to have thought about me on this shallow depth of field topic 😉

Here is my take on it. I compose exactly the same whether I shoot with thin DOF or smaller apertures. OOF does not compensate for bad composition in the background, be it in terms of shapes, colors or movement. It can save you from grins, closed eyes or unwanted signs, but apart from that OOF should be in harmony with the in focus zone. Good bokeh will never make up for a badly composed shot.
Personally, I don't use it as an effect, but try to reproduce our selective memory. Think about a moment in your life, do you remember specific items in focus, that is a smile, big eyes ... lips ? Or do you recall every single detail of a scene you experienced ?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thanks Simon and Kully to have thought about me on this shallow depth of field topic 😉

Here is my take on it. I compose exactly the same whether I shoot with thin DOF or smaller apertures. OOF does not compensate for bad composition in the background, be it in terms of shapes, colors or movement. It can save you from grins, closed eyes or unwanted signs, but apart from that OOF should be in harmony with the in focus zone. Good bokeh will never make up for a badly composed shot.
Personally, I don't use it as an effect, but try to reproduce our selective memory. Think about a moment in your life, do you remember specific items in focus, that is a smile, big eyes ... lips ? Or do you recall every single detail of a scene you experienced ?

Brilliant. Thanks.

Cheers,

R.

 

[rogerzilla]

I have no problem with shallow DOF to focus (sorry) attention on the subject - it's part of the Leica style. The problem is, and I think what Roger means, that some photos are neither one thing nor the other; the background is only slightly OOF and it looks as if the thing was shot on auto-aperture (which, on non-Leica cameras, it may well have been).

As an aside, shallow DOF is one way to say "Look Mum, not digital!" since 99.9% of digital cameras sold have slow lenses and sensors smaller than 35mm size and virtually everything is in focus, all the time.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Like you Roger, I feel like the effect is approaching cliché.
Seems to be a fashion/portrait studio nouveau thing.

Photography Wagon (during the Crimean War)




Captain John M. Moore, 1865, portrait studio nouveau victim.

Albeit I do hate most all visual clichés. So there's that in roundabout implication.

"Everything in focus" is such a cliché, it's been tried for over a century and it just keeps on going. Well, everything done before the instant we read this has already been done. Even 3D photographs.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Seems like the DeleteMe flickr group weighed in and decided to save this all-in-sharp-focus shot.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Thanks Simon and Kully to have thought about me on this shallow depth of field topic 😉

Here is my take on it. I compose exactly the same whether I shoot with thin DOF or smaller apertures. OOF does not compensate for bad composition in the background, be it in terms of shapes, colors or movement. It can save you from grins, closed eyes or unwanted signs, but apart from that OOF should be in harmony with the in focus zone. Good bokeh will never make up for a badly composed shot.
Personally, I don't use it as an effect, but try to reproduce our selective memory. Think about a moment in your life, do you remember specific items in focus, that is a smile, big eyes ... lips ? Or do you recall every single detail of a scene you experienced ?

There are some narrowly-focused (oh the irony) people who dismiss a technique simply because either they don't like it, they don't do it, or they can't do it. Their distaste often (btw, others: please read carefully for nuances, don't go all if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us black-and-whiteness) --often-- translates into calling out names or judgment.

Take grammar and misspelling, for example: many people on the Intertoobes do it. It would be really silly to say "nobody on the Internet knows how to write". Or take the "logic" farther by saying "the Internet makes you illiterate; I mean, just read all of this stuff!"

While Roger is stating an opinion (and qualifies his statements), others just take a comment and go around with superlatives. But how do you work against superlatives? By superlatively re-stating their Superlativity (™)


Anyway...where was I? Ah, yes: just 'cause I don't like Wendy's hamburgers it doesn't mean that all cows suck.

 

[paparazzi mano]

Its Good!

Its Good!

Tim,

I like the space 'tween the doggies and the plane. Kinda adds a story....... kinda like its longing to see someone that it hasn't seen for a long time.

Like it!

At the risk of setting myself up for ridicule, I'll put up an example here that may be the sort of thing you are talking about. The background here is obviously not blurred to oblivion. And definitely not in focus.
This was very intentional on my part - feeling that the background maintained enough focus to make it clear what the object in the distance is.
This was part of a small documentary project I did on the refurbishment of an old WWII-era bomber. And this is Mitchell, the hangar dog.

It was a muddy, rainy, overcast day. But I suspect there was room to get more in focus if I wanted to. If anything, I wish I'd gotten a lower perspective to cut some of the dead space between the dog and the plane, but I like the focus just the way it is.

 

[Sparrow]

.

........ EDIT .......


"Everything in focus" is such a cliché, it's been tried for over a century and it just keeps on going. Well, everything done before the instant we read this has already been done. Even 3D photographs.

So true, even today, why, oh why, don't we ever get any new clichés?

 

[alistair.o]

.

So true, even today, why, oh why, don't we ever get any new clichés?

Good old Samual Goldwyn.

 

[Sparrow]

Good old Samual Goldwyn.

... was it? I thought I'd made it up! ... and I nicked the first bit from Round the Horn

 

[gavinlg]

If only every shot with an out of focus background could be replaced with a shot of a mailbox or a random street scene at f11 - then photography would be saved. If everyone was a street photographer we could have a mind blowing monopoly of every person on flickr posting pictures of people taking pictures who would be posting the pictures he took of people taking pictures ∞.

 

[former member]

The field of Photography is big enough to accommodate many styles, and individuals will like some and dislike others. If this were a forum on Painting, the same argument would be on impressionism vs realism.

Damn good thing this is not a forum on painting because I would have to make my own brushes and align the bristles within 0.02mm of each other. Someone would use a brush made for canvas on charcoal drawing paper and everything would backfocus.

 

[former member]

Impressionism, Realism, whatever. I nailed the focus on that lens to the last 0.02mm.

I am very, very, deep and give these issues the proper level of consideration that they deserve.

 

[Sparrow]

I rather think all these random bits of flora isolated by a jumble of blurry abstractions is more likely proving Roger's original contention, than challenging it ...

 

[former member]

My point is "who cares". Some people like it, others don't.

Individuals are free to like what they want, and others get annoyed when they are told that they should not like it.

So reading this thread, I think it proves my point.

And the picture proves I nailed the shim on that lens to the last 0.02mm. Nothing else.

 

[sanmich]

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bokeh...

Dr Strangelove eh? 🙂