Sickly out of focus backgrounds

[Pablito]

Selective focus is one thing: turning a jumbled background into a blur. But more and more, I'm noticing pictures where the o-o-f background is so noticeable that it's nauseating. It's not a jumble turned into a blur: it's clear objects (buildings, etc) rendered in very poor focus.

This isn't a 'bokeh' issue. It's just that on a bright, sunny day, I'm used to seeing most of a scene more or less in focus. Shooting at 1/4000 wide open, solely because you can, just looks weird to me. Shallow focus seems natural in poor light, but in bright daylight, it looks contrived and artificial, at least to me.

Is this pure habituation/age (when I started in the 60s, there were still plenty of cameras that stopped at 1/500 second)? Or is it that I'm seeing a fashion that will, with any luck, be short lived?

Cheers,

R.

It is a fad, and what's worse is that it's become de rigueur in photojournalism of all places. It's an aesthetic conceit.

 

[former member]

I've been shooting wide-open for over 30 years. It's just hard for me to think of myself as stylish, trend setter, or making a fad popular.

I have not bought a tie since the mid 1980s. Or a suit. I keep a change of clothes at work in case I have to give a VIP briefing. Although the last one did not mind me wearing a T-Shirt and shorts.

 

[semilog]

OK semilog, so now I am curious...

What is the conflict between the Box Brownie and my comments that people have greater access to more equipment now and that modern equipment is well suited to experimenting with shallow focus?

The introduction of the Brownie marks the moment when photography became a mass-market pastime, and that was 110 years ago.

The technical point is that DoF decreases as image sensor area increases.

For 60+ years, consumer cameras used "miniature" format sensors (film) ranging from 50 X 50 mm to 60 x 70mm and larger. These were at one time all considered to be amateur formats. Over much of this period, most professionals generally eschewed "miniature" formats in favor of genuinely large formats: 100 X 125 mm and larger.

35 mm "full" frame is actually a subminiature camera format with a tiny 24 X 36 mm sensor, and (unless super-fast lenses are used) enormous depth of field.

For most of the history of photography, the problem faced by most photographers most of the time was how to get enough DoF — not how to minimize it. The dreamy, creamy, overly romantic, shallow DoF look was at one time the norm and it was precisely this norm that a group of photographers on the American west coast rejected when, in 1932, they founded Group f/64.

So the idea that photographers obsessed with shallow DoF today are exploring something in any way new, or doing it (in your phrasing) more creatively than their predecessors, is both preposterous and ahistorical.

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[keepright]

To me this suggests two possibilities:

There is more and more of it, and it is being done badly, but it is a fashion that will pass.

There is more and more of it and we are seeing a permanent change in the way of seeing , just as we saw an ever increasing acceptance throughout the 20th century of what was, in the 1930s, called 'violent' or 'extreme' perspective from wide-angle lenses.

I propose that it's not a fad, and will become (remain?) a permanent and significant part of the visual language of hobbyist photography.

Producing images with distinctively shallow depth of field isn't possible with the current default photographic equipment. (Phones, compacts, and f/5.6 zoom lenses on sub-frame dSLRs.) Gone are the days of 120 film as an amateur format; small-format cameras no longer include a fast prime as their kit lens. Creating shallow depth of field has gone from a side effect of needing to photograph in low light to an accomplishment available only to those who have purchased different equipment. As such it's a goal to be pursued for its own sake – an irresistible temptation for a small but prominent sub-set of our hobby.

(Naturally that's not to say that it has no artistic or expressive merit, etc.)

 

[former member]

105 Nikkor, wide-open at f2.5 on the Leica M9.



Outdoors, faded Cherry Blossoms.



At least this thread got me out for a nice walk at a local historic spot.

 

[dotur]

Selective focus is one thing: turning a jumbled background into a blur. But more and more, I'm noticing pictures where the o-o-f background is so noticeable that it's nauseating. It's not a jumble turned into a blur: it's clear objects (buildings, etc) rendered in very poor focus.

www.ivanlozica.com

I might be mistaken, but the nauseating effect of the clear objects rendered in very poor focus in broad daylight can be partly caused by the increased contrast and saturation of modern lenses - not to mention the deadly post-processing sins. Higher contrast and saturation create unpleasant and distracting effects. Intensive color blots within the blurred background/foreground act as unnatural artifacts - they scream, they are too strong and thus draw attention away from the intended shallow focus, ruining the composition.
The numerous selective focus shots from LF/MF era are usually black and white or monochrome - the lenses were softer and the shutters were too slow to allow the outdoor use of wide-open lenses.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

It is a fad, and what's worse is that it's become de rigueur in photojournalism of all places. It's an aesthetic conceit.

"Fad"

"De Rigueur"

"Conceit"



Captain James Walsh, portrait nouveau victim, 150 years ahead of its conceited de rigueur fad time.



Boring de rigueur portrait nouveau fad victim, unwittingly victimized by the very very very late arrival of fast film and f/64 aperture combinations. Oh, the humanity. 100 years ahead of its time.



De rigueur photojournalistic conceit in 1917, a portrait nouveau fad 96 years ahead of its time.

 

[taskoni]

Great portraits!
Regards,
b.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The best arguments so far, as far as I am concerned, come from Semilog and Matthew:

For most of the history of photography, the problem faced by most photographers most of the time was how to get enough DoF — not how to minimize it. The dreamy, creamy, overly romantic, shallow DoF look was at one time the norm and it was precisely this norm that a group of photographers on the American west coast rejected when, in 1932, they founded Group f/64. (Semilog)

Though I'd add that it wasn't just shallow d-o-f: it was also deliberate softness, muddy tonality and 'control' processes such as bromoil, a.k.a. 'muck spreading'.

I propose that it's not a fad, and will become (remain?) a permanent and significant part of the visual language of hobbyist photography. . . Creating shallow depth of field has gone from a side effect of needing to photograph in low light to an accomplishment available only to those who have purchased different equipment. As such it's a goal to be pursued for its own sake – an irresistible temptation for a small but prominent sub-set of our hobby. . . (Matthew)

The last sentence is a bit cynical but, I think, accurate.

And of course as Dotur points out,

I might be mistaken, but the nauseating effect of the clear objects rendered in very poor focus in broad daylight can be partly caused by the increased contrast and saturation of modern lenses - not to mention the deadly post-processing sins. Higher contrast and saturation create unpleasant and distracting effects. Intensive color blots within the blurred background/foreground act as unnatural artifacts - they scream, they are too strong and thus draw attention away from the intended shallow focus, ruining the composition.
The numerous selective focus shots from LF/MF era are usually black and white or monochrome - the lenses were softer and the shutters were too slow to allow the outdoor use of wide-open lenses.

Thanks to all, but to those three particularly. The entire thread has clarified my own thinking on the subject, and it is clearly of interest to others too.

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.

As for jj who appears to think that I am against all forms off shallow d-o-f in good light, and that I am peculiarly irritated by shallow d-o-f, no, that's not the case: there is a difference between robustness of phraseology, and hyperbole. Like Pablito. I think that to a considerable extent, it is a fad and will decline, but like many others, I do not believe that it will go away completely: it will remain a useful technique, long after it has ceased to be over-used.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Well, as far as "fads" are concerned (whether one ignores the "history of the gear", so to speak, or not), it's a veeeeeery long-lived one.

Just like B&W. All those B&W shots on the intertoobes. It's a fad. And the purpose of HDR. Ansel Adams started that fad (including "sharpness").

What next? Biological farming, a gourmet nouveau fad? Natural-birth without the aid of drugs: a birthing nouveau fad? Saving money and not becoming over-debted: a boring financial nouveau irritation?

My pseudo-point (at least I qualify it as such) is that most superlavists and hyperbolists concentrate on the immediate now, and ignore history and details of such. They take a running thought and spin it out of control. Sometimes you just have to counter-spin it. Just for fun's sake. 😉

 

[Roger Hicks]

Well, as far as "fads" are concerned (whether one ignores the "history of the gear", so to speak, or not), it's a veeeeeery long-lived one.

Just like B&W. All those B&W shots on the intertoobes. It's a fad. And the purpose of HDR. Ansel Adams started that fad (including "sharpness").

What next? Biological farming, a gourmet nouveau fad? Natural-birth without the aid of drugs: a birthing nouveau fad? Saving money and not becoming over-debted: a boring financial nouveau irritation?

My pseudo-point (at least I qualify it as such) is that most superlavists and hyperbolists concentrate on the immediate now, and ignore history and details of such. They take a running thought and spin it out of control. Sometimes you just have to counter-spin it. Just for fun's sake. 😉

The fact that something has been long lived does not preclude its becoming a fad for a while. A fad, after all, is merely a fashion that becomes tiresomely ubiquitous. Think of punk: a fashion that was at first interesting, then was adopted so ubiquitously as to become dull and predictable -- dullness and predictability being exactly the things that some punks actually protested about (as did hippies, as do most young people).

If you don't care for the word 'fad', call it 'fashion' or 'bandwagon-hopping' or even a 'craze' (though crazes are normally even shorter-lived than fads). Whatever you call it, I suspect that in (say) a decade's time, a lot of people will be saying, or thinking, "Yes, an awful lot of people were doing it then, and it got boring." Like extreme contrast in the 60s, or Linked Ring muddiness at the beginning of the 20th century, or fashion photography with 300mm lenses in (as far as I recall) the 1970s.

Cheers,

R.

 

[peterm1]

Is this sickly .........or OK?


L1041851a by yoyomaoz, on Flickr

 

[dotur]

Is this sickly .........or OK?
L1041851a by yoyomaoz, on Flickr

It is sickly OK. The shot is almost monochrome, there is not too much saturation in that blurred window in the background... Shadows are strong enough to be the main topic, while the iron fence in focus remains damped in subdued light. In that way the composition remains coherent... the unity of the photo is preserved. Unitas, consonantio, claritas!

 

[former member]

The ability to produce out-of-focus backgrounds is simply a salient feature of the equipment, and can be used as desired by the operator. Whether it is good or bad- purely subjective. Some like it, others do not.

It falls into the "You can't please all the people all the time, but you can make some people dizzy some of the time through the use of visual stimuli."

 

[former member]

Anybody get dizzy yet... Is my cruel experiment succeeding... or do I need to get out the Summarit.

 

[jsrockit]

In short, I reckon that people do it intentionally because they like it and I suspect you like it less because it is not your style and experience.

Yes, I agree...

 

[Sparrow]

... not dizzy, but a bit bored with the repetition

 

[former member]

Bored, good. That is good.

That means I do not have to keep track if I post the same images again.





Your cache should make the loads faster if I've posted the same image twice, and that should make you get dizzy.

 

[former member]

This guy saw one too many out of focus images.

 

[former member]

Board.