what's 'wrong' with vignetting?

[back alley]

i was looking at ferider's post about his new canon 28/2.8 lens and it started me thinking about images that show darkening at the edges.

it seems to me that this is generally considered by many to be a 'flaw' in the lens. but i also notice that some like this affect and do it on purpose or look for these older lenses on purpose.

i'm wondering how it came to be that this affect got it's negative connotation and i'm also wondering if this is still the prevalent attitude out there?

who likes the look of the dark corners?

joe

 

[kully]

As with anything one persons defects are another's characteristic.

For example - my low-contrast, glowy Summitar that is soft wide open. As with vignetting there are times when these are nice, and other when they are not.

 

[raid]

Vignetting is something that I like to have as an option when using older lenses. It draws the focus to the center which is slightly lighter than the edges. I am glad that some of the older lenses provide vignetting.

 

[ferider]

I like it for a vintage look, Joe, much like a Sonnar's center punch.

It's difficult to correct in software after scanning, so I'm trying to avoid it with modern stuff, landscapes and such.

Roland.

 

[maddoc]

I don't care much about vignetting as long as it doesn't distract to much from the subject.

 

[back alley]

just want to point out that i do not see it as a flaw.

 

[gavinlg]

In work related use I detest vignetting. My canon 17-40 f4L vignettes like a prick at even f11 and annoys the crap out of me.

In personal stuff I like the vignette.

Weird huh?

 

[Merkin]

Vignetting is considered by "artistes" to be "bad design" because it pushes your eye toward the center of a piece, and putting the main subject in the center is also considered "bad design." This is a highly dogmatic view that is drilled in to the vast majority of freshman fine arts students at colleges all over the place, often by professors who don't realize that the main purpose of "design rules" is to give students the knowledge of when, where, and why to break them when appropriate. Instead, "design rules" are treated very dogmatically and strictly, almost as a "ten commandments of art." Personally, I think vignetting works much better on square images than rectangular, and I think dark vignetting works much better than light vignetting, a la wedding portraits. I also think that vignetting not caused by a lens looks contrived the vast majority of the time. Vignetting applied in photoshop, in the darkroom, or by something like the Holga 135 BC, which uses black plastic in the corners of the frame, generally looks poor in my opinion.

In general, it is a good idea to do things like observe the rule of thirds, not clip corners, avoid vignetting, etc, but if every image observed every rule, our images would be incredibly boring.

 

[antiquark]

If you crop your pictures, vignetting might lead to one dark corner and one light corner, which isn't really a popular effect these days.

 

[Merkin]

If you crop your pictures, vignetting might lead to one dark corner and one light corner, which isn't really a popular effect these days.

Nor is it, in my opinion, particularly aesthetically pleasing, regardless of popularity. The difficulty with a lens that vignettes is that there is very little flexibility in cropping the image. With a square neg, if you want to crop to a portrait oriented rectangle, you pretty much have to crop an equal amount off of the right and left sides, or the vignetting looks wonky. With a 35mm neg, if you are cropping to 8x10, in landscape you have to again take the very center of the image, and if you are cropping in portrait, chopping off the bottom generally works the best. Because of all of this, composition is more difficult.

 

[Gumby]

Vignetting is considered by "artistes" to be "bad design" because it pushes your eye toward the center of a piece, and putting the main subject in the center is also considered "bad design." This is a highly dogmatic view (yadda yadda)

Maybe... but many B&W artists put in the vignetting at printing and don't really consider themselves to be violating any design rules. Ever looked at one, any one, of AAs prints... or read "The Print"?

I believe the general avoidance of lenses that vignette is to allow the artist to choose to add vignetting of the final print rather than allowing the lens to force vignetting.

 

[MCTuomey]

it's another variable in one's tool bag. i tend to think the use of any dark background as a form of vignetting, or vice versa. can't say whether it's good or bad, in general. depends on the photo, i think.

 

[Al Kaplan]

A lot of us "edge burn" our prints in the darkroom, but often some edges get more burn than others, and features within the picture may also get darkened a bit by selective burning in.

 

[Sam N]

You can always add the light falloff by dodging your print or using software, but it's more difficult (although very possible) to remove the light falloff. Heavy vignetting is just ugly IMO.

On the flip side, it's easier to make a tiny lens if you allow a slightly smaller image circle and some more falloff (CV 15/4.5, 21/4). These lenses are both excellent in many other respects.

The Sigma 50/1.4 (77mm threads) for SLRs is far bigger than Nikon/Canon 50/1.4s (58mm or less), the main reason Sigma went with the larger size was to avoid vignetting.

 

[Merkin]

Maybe... but many B&W artists put in the vignetting at printing and don't really consider themselves to be violating any design rules. Ever looked at one, any one, of AAs prints... or read "The Print"?

I believe the general avoidance of lenses that vignette is to allow the artist to choose to add vignetting of the final print rather than allowing the lens to force vignetting.

I didn't say that vignetting as a post process was fundamentally wrong, I just said that I don't particularly like it, and yes, I was raised on All Ansel Adams All The Time by my father, who believes that the eighth deadly sin is to use an aperture larger than f/11.

Also, there are loads of photographers out there who have never taken a general two dimensional design course, so they might not be familiar with a lot of the rules that are taught in that setting.

Personally, I believe that Photography is more fundamentally different from the other two dimensional visual arts than most people in the "art world" do, particularly those in the higher art education field. There are many people out there who feel that photographs should follow the same set of rules as paintings or graphic design/printmaking pieces, and I disagree with that. I left art school because of one particular professor who, despite telling me to my face that he didn't think photography was an art, insisted that every photograph i printed had to follow every one of his fourteen rules of good two dimensional design. After that semester, I shot with nothing but holgas for a couple of years, just to wash his BS out of my system.

As an aside, the (yadda yadda) was wholly unnecessary. You may not have meant any disrespect, but it certainly seemed quite disrespectful on this end. If you want to clip out only a portion of my comment, do so, and if you want to make a statement about the validity, accuracy, usefulness, or interestingness of the rest of my comment, come out and say it.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

There's nothing wrong with vignetting itself, specially when that's what you want or don't mind it. There's something wrong, though, when you don't want it and there's nothing you can do about it without Photoshop.

I'd also say there's nothing wrong with curry; it'd be wrong if what you ordered was a chocolate cake.

 

[Gumby]

an aside, the (yadda yadda) was wholly unnecessary. You may not have meant any disrespect, but it certainly seemed quite disrespectful on this end. If you want to clip out only a portion of my comment, do so, and if you want to make a statement about the validity, accuracy, usefulness, or interestingness of the rest of my comment, come out and say it.

Oy veh... you must be having a "sensitive" day. 🙄

No disrespect was intended... was there anything in my reply that indicated such?.

 

[ferider]

One more comment: a vignetting lens typically "flattens out" when closed down. So there is still enough creative flexibility (when there is enough light).

For example, most of Winogrand's shots are looking flat, likely shot at f8 or so. But some show (in my mind) creative use of vignetting, for example:

Cheers,

Roland.

 

[Merkin]

Oy veh... you must be having a "sensitive" day. 🙄

No disrespect was intended... was there anything in my reply that indicated such?.

It's all good. Where I'm from, "yadda yadda" is generally used to indicate useless information. As I said, I didn't think any disrespect was meant, but I am having one of those days where I don't put up with any crap. If I ever encounter you in real life, I'll buy you a beer.

 

[craygc]

Interesting as I deliberately forced light fall off on to a few images I processed lately

Seems I got a little carried away with how many I did 😱