The 28 Summilux and Shallow DOF: Why the newfound malice toward Bokeh??

[uhoh7]

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In your view, is there a difference between complaining and trying to explain personal preferences?

 

I love the fact that more people than ever take photos. I think phone cameras are wonderful because they enable almost anyone to record whatever interests them and share it with anyone, anywhere in the world, instantaneously. This is in many ways one of the most marvellous developments in technology there has ever been, and we're only just scraping the surface of the incredible benefits this new form of communication will bring.

 

But as with traditional language, photography fulfils many roles, and with equal validity can cover everything from the slightest blinks of momentary interest to the most sublime monuments to human creativity and sensibility.

 

Thinking about photography is no different from thinking about literature: discussing why you prefer Tolstoy to Dickens or otherwise, and recognising the genius in both, does not imply that normal everyday speech is an inferior thing, but it certainly is a different thing. So with photography and trying to understand why some photos rise above the sea of unexceptional, yet no less valid, images.

 

I don't think "complaining" quite does it justice.

OK.....highly elaborate and intricately rationalized complaining.

 

About too much OOF. Or too much of anything. Too many Cell Phones. Too many Hipsters. Leicas are too much money. Blah Blah blah.

 

Of course I do it too LOL

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[nelly]

This is getting very heated......

Surely Images should speak louder than words

Happy Shooting everybody

[Geoffrey James]

I have a couple of thoughts.  There is a link between cinematography and photography that we don't think about very much.  Shallow depth of field is an essential tool of cinematic story telling,  although I don't ever recall remarking how beautiful the OOF bits of the movie are. It's part of the language,  and we accept it.  In painting,  the invention of Albertian perspective resulted in pictures that accurately rendered the illusion of deep space --even if that is not the way we actually see.  I think that part of the pleasure of looking at such pictures is because we can experience the illustion of deep space with having to do the focus adjustments with our eyes as we would in the real world. Personally I wish Michael Johnson had never coined the term Bokeh.  It assumes that there is a single subject in a photograph. As for cliches, let's admit that we are in an age of image glut,  and we are surrounded everywhere in photography by dead genres that are very difficult to resuscitate.   Anyone, or almost anyone, can make a technically competent image today.  To make an intelligent one is a lot harder. 

[Herr Barnack]

 

...  Anyone, or almost anyone, can make a technically competent image today.  To make an intelligent one is a lot harder.

I must agree with Geoffrey.  Making intelligent, thought provoking images with visual impact should be our goal, not making every image a shallow DOF image or a hyperfocal DOF image. 

 

At the risk of causing even more outrage, dare I say that there is an appropriate use for both of these techniques?

[Neko]

 I beliebe that DOF is an element of photography that should be used as a tool. Shallow DOF is not intrinsically artistic. If something artistic or creative is your purpose, first there is a technical learning curve, and once you master the secrets of the craft, you somehow forget those technicalities  and just use them  in an intuitive way. Like when  speaking  we don´t think about grammar( well, not in my case because English is not my mother tongue). BTW sorry for my broken English, you have been very patient so far.

[MarkP]

...or like when first learning to drive all one considers is gears, clutch, brake, accelerator pedal.  

Once these become subcortical one can then think about the destination.

[Neko]

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...or like when first learning to drive all one considers is gears, clutch, brake, accelerator pedal.  

Once these become subcortical one can then think about the destination.

 

 That is the point!

[250swb]

 

At the risk of causing even more outrage, dare I say that there is an appropriate use for both of these techniques?

 

An appropriate use of both shallow DOF and hyperfocal DOF?  That would be one hell of a photograph.

 

If you mean both techniques should be available and used when necessary then it is hardly a statement to cause outrage, an awful lot of people got there before you in this thread.

 

 

Steve

[Fast_Glass]

Firstly, I should mention that I didn't read all the pages of response here, so forgive me, but in regards to DOF and extravagant usage of bokeh, i have to say I love and use these things constantly. I like the rendering that the majority of my lenses give when they are in fact shot wide open...points of light and the corresponding bokeh can be there or not. If I'm walking around town, I'll rack it to 5.6-8.

Something else to consider is that as a general "rule", most lenses perform their best for sharpness, aberrations and minimal vignetting at ~2 stops down from wide open. Using these 'Lux's and such allows for the maximum performance, whilst still being at a point you can shoot in most moderate to diminished lighting situations hand held....THEN, you also maintain the option for creative DOF. This is why I'll almost always opt for the fast glass (my handle here, and the original name of my studio once...you can probably understand my preference for it) unless I'm specifically targeting a lenses designed attributes...like the APO 'cron, no slouch at f/2...

[prk60091]

There's something called composition. A good composition includes and discards elements in a photograph

 

By the way, I would like to have the naked lady, burning airplane, and dead elephant recognizable in the photograph as they put the dog sniffing the wrapper in context. Every photograph should tell a story. It's difficult to do so when everything melts into a buttery smooth blur.

The photographer may not be able to control all aspects of the composition.  If all photography is based on compromise then the artist may utilize bokeh to control composition. 

 

Like everything ...it depends on what the artist is trying to communicate. Street journalism is a different beast than landscape/macro/wedding/architectural . To say that one technique is 'right' for all is folly. 

 

In street journalism bokeh may not be appropriate. However I in macro it may be.  

 

It it really depends on the situation. To say you can only look at 1 or 2 bokeh shots a day is very short sighted. 

[250swb]

But the spell-checker unfortunately cannot distinguish between a 'preposition' and a 'proposition'.   

 

Hey, I think I used that word!

 

I didn't mean 'proposition' though, the OP made no proposition in the title of the thread, it was a question followed by a statement. The preposition or prepositioning of the discussion was that anybody who disliked OOF was doing it from a malicious standpoint. Thus loading the debate to get a certain answer. So don't confuse preposition with another word that is spelt the same or one that can be confused in a spell checker. I just looked it up on the interweb to give another example and that given is a General preposition's his troops ready for battle, but unless he is a very happy General he doesn't proposition his troops. But I suppose this becomes as confusing as pre-visualisation and visualisation, so I'll just say I'm delighted it turned out that everybody who does dislike OOF does it from an elevated viewpoint on the intellectual battlefield and not from malice.

 

Steve

[skinnfell]

(Sorry to arrive late to the party here.)

 

I am one of those with a "newfound malice toward bokeh".

 

In photography we have a very large "toolbox" of visual tricks we can use to enhance our message.

Used skillfully they can increase the chances that the viewer "gets it".

If used haphazardly of unknowingly, we risk the opposite effect.

 

Then you have some tricks that gets used so often that they become a cliché in themselves.

I belive that the bokeh-everything look is getting close to this point. 

It is a easy (but very effective) trick to remove most if not all of context, placement and often composition.

We are saying:  here is the subject and that is the only thing that matters. 

Which is fine, as long as that doesn't become your one-trick-pony.

Some photographers manage this very well, by using bokeh in such a manner that there still is some information or context left.

In the oughties with the advent of digital cameras it became hugely popular to darken skies into a black tarmac.

Before that, the nineties,it was very popular to tilt horizons, just because.

In the eighties we had the cokin filter craze, with sunbursts, soft filters and whatnot.

Look to the music industry and you have the autotune problems (the Cher-effect). 

 

See where I am going with this? 

The over-prevalence of an effect, to the point of a gimmick helps ruin that effect for a lot of people.

 

Since I try to practise what I preach, I myself rarely venture below F4.

At this aperture there is still plenty of foreground/background separation without complete isolation.

 

You know, When everybody plays the same tune...

Bottom line: I am not poo-pooing those who work at full aperture, I am just saying it's being done a little too much for my tastes.

 

 

site link below.

[pop]

(...) In the oughties with the advent of digital cameras it became hugely popular to darken skies into a black tarmac.

Before that, the nineties,it was very popular to tilt horizons, just because. (...)

It seems to me that you are saying that every now and then some style or technique catches the fancy of a large part of the photographing population, and that bokeh abuse is just this season's fad.

 

That appears to have a few corollaries:

 

Those who dislike bokeh abuse have to just sit it out as it will peter out of its own, to make way to abuse of another style or technique.

Telling good from bad bokeh use might be difficult for the time being.

The number of photographers who competently apply bokeh to their images is - during this season - smaller than the number of photographers who abuse it.

The ratio will remain about the same for the next fad.

 

None of those quite startling, i'm afraid, but perhaps useful to remember, nonetheless.

[jaapv]

Not that I find this photograph brilliant, but try and imagine it sharp from front to back. Presenting a "photographic word" as out of bounds because it is a cliche is nonsense. Either you will need subject separation or you don't, depending on the subject.

Avoiding it at all costs because "everybody" is doing it does not make sense.

Wildlife photography, for instance, cannot exist without sharply defined zones of focus. On the other hand, wide apertures are far less often  needed in landscape photography.

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[Peter H]

Not that I find this photograph brilliant, but try and imagine it sharp from front to back. Presenting a "photographic word" as out of bounds because it is a cliche is nonsense. Either you will need subject separation or you don't, depending on the subject.

Avoiding it at all costs because "everybody" is doing it does not make sense.

Wildlife photography, for instance, cannot exist without sharply defined zones of focus. On the other hand, wide apertures are far less often  needed in landscape photography.

 

Most critics of the heavy use bokeh have, I think, used that caveat that you are now invoking Jaap. Of course there are times, as in your example, when it is not only unavoidable but probably beneficial to the photo to have an OOF background.

 

That isn't the argument though.

[jaapv]

The same critique can be levelled at the f 64 crowd...

A general dislike of ill-taken photographs is understandable and probably shared by most of us.

I think it is  slightly narrow-sighted to single out one aspect.

[edwardkaraa]

The photographer may not be able to control all aspects of the composition. If all photography is based on compromise then the artist may utilize bokeh to control composition.

 

Like everything ...it depends on what the artist is trying to communicate. Street journalism is a different beast than landscape/macro/wedding/architectural . To say that one technique is 'right' for all is folly.

 

In street journalism bokeh may not be appropriate. However I in macro it may be.

 

It it really depends on the situation. To say you can only look at 1 or 2 bokeh shots a day is very short sighted.

Please don't twist my words and use this patronizing tone. I'm talking about photos that only mean to show off the OOF blur without meaningful content. Of course you need shallow dof for portraits and weddings. And for macro, actually taking shots without shallow dof is a tour de force only possible with tilting lenses or image stacking. And yeah, I can only bear to see a couple of stupid bokeh shots a day, that's my personal preference, what's your problem with that and how is it short sighted?

[prk60091]

Please don't twist my words and use this patronizing tone. I'm talking about photos that only mean to show off the OOF blur without meaningful content. Of course you need shallow dof for portraits and weddings. And for macro, actually taking shots without shallow dof is a tour de force only possible with tilting lenses or image stacking. And yeah, I can only bear to see a couple of stupid bokeh shots a day, that's my personal preference, what's your problem with that and how is it short sighted?

When you speak in absolutes your meaning is bound to be misunderstood. 

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[skinnfell]

It seems to me that you are saying that every now and then some style or technique catches the fancy of a large part of the photographing population, and that bokeh abuse is just this season's fad.

 

That appears to have a few corollaries:

 

Those who dislike bokeh abuse have to just sit it out as it will peter out of its own, to make way to abuse of another style or technique.

Telling good from bad bokeh use might be difficult for the time being.

The number of photographers who competently apply bokeh to their images is - during this season - smaller than the number of photographers who abuse it.

The ratio will remain about the same for the next fad.

 

None of those quite startling, i'm afraid, but perhaps useful to remember, nonetheless.

 

I agree.

 

To elaborat my post: what what we are talking about here is exaggerated foreground/background separation. Sometimes to the point that the background is gone altogether.

(And done as an effect, not because of light level requirements).

It definitely is a powerful and appealing effect, and some use it expertly. And then you have those who dole it on at every opportunity.

 

I believe it's a fad, yes, brought on by the advent of cheap, full- or near full-frame SLRs.

Its no coincidence that people are adding corner blur to their instagram shots.

 

Still, its not impossible to tell the sincere from the pretenders.

In photo shcool we had to do thorough image analysis. Which meant going through all the active and passive elements in a photo, detect any applied effects (such as bokeh, tilted horizons and darkened skies), look at composition, try to describe any connotations or cultural associations with the target group, and then compare all this to what we thought was the photographer's intended message.

Basically you ask the question with each aspect of the image: What does this effect do to the image?

 

 

A good example could be said if the background contains many strong lines and other visual elements, and throwing it into blurriness is the only way to make the subject stand out. 

(Another poster mentioned several other ways of making the subject stand out, and I personally prefer all of them to blurriness)

 

Another example: I mentioned tilted horizons. According to image theory this imbues the image with a restless,imbalanced feeling, because we are used to seeing the horizon straight and level. This is just perfect if you are trying to create a sense of disorientation or stress. Not so much if you want to convey the serenity of a beautiful landscape. I also mentioned dark skies. What else can dark skies symbolize than "a storm is coming"?. Again, excellent if there actually is a storm coming (even as an emotional metaphor). Again if you want to convey daily life or basically anything other than that a storm is coming, then such an effect just comes across as silly. (I also mentioned starburst and soft filters, but I can think of no situation where a sane individual would want to use those.)

[Exodies]

I think you can also get dark skies at night, and at any time in dreams.