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Wide open or stopped down?


biglouis

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I took both these pictures today in London's Regents Park. M8 24/2.8 asph

 

The first I took wide open a f2.8, hence the oof areas beyond the small patch of purple flowers. The second one I took hyperfocally with the aperture set to f/11 but infinity set to f8 on the scale.

 

I can't decide whether the shallow depth of field shot works better than the deeper focus shot. Do landscapes work if a relatively large area of the background is out of focus? Critques and responses welcome.

 

wide open

[ATTACH]80665[/ATTACH]

 

stopped down

[ATTACH]80666[/ATTACH]

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Depends totally on what your intention was Louis and where you want to divert the viewer's eyes.

 

I'm a complete believer in 'isolate and emphasise' and aperture settings are one of the prime ways to control this.

 

If your image is a flower photo then the wider aperture will assist. If it's a grande vista of a field, then stop down. IMO, the background has no interest and is there to support the flowers, but only you know that.

 

It'd help if you expanded on what your intent was. Nice images though.

 

Rolo

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Guys

 

Thanks for all the opinions and valuable critiques. I was wandering lonely as a cloud when I came across this weird carpet of pink flowers, set amid a (man made) glade in Regent's Park.

 

Now, the 24 Elmarit is the mother of all wide angles (imho) -you stop this mother down and everything from the tip of your nose to the horizon is rendered sharply (perhaps I exaggerate a tad). So, I did my usual shtick but at some point I must have absent mindedly opened it up while trying to increase the speed. The result is the shallow depth of field shot.

 

What I intended was a landscape which caught the wonderful lush new greenery and the pretty pink flowers. What I captured was the pink flowers and to my mind an dreamy spring-like background. I think I like it better than a focused background (horrible Rugby posts and all).

 

Anyway, just wanted to test the opinions of others. I am nothing if not persistent so I went back today and shot the same picture. This time using my 75cron to further isolate the foreground and compress and blur the background. Sadly, I don't think I got quite low enough to achieve a more conventional 50/50 split but I can still go back and try again!

 

M8 cron75 iso320 f4 1/2000

 

PS I know there is flare in the background, I'll PS it out at some point.

 

[ATTACH]80786[/ATTACH]

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