Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>>> Pictorial photography begins and ends with perception...KISS yes, but "it's the picture, stupid," is also true. If it looks good, it is good. If it doesn't, it ain't. Perception is the whole ball game, not only in the meaning of the subject, but in pictorial photographic technique, too.<<< For a specific example, check out: http://gemma.geo.uaic.ro/~vdonisa/fa85_14/bos2.html Under the section titled "Bokeh & Sharpness vs. aperture" you'll see five test shots that Bruce Dayton made of his little girl. First, take a look at the f/5.6 shot compared to the f/1.4 shot. To me--and this is only one viewer's opinion--the f/5.6 shot is too sharp. Specifically, the background is coming into focus enough to be distracting; the lens's rendition seems analytical, the texture of the skin (even a child's skin) is beginning to be too apparent. That is, it has too much attention drawn to it. Now look at the f/1.4 shot. To me (again, just to me--I'm not dictating), it's the more pleasing picture of the two. The eyes are just sharp enough not to frustrate with too low a level of detail; the background is entirely out of the picture and not distracting, while at the same time not looking fakey; the skin texture is not prominent to the observer's eye. Aesthetically, this looks better to me. Now look also, if you like, at the other shots in between. Aesthetically, which looks best to you? I imagine everybody will have his or her own opinion, because each of us have our own taste. To me, the f/2 shot is the best balance. In that one, the eyes are clear enough, and not just at the verge of being questionable as they are in the f/1.4 shot. The head has detail a little further back. Yet the background is still soft and not much of an element of the picture. The skin is still not showing too much surface texture. I prefer this to the f/5.6 shot. Yet even in the f/2 shot, the actual resolution is quite poor. Certainly as we view it onscreen, the f/1.4 shot is very poor in terms of presenting fine detail. - --Mike P.S. My friend Bob Meier just had a picture published in _The New Yorker_. It's in the Nov. 13th issue, page 111. It's his first in that magazine so I wanted to blow his horn a little bit. He's a Leica shooter, although I'm not sure what equipment he was using in China.