[Leica] Motion contest blur

[steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour)]

as a scientist, I was trained in physics, biology, and medicine....

sorry Larry, but I don't fully follow ....


what do you think of this one?


http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/barbour/paw2013/codyballs.jpg.html





Steve



On Aug 12, 2013, at 8:05 PM, lrzeitlin at aol.com wrote:

> I'm glad that no winner has been declared in the Motion contest. Years of 
> being an art critic for several local newspapers have convinced me that 
> image selection by a single juror is a fallible process. Some images and 
> photos that have been declared "Best of Show" by one juror have been 
> rejected by another. It's all a matter of personal taste, the Zeitgeist, 
> and for all I know, the phase of the moon. But I'd like to get something 
> off my chest without, hopefully, offending anyone.
> 
> 
> About BLUR. It is well to remember that blur is an artifact of the 
> photographic process. I am appalled by some comments made during the 
> Motion contest that suggest that a depiction of blur automatically implies 
> movement.
> 
> 
> Normally the human eye doesn't see blurring of a moving object. When we 
> look at something in motion our eyes alternate between quick eye movements 
> and focusing on a single point on the object. When our eyes are moving, we 
> are functionally blind. We see the moving object as a series of still 
> images which our brain fuses together into a concept of motion. When we 
> track a moving object by fixating on a single point the motion blur of the 
> object is eliminated. Instead the background itself becomes less clear.
> 
> 
> To see what I mean, remember that the refresh rate of the normal human eye 
> is between 15 and 20 times a second. Early motion pictures used 16 frames 
> a second to depict motion. Now drive down the highway at 60 mph. (Try 100 
> kph if you are mileage impaired.) The roadway seen out of the windshield 
> appears perfectly sharp. You can read the traffic signs, see the bumps in 
> the road, even the dead squirrel crushed by the previous car. Now point 
> your camera at the roadway and take a picture through the windshield at 
> 1/20 second. Everything I mentioned will be blurred. The foliage along the 
> edge of the road will no longer be sharp, Bumps and potholes will be 
> indistinct. And you will be unable to tell if the carcass on the road is a 
> squirrel or a cat. The camera doesn't have a brain. Hopefully you do.
> 
> 
> Cameras traditionally recorded a moving object as blurred because older 
> films required a shutter speed which was insufficient to record the 
> details of the scene at a moment in time. In the early days of photography 
> exposure times were measured in minutes. Or the camera itself would shake 
> and everything in the frame is blurred. Over the years viewers of still 
> pictures learned that blurred images meant that the object shown was 
> moving. Interpreting a photograph is a learning process. There is little 
> in a photo that truly duplicates reality. ?
> 
> 
> Most modern digital cameras incorporate camera motion detectors to 
> minimize the effects of camera shake. One part of the pre WW2 Leica/Contax 
> conflict was the argument about which direction of shutter movement, 
> vertical or horizontal, produced the most convincing representation of 
> object motion. Contax seemed to be the winner, at least in auto and bike 
> racing since the vertical motion of the shutter distorted wheels so they 
> appeared to be tilting forward. This implied rapid motion. Auto and bike 
> posters of the era were drawn to emphasize this effect.
> 
> 
> Appropriate selection of shutter speed or following the motion of a moving 
> object can introduce enough controlled image blur to give the impression 
> of motion but you have to know what you are doing. BLUR DOES NOT 
> AUTOMATICALLY MEAN MOTION. Sometimes it just means bad photography. Motion 
> should be suggested by picture content. Not by exploiting a past 
> limitation of the photographic process. Remember that Harold Edgerton's 
> strobelight photos, the first that captured the motion of really high 
> speed objects like bullets cutting a playing card, were perfectly sharp.
> 
> 
> In the 21st. century. it is well not to be bound by the limitations of the 
> past or the opinions of mossbacks like myself.
> 
> 
> Larry Z
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information