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> I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems w

> I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems weird to me. And yet that is exactly how many photographers use depth of field. Especially amateur portraitists; the shallowest depth of field they can pull off, with the eyes sharp and the least "distracting" background. (Ever notice the fundamental difference between commercial editorial photography and amateur portrait photography? It is this. Amateur portraitists use blurry backgrounds as a tool to escape complexity.) FWIW, 25 years ago we would not have had this conversation (notwithstanding the non-existence of HN), because this idea of out-of-focus-rendering as an inherently important quality of a specific lens almost did not ever come up. (And we didn't have the word until Mike Johnston introduced it to the english language). Bokeh obsession (as distinct from what used to be called "choosing the right depth of field for your composition") is a very modern, super-fast-aperture, gear-maximalist thing. The mobile phone bursts this very contemporary bubble, if you'll excuse the pun.

dsego 5y ago
As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. And this is currently the biggest difference I can notice between photos produced with my X-T30 and a Xiaomi mid-tier phone, the pictures don't look flat, sometimes it even feels like looking through a window into the scene. The other two differences are field of view and the resolution, since my phone is equipped with a wide angle lens. TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. To be clear what I mean is that really the "shot at f/1.4 wide open" portrait thing is an amateur phenomenon. It is just not a big part of commercial portraiture at all, outdoors or in. > TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone. Right. This is what I find -- especially with black and white images (my iPhone seems to produce images that work well with, say, a Pan F thing). But this depth of field stuff what I mean about the way mobile phones force you to think about subject isolation, all of the time; even on the telephoto lens except with subjects less than a couple of feet away. My experience is that people who have never used a DSLR do not have as much trouble getting phone photos they like that are actually good. Partly because they haven't had either the scope or crutch it offers; they are used to seeing and instinctively composing without it. Also because DSLR users spend most of their time composing wide open, not at their target aperture, which ultimately warps our perception and steers us towards shooting images more like the full-time view we get from the viewfinder. There is an art to subject isolation in composition with constant front-to-back sharpness at all times, and a mobile phone will force you to think about it.

dsego 5y ago

As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. And this is currently the biggest difference I can notice between photos produced with my X-T30 and a Xiaomi mid-tier phone, the pictures don't look flat, sometimes it even feels like looking through a window into the scene. The other two differences are field of view and the resolution, since my phone is equipped with a wide angle lens. TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. To be clear what I mean is that really the "shot at f/1.4 wide open" portrait thing is an amateur phenomenon. It is just not a big part of commercial portraiture at all, outdoors or in. > TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone. Right. This is what I find -- especially with black and white images (my iPhone seems to produce images that work well with, say, a Pan F thing). But this depth of field stuff what I mean about the way mobile phones force you to think about subject isolation, all of the time; even on the telephoto lens except with subjects less than a couple of feet away. My experience is that people who have never used a DSLR do not have as much trouble getting phone photos they like that are actually good. Partly because they haven't had either the scope or crutch it offers; they are used to seeing and instinctively composing without it. Also because DSLR users spend most of their time composing wide open, not at their target aperture, which ultimately warps our perception and steers us towards shooting images more like the full-time view we get from the viewfinder. There is an art to subject isolation in composition with constant front-to-back sharpness at all times, and a mobile phone will force you to think about it.