> 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

> 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.