I saw an ad for a new function on Smartphone cameras
– Portrait Mode. It stated that it was pure “magic.”
I like magical things if they promote artistic
curiosity. So I read about this new technology.
It seems that the approach is to have both telephoto
and wide angle capabilities work simultaneously. The software creates a
nine-point depth map, which results in an “artificial depth of field”!
Hmm. In the old days (and many of us are still in
those days…) we used to call it blurring the background by manually opening the
lens to its widest. It was for this reason that an f1.7 lens was many times
more expensive than an f2.8 lens. With slow shutter speed and wide opened lens
one could do magical things. Well at least blur all background and have the
subject stand out. That is why it is a portrait – it is only the subject in the
frame that is in focus.
Artificial depth of field! Nine-point depth map… I
could not resist choosing some photos I have taken to show how attractive a
REAL depth of field can look.
… But first, let me state that the discussion about
the depth of field goes back to the early days of photography. The commonly
used word is bokeh which is Japanese
for …BLUR!!!! I have written more about it here: https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2016/10/bokeh-or-not-bokeh.html
… So, let’s start with a non-blurred (or no-bokeh)
photo. This I took with a 1960s Ukrainian Salyut medium format camera and
wide-angle lens pointed at the sun. The clouds are perfectly clear. No blurring anywhere and the
sun rays are delightfully shaped.
Here is an avian “portrait” using a 1960s Nikon
Nikkor 180mm at f2.8. The subject is quite in focus but the mountain and the
morning fog are not. That is the bokeh through the depth of field, which in this
case was decreased to blur the background.
But the depth of field does not pertain to outdoor
pictures only. Here is my dog, indoors, looking at a Canon Serenar lens from
the 1940s opened to f1.9. The camera is
a 1954 Canon rangefinder, demonstrating that a bokeh can be achieved without
using a Single-lens Reflex (SLR) camera. No flash of course.
The depth of field blur works also great in street
photography when I want to isolate a person from the crowd. Here is one taken with
my 1960s Mamiya 645 and the venerable Mamiya Sekor 90mm lens set to f1.9. The
creamy bokeh of this lens always delights me.
Finally, there are shades of bokeh, of course. That
is, the photographer would decide what f-stop and shutter speed to use to have
enough of a blur to be able to identify the background yet isolate the subject
in a pleasing way. This is more challenging, because the eye is not capable to
appreciate “some” bokeh vs intense blurring. Here is an example:
I took this with a 1960s Olympus OM-1 sporting now
relatively rare to find Vivitar 135mm Close Focusing telephoto. I wanted to
include the sailboat, the woman atop the mast, and the harbor’s buildings in
the frame, with minimal blurring of the buildings.
What woman you ask? Here is the cropped area. Quite
amazing that from perhaps 500 meters away, the 35mm ASA 100 film can capture
enough details to see the woman clearly when cropped. Perhaps that is why this
Vivitar lens is so sought after.
… I know that the bokeh topic will remain a
discussion favorite as long as photography exists. In some way, I feel good
that smart phones and virtual depth of field magic keeps the topic alive.
But I shall stick to my manual focus lenses and real
depth of fields!
May 14, 2017
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment