3 Rug Rats and 3 Lenses

Blonde Moment

Here are my three Rug Rats each taken with a different lens. A good study in persepctive.

The first is my 11 year old daughter teken with a 50mm f1.8 @ f2, 1/80th ISO800

Blonde Moment

The second is my 14 year old son doing his homework, taken with a 85mm f1.4 @ f4, 1/60th ISO100

Blonde Moment

The third is my 17 year old son waiting on the sideline whilst playing Australian Rules Football, taken with a 200mm f2.0 VR @ f2, 1/1250th ISO100
All taken with Nikon D2X and Nikkor lenses

Mark
Darwin, Australia

Cason

1 and 2 are out of focus. How close were you to the subject?

3 is a great capture.

Blonde Moment

#1 was taken at about 4 feet, at this range the lens a Nikkor AFD f1.8 actually works as a soft focus. If you look closely at the image, no area of her face is sharp even though their is 4 to 5 inches depth in the image.

# 2 was taken at about 10 feet and the prints are sharp to 8 x 10

Elaine

Your kids are gorgeous! The third shot is really excellent. I would prefer less soft focus in the first two.

Elaine

PS - My in-laws visited friends in Darwin last August. They had a great time!

Owen

The first two do appear to be out of focus.
The picture of your 14 year old has the hair sharp, but the eyes are out.
The last looks spot on, and it's a nice shot of a good looking person.

Seneca

I agree 1 and 2 are not focused...but you do have some great looking kids.

Blonde Moment

Having had a look again at the originals, the second is out of focus, but as I said, it is sharp on the 8 x 10 print I have.

The first one of my daughter is as sharp as it gets with this lens, also it was taken at ISO 800 which adds to the softness.

Being new to Digital, my old gear was Canon with FD L lenses and a Pentax 67 system as well.

I am finding it very easy to be over critical of the images displayed on my 20" iMac.

What was acceptable even 5 years ago is now not as good, but when they are printed, the result is the same, exceptionally sharp prints.

I am finding I am shooting differently because of this and deleting more images straight from the camera as well.

When showing clients images when I was shooting film, they where all proof sheets, now it is on screen at full size which are showing flaws such as posted here.

I will be going back to printing proofs, that they can take away.

One good thing that will become of all this is greater resolution of lenses, such as the Nikkor 200mm AFS VR f2 (image 3). Its sharpness, colour resolution and contrast are a degree or two greater than anything else.

This also raises an interesting question, is it the subject, composition, lighting, focus or the equipment that the posts so far suggest the last image is the best?

When seen in printed form, 8 x 10, they are all dramatic images and generating completely different emotional responses.

Blonde Moment

Just re-read my last post at it may be taken as I cannot take anything against me or mine.

Please feel free it give it to me if you do not agree, nothing better than a good argument.

As I said in the first post, this is a study in perspective, one of the most often overlooked areas of this addiction and one that I believe has been produced by zoom lenses.

It is my belief that zooms are making us all focus on the primary subject without being creative to focus on the primary subject.

I was tonite looking at a book I have "Begin with Bailey", a book by David Bailey from 1983. Very interesting images, all classics and it was all about composition, not so much the subject, but all focusing on the subject because of the composition.

System

Owen wrote:

The first two do appear to be out of focus.
The picture of your 14 year old has the hair sharp, but the eyes are out.
The last looks spot on, and it's a nice shot of a good looking person.

I agree excepting #1's hair is also sharp-

#3, in my mind, works because of all that you mentioned plus the blur or bokeh of the bg-

you said #2 is oof but sharp on your print-

are you saying that the oof is sharp on your print or that it is no longer oof on your print?-

guess you could have a sharp oof photo-

I think that most people are accustomed to, if you have a partial oof or soft photo with a portion of it sharp, or in focus, having the eyes in focus, and/or sharp-

I don't know if that's classic portraiture or a trend or what; I do know I prefer to have at least the eyes sharp-

just my thoughts-

Blonde Moment

george, trying to understand what oof is?

Here is an example of what is or is not acceptable. # 2 sons right eye is sharp and his left is out of focus, very narrow DOF of the 200 f2 @ f2.

But if you stand 10 or 15 feet from your computer screen, both eyes are in focus. I am not saying this image is acceptable, just what the eye sees when it is printed , hung on a wall and viewed from a distance.

LilleG

Uh...no, they're not. At 12 feet or so, it's not as noticeable but you are still aware that one is not as sharp as the other. Whether or not that is acceptable is personal taste but it does show.

SitterS

If you are looking for opinions I have to agree with LilleG that even at a distance you can tell that one eye is in focus and the other is not. Also agree that if that is what you personally prefer then go for it.

Blonde Moment

Thanks for the replys and rebuttles (can't spell either).

Yes it is up to what one prefers and that is what I believe photography is all about.

When shooting people, it is all about the emotional response it produces in the viewer. If the photographer can create emotion, the images then become more than the image itself.

I am not saying I can do this, but it is what I am trying to do. I don't know if I ever will be able, but that does not stop my trying and learning.