And it begins: the E-P1 with a Voigtländer Nokton, and with the old 40mm ƒ/1.4 lens from the original Pen and with any Four-Thirds lens you choose....
I should just point out that the post "Fake Photojournalism Wins" from two days ago was the purest example yet on this site of automatic blogging. Michael Walker appended the link to a comment he made. I checked it (as I check all the links in the comments) and thought it was interesting, so I posted it. You then took over.
I thought the discussion that ensued was really good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it—there were some really thoughtful, subtle, intelligent comments on many aspects of the case, and from both sides (approving and disapproving).
And I didn't have to do anything. Except flip the switch.
I'm just sayin'.
...My coda, anyway. The original post was published on June 21st. A couple of final points:
1. My philosophy has always been that people should have fun with photography any way they want to as long as it's legal and doesn't hurt others. So if anyone wants to make a lifetime study of the science of DoF, I have zero objection.
2. I shouldn't have said, about depth of field (DoF), that "Most of what's out there is 99.75% complete chrome-plated bulldung." That's only the cumulative effect of error-ridden forum-style exchanges between non-experts. Henceforth, I'm going to recommend Paul Van Walree's excellent and well-written page to anyone who asks about the subject.
3. ...Comma, however, I need to reaffirm my commitment never to talk about the subject. What can I say? I backslid.*
4. The flickr slide show that Johnny R created and linked to in the comments was pretty cool (even though the bokeh of that first picture gives me full-blown heebie-jeebies). His comment was antagonistic, which wasn't really necessary, but it did make me feel strange—first time in 12 years I've been criticized for being anti-bokeh....
5. I feel rather sheepish for being very thick about one thing. I had my "duh moment" about this at long last thanks to some of our commenters. The fact is, I'd been reading persistent and (theretofore) inexplicable rants, claims, and misinformation about shallow DoF for something like a year without understanding the reason behind it: it's because people are trying to rationalize their purchase of a full-frame DSLR! Or trying to assert the superiority of the full-frame DSLR they've already bought. Duh! I'm normally pretty good at detecting the psychological underpinnings for any given observed upsurge in hooey, but I wasn't on top of that one. I should have been on to it a lot sooner.
Which leads me to...
6. The smaller size of APS-C and 4/3 sensors is really much more of an advantage than a disadvantage, in my opinion, because it allows us to use shorter lenses for the same angle of view and get more DoF at wider apertures. All else being equal**, I prefer an APS-C or 4/3 sensor to a 35mm or "full frame" one where DoF is concerned.
Which leads me to....
7. We should remind ourselves from time to time that the visual (aesthetic) conventions of photography we're all so used to are essentially an accident of the medium's technical properties. When a fixed-lens camera takes a picture of a flower in the foreground, we expect the background to be out of the DoF and blurry, but there's nothing artistically intentional in that preference—it's only because we've become used to the way in which cameras typically render scenes visually that we think it's appropriate and desirable. We might exploit the innate photographic properties to explore the visual implications of those properties, but that's a case of us adapting to our tools.
What I'm saying is that if the physics of lenses happened to dictate that far focus distances had little DoF and close ones had large DoF, then that's what we'd be used to, and expect, and demand. But there wouldn't be anything innately superior about it aesthetically.
Right now, thanks to Photoshop et al., we are less dependent on the inherent properties of camera vision than ever before (for better or worse). And it's quite possible that we shall soon be entering an era when the visual properties of imaging systems will be enormously more varied and flexible than they are now. When that happens, the properties of "camera vision" will be even less fixed, and in that case peoples' expectations and preferences will evolve further. When that happens, artistic intention will play a greater role than it does now. For the time being, however, DoF is less a parameter that we have to "control" than it is a property we can't do all that much about, and which we must simply accept.
And finally...
8. Don't obsess about it. That's my recommendation, anyway. Pay attention, study your pictures, and you'll get a feel for DoF eventually. At that point, as well as in the meantime, it is what it is. A picture either works or it doesn't.
Mike
*Past tense of backslide, meaning to relapse into temptation, bad habits, or practices previously foresworn.
**The problem, as I've written elsewhere, is that all else is not equal. The APS-C and 4/3 viewfinders are not as good, and the cameramakers have not seen fit to provide us with more than a hodgepodge of lenses designed for the reduced-size formats, complicating lens choice considerably. But the reason I like full-frame cameras is for their viewfinders and because they restore traditional focal-length lenses to their traditional angles of view, and (secondarily) because of their somewhat improved high-ISO characteristics—not for any reason having to do with DoF.
By Sabrina Weniger
In the just-released current (July, 2009) issue of Zeiss Camera Lens News there's a short article by Sabrina Weniger about working with the new Zeiss ZE Planar T* 50mm ƒ/1.4 for Canon EF mount.
The Zeiss Planar 50mm ƒ/1.4 ZE is probably only "better" than its Canon equivalent at ƒ/1.4 and perhaps ƒ/2—but it "draws" differently (as Sean Reid might say), and its beautiful build and handling make it a very satisfying long-normal lens on full-frame DSLRs as well as a superb portrait-type optic for any of the better Canon APS-C cameras. (And thus, as I probably don't need to point out, a sweet lens to have both now and later if you're planning a future move from a reduced-sensor Canon to a full-frame one). There's a good review (of the Nikon equivalent, which I assume is optically identical) here.
By Chase Jarvis
Two French students were awarded the annual Grand Prix du Photoreportage Etudiant last week to honor a photographic story that presented images documenting the precarious lives of students today and the things they must do in order to survive and succeed.
The only catch is that the entire story was a fake....
READ ON at blog.chasejarvis.com
*"I've been in conflict with my family since I was sixteen. Even though I don't have any money or help from my parents, I've always known how to take care of myself." Armin, 23 years old, Master of Sociology.
Backstage...this year's Canon AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards attracted 655 entrants from all over Australia, submitting a total of 2,367 images. Behind the scenes the prints wait in their cases to be judged.
Print handler Phillipa Adams rotates the next print to be judged. Each image was reviewed and marked by a panel of experts over three days of judging. (Photos: Charlie Brewer)
A sampling of the winners' work can be seen online.
In the continuing absence of hands-on primary experience, maybe this will help with the E-P1 size debate. A regular reader who's become a friend of the site sent me this illustration he made. He took the images from various places on the web but they're presented scrupulously to scale. (Personally, I think each of us should just wait to judge until we see and hold the camera for ourselves. But we're here to please.)
Left to right, Canon G10 (1/1.7" small sensor), Olympus E-P1 (Micro 4/3), Canon 450D (APS-C), and Canon 5D Mark II (24x36mm or "full-frame"). Click on the image to see it a bit larger.
Featured Comment by JK @ Studio Hatyai: "For close to a year, c. 1992, I carried a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder around Tokyo pretty much every day. It was a fairly big, clunky, noisy camera, but within a few months I stopped noticing those things, as you do with something you’re using all the time. The curious thing was, most of my subjects seemed to stop noticing it about then too. Somehow they were picking up on my casualness with the thing.
"Ever since then I’ve quit worrying about the exact size, color, shape etc. of a camera, at least in terms of its potential discretion. Much more than anything else, subjects respond to your ease with your gear, and your ease with them."
Mike replies: I had a weird experience once with that very camera that confirms part of what you're saying. I had one for a few days to try, and I felt very awkward and nervous pointing it at people. One time, believe it or not, I pointed it from my 4th-floor balcony at some nearby construction, at one guy working on a roof, and as I was looking through the camera the construction worker looked right up at me and glared. It seemed to me at the time like he had sensed himself being watched or spied on. It was uncanny, but I don't think it was a coincidence. Although it might have been, of course.
Not many people can say truthfully that they've been published in The New Yorker: I noticed that our own Geoff Wittig, who has written many book reviews for TOP, got a letter published in that magazine this week, in the context of his formal expertise (Geoff's an M.D. in real life). Nice going, Geoff!
Writing about Steve McCurry's new book The Unguarded Moment
But as I was thinking about it again I was poking around on Amazon seeing what's in print and what's not, and I came across David Pye's lovely little book The Nature and Art of Workmanship
Right now, here, today, I'm not going to jump into the deep sea of talking about photography's relationship to craft, either historically or the way it's been changing again lately. It's a big subject. In any event, this is not a book that's directly about photography. But it's one of those rare books in which someone who's been thinking for a lifetime about a subject he knows deeply makes an attempt to share his hard-gained wisdom with others. In that way it's the opposite of much of the cookie-cutter, research-and-regurgitate, processed, pasteurized book product that passes for being publishable all too often these days. I certainly enjoyed it when I read it, and I treasure it on my shelves now, and I recommend it to you with feeling if it sounds like it might appeal.
ADDENDUM: Well for Pete's sake, I forgot the U.K. link
Featured Comment by Dale: "Just for perspective, I keep my copy of Nietzsche's The Use and Abuse of History next to my Gary Larson collection."
Featured Comment by Calvin Amari: "Sontag next to Barthes, eh? Something tells me this is a charged statement.
"Might it be that when you see statements, for example, like this in Sontag's On Photography: 'For politicians the three-quarter gaze is more common than [a frontal view]: a gaze that soars rather than confronts, suggesting instead of the relation to the viewer, to the present, the more ennobling abstract relation to the future.'
"...and this from Barthes' 'Photography and Electoral Appeal' written decades earlier: 'A three-quarter face photograph, which is more common than [a frontal view], suggests the tyranny of an ideal: the gaze is lost in the future, it does not confront, it soars and fertilizes some other domain, which is chastely left undefined.'
"...placing one volume in close physical proximity to the other is your symbolic editorial correction for the fact that Sontag didn't have the courtesy of even crediting the original with a footnote in this and similar examples? Just wondering."
Mike replies: Ah, that ill-defined line between "influence" and plagiarism. (Which brings to mind the question, how does one reproduce a Sherrie Levine in a book?) Your comparison of these quotes raises one ugly specter: that I might have found Barthes so difficult merely because his language (in translation) is less clear....
Anyway, there's that, and that they seemed to have had such a mutual admiration society going, and that their writings and all the related fuss were roughly contemporaneous, and that the books are roughly the same size and thickness...regarding that last, I'm not proud—I didn't say this habit of mine strictly made any sense.
Featured Comment by Glenn Gordon: "Here's a bad PDF of a piece I wrote in 1996 for Woodwork magazine on David Pye’s The Nature and Art of Workmanship. It was good to see your mention of the book—it was seminal for many craftsman that I know.
Download "The Workmanship of Risk" by Glenn Gordon
"Speaking of pairing books, I’ve always shelved Pye's next to Soetsu Yanagi's The Unknown Craftsman
Here's a deep treasure fished out of photography's recent past, rescued and revived by Steidl and the Pace McGill Gallery (where there was a show of the work this past spring). Emmet Gowin: Photographs
In retrospect this is something of a period piece. The sparse highlights pulled up out of the inky blacks is a printing style that now looks very '70s. Gowin includes Sommeresque landscapes, extreme wide angles, the dense, textured, flat-field arrays that would preoccupy his later work, and a Callahan-like
Some of the pictures were made with a medium-format lens mounted on a view camera, making the pictures circular, with the areas outside the image circle carefully burned to gray or black by the photographer (who had the reputation of being a virtuoso printer). The effect is like a keyhole, or like a peephole in a door, although we're looking in, not out. It enhances the feeling that we're seeing something private and essential.
I knew this book very well as a student, and in the mid '80s I got to meet Edith Gowin. I told friends at the time that it was like meeting Lincoln, another famous subject of many photographs. To me she had a legendary quality. She spoke, however, in a high-pitched voice with more than a trace of a mountain twang, her words full of warmth and generosity. (Lincoln, too, is described by contemporaries as having a peculiar-sounding, high-pitched voice.) Not at all like the imposing, vivid, and somewhat dark figure, half wild lover, half earth mother, that inhabits the book.
Emmet Gowin: Photographs contains one of my all-time favorite pictures, too, called Nancy, a picture that could neither be simpler nor more rare. (Reproduced in this article from a while back.)
I'll probably have to get the new edition, which is very faithful to the old one but better made (and hardcover). Even though I must say I don't like the new cover. The edition I have, in paperback, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1976. It cost me $4.47, which means I bought it used. I got it perhaps four or five years after it came out. One of the essential books in my library. I look at it every year. A book that's grown with me, like a much-loved piece of music.
(Here's the U.K. link
A couple of readers sent me this link, to a young woman in England with a German (or Dutch?) accent handling the Olympus E-P1. Sometimes seeing someone handle a camera can give you a better idea of what it really looks like.
(P.S. Somewhat annoyingly, I can no longer post YouTube videos directly here, because the minimum size of the videos now exceeds the width of my column. You know what they say: oh well. I wonder what would happen if I reset the size constraints manually....)
Featured Comment by Maarten B.: "German accent, definitely. The name is German too. For a Dutchman like me it is very easy to hear."
Featured Comment by Clayton Lofgren: "Another one with funny accent."
After I published the post called "The Leica as Teacher" on May 28th, followed by "Why It Has To Be a Leica" the next day, a number of people contacted me to say that they'd been inspired to try the "one Leica, one lens, one year" experiment that I was suggesting. (Good going and good luck to one and all, by the way!)
My old friend Nick Hartmann did that very experiment—one lens, one Leica—but he did it for almost a decade. He contacted me last week wanting to know how he might de-accession his old trusty Leica and 50mm Summicron while at the same time helping it to get into the hands of someone who might want to use it for its intended purpose.
So: one Leica, one lens for Sale. Cosmetically it's what would be called a "good user"—it has a few scars, and some scratches on the baseplate. Probably the worst thing appearance-wise is that Nick blacked out the engraved camera name and the "red dot" with a sharpie, and, when that didn't quite work, covered them with black electrician's tape. He's removed the tape, but the engraving and the red dot don't look so hot.
However, it's been treated well and scrupulously maintained since new. Nick bought it in September of 1996 and used it "almost daily" until April of 2005. During that time he logged 500 rolls of film (you can see some of his work online), which means the camera has seen about 20,000 shutter actuations. The M6 shutter will go to about 100,000 shots before needing service, and has been known to last for as many as 400,000. So there's a lot of life left in this one.
The lens is also somewhat "experienced," but the rear element has been protected by being on the camera since new, and the front element has always had a protective filter on it.
Mike and Zander at the Cozy Corner, Oak Park, by Nick Hartmann
Nick shot one of the best photo archives I have—for years when we'd see one another I'd drag Zander along to whatever restaurant we met at, and Nick would take pictures of us, then send prints to me. I have them all in an archival box, and the set as a whole is a lovely record of me and my son over the years of my adventure in single parenthood. Most of those pictures, of course, were shot with this very camera and lens.
Anyway, if you're one of those who are thinking of trying the "Leica year" experiment, here's a camera you can use. Nick would like to get $1475 for the camera and lens, which seems a fair going price. He'll stand behind the sale, as will I: in June, a year from now, if you'd like to re-sell the Hartmann Leica again (assuming of course you haven't done anything grievous to it in the meantime), I'll advertise it again here on TOP and you can pass it along to someone else who wants to try it.
Anyway, if you're interested, leave a comment to that effect and I'll pass your email address along to Nick. (In order, if there is more than one.)
BONUS: In the spirit of passing useful things along, the buyer of the Leica can also do a favor for another (perhaps young, perhaps impecunious) photographer he or she knows: Nick will send a "good user" Canon EOS Rebel XT DSLR and an EF 50mm ƒ/1.8II lens to a photographer of your choice, for free. Just let him know the name and address of the person you want the DSLR to go to when you make the arrangements for the M6.
UPDATE: About ten people have expressed interest now, in the comments and via email (it's about 6 p.m. here in the Midwest). Nick won't be in his office until Monday morning, but he'll get in touch with people then, in order. If it doesn't go to #1, then it will go to #2, and so on...in any event I think we can safely say it's sold now. Thanks to everybody who expressed interested, and if you just missed it, sorry about that.
I hope Ken doesn't mind us pointing this out, but it is pretty funny....
Featured Comment by Stephen Gillette: "A cautionary tale for all of us husbands to ponder. The '92 Subaru Justy comment really scares me. I think my wife would aim higher, but then again...."
UPDATE: The link is gone now. It was trivial—a Craig's List ad ostensibly by a woman from North York, near Toronto, wanting to trade in her "slightly defective" husband because he is obsessed with reading Ken Rockwell's website and wastes money buying all the latest cameras. One of the things she listed that she would take in trade for him was a '92 Subaru Justy. —Ed.
Cartoonist Curtis Tucker with an early romantic interest, some time in the '70s
Photographer Bruce McBroom tells Alex Altman the story of shooting the last of the great pinup girls...
"...It was just Farrah and myself. It was before the days where you had to have stylists and hair and makeup and background art directors and assistants. It was just me and Farrah and my Nikon, at the home she shared with Lee Majors, a house on Mulholland Drive overlooking Hollywood, with a beautiful view...."
ADDENDUM: Another example of one of the fundamental mysteries of still photography...how one shot can work so well and another, similiar shot doesn't. Although obviously an homage to the Farrah poster, this promo picture of another '70s pinup girl, Loni Anderson of "WKRP in Cincinnati," falls flat. (Although perhaps that isn't quite the right phrase....) —Mike
Michele McNally, Picture Editor for The New York Times, is answering questions, through tomorrow. Some good answers already.
Phase One has purchased Leaf. (Warning: PDF link). As Our Humble Correspondent, the Curator and Chief Featherduster at the Northeast Kingdom Field Camera Repository and Odd Format Graveyard puts it, "not something that's going to affect the average TOP reader. But in the small puddle of the MF digital market, it's an enormous splash."
Will there be a professional version of the Olympus EP-1? The BJoP's interview with Mr. Akira Watanabe.
Michael G. Dougan, Tambay (the Watchman)
This is the first picture I've personally seen from the new Fujifilm GF670 / Bessa 667. Brief review and more pictures by Michael Dougan at Japan Exposures.
In the announcement of the demise of Kodachrome the other day, reader Luc Novovitch asked about Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah. Our old friend Dan Westergren, Senior Photo Editor at National Geographic Traveler, has written a nice blog piece about the history of the name. The area, which encompasses the famous Grosvenor Arch pictured at right, was discovered, photographically at least, by an expedition led by National Geographic writer Jack Breed in 1949, who originally dubbed it "Kodachrome Flat" because it was so spectacularly photogenic. There's an ironic twist to this Grosvenor Arch picture, though! Nature photographers especially might be interested in checking out the link.
Meanwhile, Steve McCurry, whom Kodak has selected for the honor of shooting the ceremonial last roll of Kodachrome film later this year, has a new book out, and it's a beaut. Called The Unguarded Moment
McCurry is an elite travel/location photographer at the very top of his game. Fortunately for us his work is thoroughly represented and readily experienced in books. The Unguarded Moment, which might be his masterpiece, consists of horizontal pictures set vertically on the page, so the book is in effect bound at the top rather than the side, like Stuart Klipper's The Antarctic
To wander back on topic, Steve McCurry estimates that he's shot some 800,000 pictures on Kodachrome, including his most famous one.
By Jeff Ascough
I'd never seen Jeff Ascough's wedding photography blog before. It's worthwhile—well-written and thoughtful, and Jeff obviously knows what he's doing. Here's a nice piece about shooting weddings with a telephoto lens. You might not agree with it, or all of it (I hope I don't just post links to things I agree with...), but it highlights the fact that a lot about shooting technique has nothing to do with the photo-technical aspect:
Being unobtrusive is largely about behaviour, rather than dressing in black and trying to blend into the shadows.
What people do find uncomfortable, is the idea that they are being 'spied on.' Standing away from a group of people at a drinks reception, and pointing a large telephoto at them is far more suspicious in terms of behaviour, than being in and around them taking pictures. Guests can't see the photographer's face, and non-verbal communication is missing. This can lead to a degree of discomfort and a change in behaviour patterns, which I believe leads to poorer pictures.
If I were a wedding photographer I think I'd bookmark that blog. Sometimes I think that the highest compliment I can pay another photographer is to say he's a good shooter. (Or she.) And good wedding photographers are good shooters, for sure.
Mike
(Thanks to Geoff McCann)
Featured Comment by hlinton: "I'm kind of on the fence about this. Having shot events and weddings (and other assignments) all over the world I don't think one can limit themselves to just this or that approach. At times it works but as times change so do the processes. I use three zooms ranging from 16 to 200mm. Can't go anywhere without them. I was beginning to think that I never shoot anything wider than 28mm only to discover while shooting a party recently that I would have been in big trouble without the wider zoom. By the end of the night everything was shot on a 70–200. I really think it comes down to personalities. Jeff attracts the type of client that he shoots best allowing him to utilize his skills in a way that's appropriate for him. That's not to say that I don't agree with him. I just think that we all get to where we're going in our own way and his way may be (and most likely is) different than your way."
By Ctein
I don't know why this myth about the depth of field being utterly independent of focal length (for constant magnification) keeps on going, because it's easy to prove that it's wrong and sometimes it really matters that it's wrong.
Nonetheless, it is a myth and it is wrong.
Here's the real skinny. At close working distances, depth of field is nearly independent of focal length. In fact here's a handy approximate equation for depth of field that depends solely on circle of confusion (c), aperture (f), and on-film (or sensor) magnification (M):
DoF (on either side of the subject) = c*f*(M+1)/(M*M)
As you decrease the magnification, lens focal length starts to become more important. As you get close to the hyperfocal distance, to maintain comparable total depth of field, the magnification becomes inversely proportional to the focal length of the lens rather than being independent of it!
A good rule of thumb is that for just about any photography you do indoors, depth of field isn't going to be affected by focal length, just on-film magnification. But as you start photographic more distant subjects, the effect of focal length increases and eventually becomes as important as aperture.
At intermediate distances, the total depth of field (in front of and behind the subject combined) decreases as the focal length of the lens increases, for the same on-film magnification (and same aperture and circle of confusion). The distribution also changes. The shorter focal length lens will always have less depth of field in front of the subject than the longer focal length lens, but it will have more depth of field behind the subject than the longer focal length lens. In other words, for the shorter lens the depth of field is not only greater but more asymmetric.
These comparison photos illustrate how changing the focal length of the lens can change depth of field even when the on-film magnification stays the same. The photograph in the upper left was made with a 25mm lens and the one in the upper right with a 300mm lens. The lower photographs are enlargements of the ones directly above them.
I moved the camera to keep the on-film magnification 0.02X, but the distance between the targets didn't change and both photographs were made at ƒ/11. The front target is equally sharp in both photographs, but the far target is much blurrier in the 300mm photograph than in the 25mm photograph.
This graph shows how depth of field changes with on-film magnification for the 25mm and 300mm lenses. At closer distances (greater magnifications) focal length has minimal effect on depth of field; it becomes increasingly important as the distance increases. Notice that the total depth of field is always greater for the shorter lens, but the shorter lens has less depth of field in front of the subject and more depth of field behind it than the longer lens does.
Assuming you don't want to take my word for any of this, you can prove it yourself any one of several ways:
1. Mathematically—if depth of field really depends upon magnification and not lens focal length, you should be able to recast the depth of field equations using magnification as one of the variables so that focal length drops out entirely. Give it a try! Good luck!
2. Numerically—set up a spreadsheet with the depth of field equations that computes depth of field in front of and behind the subject as a function of on-film magnification (for a given f-stop and circle of confusion, of course). Try it out on a bunch of cases.
3. Pragmatically—pull out some of your lenses that still have depth of field markings on them. Compare the depth of field of markings between, oh say, your 50mm lens and a 300mm lens at distances that would correspond to the same on-film magnification (about six times further for the 300mm lens).
4. Logically—consider two extremes. First hyperfocal distance. Go to your textbook and pull out the standard equation for hyperfocal distance. Figure out what on-film magnification it corresponds to. You'll see that the magnification varies inversely with the focal length of the lens. No, that's not an artifact of having the far distance go to infinity. You could pick a far depth of field that was huge but finite, like say, 1 km, and plug that into the full depth of field equations and you'd get the same result as close as matters.
5. Reductio ad absurdum—consider the depth of field in front of the subject for any particular lens and situation you choose. It'll be some finite number. Now imagine swapping that lens for a lens of shorter focal length; to keep the on-film magnification the same (which, according to myth, will keep the depth of field the same) you will have to move proportionately closer to the subject. Keep making the lens shorter and shorter. At some point the total distance from the shorter lens to the subject is going to be less than the near-side depth of field you calculated for the longer lens.
.
