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Focus Question
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Jun 16, 2021 08:44:39   #
gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast
 
Wide aperture = shallow depth of field.

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Jun 24, 2021 20:50:50   #
bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.
 
wrong F stop???

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Jun 28, 2021 22:00:25   #
Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY
 
CharleneT wrote:
This is my dog, Leah. I like the picture, but can't understand exactly why her rear-end is out of focus when her face is clear. Any suggestions, reasons, help, etc. appreciated. Thank you!


The other replies are right, but some cameras today have a Portrait setting that blurs the background--because people like that for some reason. Some cell phones have it too.

All lenses are perfectly sharp in only one exact distance from the camera (one flat plane, more or less), but by manipulating a number of factors at once you can choose what is sharpest, less sharp, and very unsharp in the image. These controls might require you to outsmart the camera's automated opinions, so it can be complicated. In that regard, the Brownie (which wanted everything sharp) was better than today's point and shoot camera.

The plane of focus is affected by:
distance subject to camera
distance subject to background
aperture setting on lens
focal length of lens
distance between viewer and picture.

It is popular today to have portraits that are sharpest around the eyes but very unsharp everywhere else. In the past, it was more popular to show the people sharp and the Grand Canyon behind them also sharp (and don't cut off their feet).

As Cicero used to say, "de gustibus non disputandum est." For taste there are no arguments. My taste leans toward making everything sharp if it is important to the image--and nothing should be in the image if it is not important; but this is not always possible; it is a goal. This philosophy used to be called, "The f64 school," but if you got your magnifying glass out, you could see that the photos were not entirely razor sharp--even if they appeared sharp at viewing distance. Many people who first looked at Van Gogh's or Monet's works complained they weren't sharp, as paintings ought to be, and they were right.

I looked at your dog picture from a distance and the tail end did not look so unsharp...

The science in taking pictures can be best used if people don't know you are using it, and we can even forget that we are using it ourselves, eventually. We might choose a lens and set up a distance, with lighting and background, almost without thinking it over if we know what we want to do. But at first we had to think it over. Shooting with unscientific abandon is not freedom. It is picking a number and wishing, the photographer's Vegas fallacy.

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Sep 9, 2021 10:03:56   #
Bado Loc: Louisiana
 
Just use a smaller f stop and correct for brightness

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