Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
05-26-2014, 08:51 AM
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Looking at the image attached to Norm's post, it must have been downsized and converted to JPEG on a Commodore 64. The shadows of people in the foreground look pixelated.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
05-05-2014, 04:02 PM
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Actually, the whole phone camera thing is about being able to get so close you can take a picture of yourself. The iPhone started with the equivalent of 37mm focal length in FF terms, and with the 4 model widened out to 30mm equivalent. Combine a fixed wide angle, short minimum focusing distance and poor optics, you end up with a camera that emphasizes the foreground over the background, regardless of DOF. Which nicely serves the main purpose of phone camera shooters to record themselves in the context of other people and their immediate surroundings.
SLR's are for recording what you see in your mind's eye. Special momentary lighting conditions, objects that move in and out of view, moments in time that seem to stand still, but never last. I've never used a MF camera, so I won't pretend to understand why you would use one to take pictures, but the MF landscapes I've seen are painstakingly posed. Thin DOF is a conscious decision, so everyone with a capable camera is free to use it or not, but I can't say I've ever wanted to record stubble on someone's face or nose hairs, while deliberating making the rest of the person a blurry background.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
05-04-2014, 03:10 PM
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At 5 feet away, the subject is going to have a hard time not looking at you, at 25 feet you might get the shot without being noticed. Which brings up another point, did you have the subject's permission for the second shot? I'm strictly a holiday snap candid photographer, and relatives don't like to see their own faces close-up, filling 3/4 of the frame, so I always try to include enough background to give people their personal space, even in photographs. Extremely shallow DOF in portraits is probably the second most annoying photographic cliche, right after long exposures of running water.
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