DOF Vs. Focus Stacking?

[Murray Bloom]

This thread has been sort of a trip down memory lane for me. When I first began doing commercial studio photography (early '70s), I often fooled around to see what my equipment was capable of.

Then, as now, I was a Nikon shooter, with the occasional foray into medium and large format photography for certain assignments. I had just procured what I believe was Nikon's first zoom lens, their 85-250mm f4.0-4.5 (circa 1959). It had already been supplanted by their much smaller and lighter 80-200mm f4.5, another push-pull zoom which was quite popular in its day. However, the older lens was a monster. Well over a foot long, plus the hood, and nearly 4.5 lbs.; oddly, a walkaround lens at the time, nearly as big and heavy as my present day 200-500mm zoom. But I digress.

So, I wanted to see if I could photograph this lens close-up from the front, while keeping everything from the lens hood to the camera body in sharp focus, which was seemingly impossible. Undeterred, I whipped out my Linhof 4x5 view camera and gave it a shot. Nowadays, many would use focus stacking to achieve a similar result, but the technique didn't exist then. Here's the result, scanned from an 11x14 print, as I'd lost the negative over the years:

I've always been sort of a sharpness nut, often preferring to let the viewer decide where to look, rather than leading them by the nose. While I will use depth of field for creative or contextual effect, I often strive for universal focus, as in the following image, where it was important to me to keep the two small plants at the lower right in focus, since they represented the only life in the scene:

My point is (I suppose) that I've never actually needed to focus stack, even when shooting macro, since there always seems to be an optical path to the depth of field that I need. Note the tiny bug in the picture below, smaller than the head of a pin:

All in all, while focus stacking has its place for many photographers, there's still something to be said for aperture control and hyperfocal shooting.

 

[thereyougo!]

I focus stack often because I want tack sharp focus front to back in my scene. Shooting ultra wide (15mm), it's not needed as often because depth of field is quite large at f8-11, but depending on the scene and how close I am to foreground objects I'll still focus stack shooting ultra wide.

Some people will say hyperfocal will work fine, but that's to get "acceptable" focus from front to back. Printing large, I'd prefer to get everything tack sharp where anything even remotely close to out of focus will be apparent.

The thing is if you are printing large, acceptable sharpness is still (ahem) acceptable if you are viewing it at an appropriate distance. The larger the print, the further you should view it from. I've occasionally thought about focus stacking, but hate having to spend too long on processing and my files take up enough space on my hard drive as it is!

 

[smoke665]

@unpopular again taking my comments out of context. I neither denied that editing post is a necessity (for me especially) nor that digital art is easy. But to pull a line from your post " the fact that we spend hours on a few frames should say something about how fixing it in post". So why would any photographer, especially those that do it for a living want to spend hours editing every single frame? They'd never have any time for new business, and no way they could charge enough. There are many "really good" photographers on this forum alone, who post daily, photos with only minimal editing in post. Is that SOOC, no, not by your definition, but it's pretty close.

I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, because while it's obvious you have way more than a layman knowledge of digital processing, I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Tommy Boy that sort of explains my view of a lot of things that take place in this world, where he says "I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ........, but I rather take the butchers word for it." My current camera model manipulates and produces an image file in ways I only vaguely understand, but that's ok, because I only need to know what the end result is of the various options available.

Here's another thing I was taught years ago in a programming class - "garbage in-garbage out", that applies equally to a digital file. To imply that creativity is only created post would be to also "limit" your view of the artist.

Guess we'll agree to disagree. To me there are no images that I'd ever share SOOC, a raw file requires processing. While I'm not much for over the top processing, I'm certainly no purist.

Btw those images do absolutely nothing for me. I've seen ICM images that are great, and of course everyone has different tastes, but I can't say I liked any of the images on his site- I've seen countless photos like that from people just trying too hard to be artsy.

I'm not sure we disagree as much as you might believe. As an artist, I'd never knock you technique or your view, merely trying to illustrate that any singular element should never be the "only" element but a a part of a composition that is worthy of consideration. As to the example, some of his work I like, some I don't, but what a boring world this would be if everyone liked the same thing.

 

[N1kon1k]

For a photo to work but in the end how you post process it's up to a personal taste...

Not necessarily, the reality is the "end result" is dependent on everything you do "before you take the shot". Post processing should be the clean up phase, not the creative stage, unless you're doing a composite or other creative work.

@smoke665

Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly.... what I meant by my comment... was that I like to go out and spend the time outdoors and practice and achieve the shot on site... minimizing the errors than can/can't be fixed in post... when you press that shutter all the focus, Dof, aperture, composition etc... should be all done for you as you mentioned previously....

But in the end no photograph is reality... although some do a great job at coming close to it as possible... what you depict as a tone of color will differ from what my taste is... I might go a little lighter or darker... I might like the shot a bit over/under exposed and that's what I meant by personal taste...

Not trying to disagree with you just trying to be more clear in what I meant... please feel free to give me you're input if you don't agree...

 

[smoke665]

Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly.... what I meant by my comment... was that I like to go out and spend the time outdoors and practice and achieve the shot on site... minimizing the errors than can/can't be fixed in post... when you press that shutter all the focus, Dof, aperture, composition etc... should be all done for you as you mentioned previously....

But in the end no photograph is reality... although some do a great job at coming close to it as possible... what you depict as a tone of color will differ from what my taste is... I might go a little lighter or darker... I might like the shot a bit over/under exposed and that's what I meant by personal taste...

I think I would have to agree we are both in agreement!!!!!

 

[The_Traveler]

I am much less generous than the rest of you guys. I saw smoke665 as repeating that tired old ploy of attempting to define the way that he does things as the only way that real photographers do things and other ways as being too artsy-fartsy or lazy.

Thanks for setting him straight.

 

[smoke665]

I saw smoke665 as repeating that tired old ploy of attempting to define the way that he does things as the only way that real photographers do things and other ways as being too artsy-fartsy or lazy.

Then you would be wrong in your assumption, and might want to reread my posts. When you limit yourself to "only" one view, or one technique you stymie any future growth, something that applies to everything we do in life.

 

[unpopular]

@smoke665 yes, and categorically what i do at work is not cinematography either, even if i were the one taking the footage as well as doing all the post. There is a line here, and the fact that most people on set have literally no idea what I do is indicative that there is a line between post and production.

In film and television these rolls are much more defined, even color correction is a distinct specialty with people sitting in darkened booths all day turning knobs on consoles. Photography doesnt really enjoy this level of specialty, so the boundary is blurred. In photography getting as close to the finished result has merit, whereas getting as close to final grade in film production would make vfx and composite much more difficult (and costly).

Though there is also an argument to be made that exposure should be to capture as much information about the scene in order to maximize options in the darkroom (digital ir otherwise) since our perception of the scene cannot be recorded, we want as much tonal data to start with in order to sculpt it into how we experienced it.

Naturally, adding things that were not, on any level, peceived doesnt really fit this. Adding arbitrary filters and color for the sake of looking "neat" isnt really what id define as photography. That said, i dont neccesarily think its lazy or even negative. Unless the photographer is relying on it to overcome their shortcommings. Though, this is truly something that *never* works.

 

[smoke665]

@unpopular please don't think I'm doubting or not respecting your opinion. I've followed and read not only this but many of your other threads. Always found them enlightening and suspect that we probably agree on many things. If my comments implied that only lazy people use post editing, that wasn't my intent. I would be so scre..... without LR and PS. Nor did I mean ruffle any other feathers on their techniques, opinions and methods.

 

[Murray Bloom]

Adding arbitrary filters and color for the sake of looking "neat" isnt really what id define as photography. That said, i dont neccesarily think its lazy or even negative. Unless the photographer is relying on it to overcome their shortcommings. Though, this is truly something that *never* works.

I agree with you. As a result of phone cameras, primarily, we're well down the path toward "filtered" photography, since virtually everyone who owns one considers themselves a photographer, and the filters are just so easy to apply.

It reminds me of when people discovered that you could get a really moody look by maladjusting HDR controls. Many 'purists,' like myself, were initially horrified, as the "grunge" look found traction and took hold as a popular genre; but I'll admit to actually liking some images of that ilk, which came about as essentially 'playing with filters.'

I learned photography both in art school and on the job. I was taught to "get it right in the camera," the classic approach. That was sound advice, for unless you had the vision and resources of, say, Jerry Uelsmann, there were relatively few options available to significantly change an image.

However, with digital magic so close it hand, things have changed. I've given presentations entitled "Visualization - the 'Aha!' Moment and Beyond" in which I speak about the differences between pre- and post-visualization. Both have a legitimate place in photography.

Why not make each capture the best it can be, able to stand on its own without significant change? I'm not talking about tweaking exposure, color, and the like, such as the 'normal' changes we'd apply in the wet darkroom; paper grade, filtration, burning, dodging, etc. Some of these are even needed with RAW digital to recreate what it was that the photographer saw when he pressed the shutter button. Raw captures often have no "soul."

But, we now have the ability to make virtually anything from a digital capture, which is what I refer to as post-visualization; using the original image as a basis for something else, which I often think of as "fodder for post-processing"; either through recomposition, dramatically altering reality, or the creation of something else, entirely.

We can debate the validity of any of the tools we have at our disposal, but in the end, the only thing that truly matters is the image.

 

[unpopular]

I am not really sure I'd call Uelsmann's work "photography" though either. Sure, he used photography and yes, he was a photographer. But I have never been sure that I'd call an Uelsmann print "photography". This can't really be debated as something modern either. Uelsmann incorporated graphic art and visual effects practices of his day, just as what we are criticizing here do.

I recently saw an article on a "photographer" who took surreal images made using traditional matte painting techniques. Ok. Great. There was photography involved, but the images were about matte painting, not about the photographs that the mattes sat on. If you projected a photo onto a glass plate, does that really change anything than if you painted directly onto the plate? And for that matter, what if you used photoshop instead of traditional compositing techniques?

It's almost like saying it'd be somehow different if you composited a photograph using Photoshop versus using Nuke or Fume - do the tools we use exclusively define what photography is? Why is Uelsmann a photographer, while someone who does a lot of compositing in Photoshop a graphic artist - especially when graphic artists while Uelsmann did the majority of their work used enlargers are cameras, too?

 

[unpopular]

Raw captures often have no "soul."

Truly, RAW capture isn't even an image.

I was trained in the dark room also, right at the moment that the world was transitioning to digital. The decline of film was mind-bogglingly fast, so the number of people who started learning photography strictly wet and ended up shooting photography strictly digital are pretty rare. Almost every photographer out there today either spent a lifetime shooting film and later switched to digital, or spent a lifetime shooting digital and has experimented with and perhaps embraced film. But I think this familiarity with one or the other brings about a false sense of difference between the two - and I think both groups often neglect the realization that before an image is processed it's not that different than an exposed sheet of film - everything about the image, every piece of usable information recorded by exposure is encoded into the file.

As with film, how this data is represented in the final image largely depends on how it is processed, but once it's processed anmd a JPEG, TIF or whatever is spat out, there is no way to recover what has been lost in the processing. Unlike film, RAW files are not destructive. We're not removing data from a raw file as we literally doing with film processing, If you get a TIF into photoshop and realize you needed those hilights after all, you can just reprocess it. With film, you say "Well crap. This should have been proceed shorter" - c'est la vie, pass the farmers and hope.

The "always process by inspection" nature of digital gives an impression that a RAW file is just like TIF, except that it is liek a super TIF that holds more information (in reality, this isn't true as most of the raw files we use are only 12, maybe 14 bit. A 16-bit TIF has plenty of headroom, and a 32-bit TIF is just excessive). RAW files aren't usable images until they're processed.

This is why I think of RAW files more like negatives. The idea is to cram as much data into that raw file as possible, to take advantage of the camera's entire capacity to record the light on it's sensor. This is what we were doing by "exposing for the shadows/process for the hilights". Digital is no different, except that we can immediately see the results - so we're kind of in this mentality that we should aim for an image that looks exactly how we want it to without any further adjustment, where a lot of funny business happens - just like with fim, except it is a numeric process rather than chemical.

If you open my RAW files in a raw processor with the standard "souless" settings, they'll look over exposed. Not just a little over exposed. But massively over-exposed. But for me, provided I did everything right, I know that Zone IX is placed right on the outer left of the histogram and that I have ample, useable shadow detail to work with, it's just a matter of processing them into the zone I want, no different really than processing the hilights into their appropriate zone with film. (ETA: to be clear, I expose for the hilights and process for the shadows, which is the reverse of b/w film)

I don't see such a big difference here. The Raw file is like the unexposed film, the jpeg preview is like the polaroid proof, the processed TIF is like the negative and photoshop is like the enlarger.

 

[Murray Bloom]

I think I'd still lean toward considering Uelsmann a photographer. His image components were photographs and his processes were photographic. True, there was a strong design element in his work, but to simply consider him a graphic designer seems to do his genius a huge disservice. My opinion, anyway.

It's interesting that you mention matte painting. I studied with the late Jaromir Stephany, who was an acknowledged master of the Cliché Verre process. Cliché Verre dates back to the earliest days of photography, and involves hand-created images on glass plates printed with light-sensitive materials. In my case, I employed inks and paints on cleared graphic arts film, and printed the images on Cibachrome paper. Here are a few samples:



Even though they were printed optically on light-sensitive material, I would never consider them to be photographs. I think of them as paintings. In fact, the wet part of the process is now history, and I scan the original films into the computer, to be processed in Photoshop. So, I guess that makes me both a photographer and a painter, although the images themselves are entirely self-created with little input from me, the 'artist.' Only the colorization is deliberate. Actually, the 'art' is more about selecting potential images from the zillions of randomly created possibilities. Just to complicate things further, how does that differ from a photo shoot or session where the photographer decides which images are worth capturing? However, beyond that decision point, it's all photo/optical, so I guess whether or not they're photographs is really up to the viewer and occasional pedant.

 

[unpopular]

Uelsmann certainly felt he was a photographer and is adamant about it - honestly I'm not a huge fan of his, and felt that this insistence was really just an attempt to add legitimacy to his gimmick.

This is pretty fascinating in itself, of course, as in the time he was born photographers were just starting to legitimatize themselves as artists in the first place. To suggest that Uelsmann needed photography to legitimatize his work is kind of ironic.

 

[Murray Bloom]

Interestingly, where I used to follow the common philosophy of exposing for the shadows and processing for the highlights (so as not to lose shadow detail), digital has caused a complete reversal. I now expose for the highlights and process for the shadows (preserving highlight detail). What goes around . . .