The decline of motion blur in modern photography.

[unpopular]

It's more of a graphic design problem than a photography problem though. It affects photographers when they're selling stock to designers. A designer will look at an image and want to see it's possibilities in a wide range of options.

One issue that a graphic designer will consistently encounter is "oh, it's perfect except this one thing that can't be changed". You end up having to completely redesign everything around a new photograph! That means the entire proof process starts over. Even if you find a new photo that works with the composition, even if it works better, chances are the client will start rearranging everything for no other reason than it's "different" than from before. There's a lot of really weird psychology that goes on when people commission design services.

So if it's a matter of disabling a smart layer effect or adding a fake motion blur, it does end up saving time.

 

[rexbobcat]

While past street photographers did use motion blur deliberately, I also have to imagine that it can sometimes be hard not to have motion blur when you're shooting ASA 50-160 film.

 

[Derrel]

Motion blur, undesired motion blur, was a huge issue back when I shot Kodachrome 64 as my preferred color film in the early and mid-1980's. I tried Kodachrome 25 for about ten rolls of 36, and it was useless as teats on a boar. It. Totally. SUCKED. When. Shot. Outdoors. As did Kodak Panatomic-X, an ASA 32 B&W film.

Today, a modern Nikon FX 24MP d-slr shot at ISO 250 to 320 has higher image quality than Kodachrome 64, in my estimation. Finer detail, better resolution, more-accurate color, wider dynamic range, and a BIG advantage in shutter speeds, which leads to steadier shots, made at higher shutter speeds. The old days of street shooting with ASA 100 or ASA 200 B&W film with f/4 wide-angle lenses (or slower!) is what created so,so many shots that had motion blur. When the top speed you can muster on old film is 1/25 second, there will be MANY scenarios where anything moving will exhibit motion blur. I found that ASA 25 and ASA 32 films were simply unacceptable for most real-world, non-flash shooting scenarios...just too much wind blurring, hand shake, camera movement, camera vibration, and subject motion blurring in far,far too many shots to waste the 35 cents per frame that it cost...equivalent today to about $1.15 per click indexed to the price of a gallon of gasoline...even ISO 64 demanded a LOT of waiting for breezes to die down, waiting for no wind, tripod-mounting the camera to get to even f/8 early or later in the day or in the shade, and ridiculous exposure times to get to f/16 for depth of field.

Motion blur in most old photos, I am convinced, was something that had to be tolerated many times, and was not really the "ideal", but there was just no way to get past it in many shooting situations.

 

[ak_]

Yes slow film needed slow speeds. Rather, I'm talking about motion blur as an intentional pictorial technique in the modern era. Stopping down/using shutter priority, or using an ND to enable it. It's used quite a lot in certain kinds of niche stock - maybe too much. My interest in it really is in candid portraiture, street and documentary. Actually Derrel, it was one of the responses to a thread of yours that shows a picture of a lady walking that brought me to think of it - the shot looks static, because there is not a suggestion of motion (only that she is posed as walking). In my mind, I thought how a picture could have more to it if there was another approach. Perhaps using panning, 2nd curtain fill, slower shutter (with ND as it's bright).

 

[paigew]

I would never add motion blur in post. I generally shoot at 1/320 but there are times that I purposefully slow my shutter to show motion blur.

 

[Buckster]

Ahhh, the continuing saga of a seemingly never-ending series of questions asking if modern photographic equipment and techniques are making us all lose some special piece of "magic" from the "golden era" of photography, or some such thing.

My answer to all such questions is along the lines of, "I don't know because I simply don't care enough to even notice such things". I don't care what everyone else is doing, individually or collectively, nor why. I never have. All I care about is that I'm doing what satisfies the goals, sensibilities and tastes of my clients and myself. For me, that's enough.

That said, I do like that I can shoot nearly everything tack sharp these days, and then blur whatever elements in the photo any way that I want in post, if I want to, which provides me the ultimate freedom to create. I'll take that over the many limitations we had "back in the day" that forced blur or other choices when I would rather not have had to, but had to just live with it anyway, with no way to correct it in post.

 

[JacaRanda]

Thing is if you edit in motion blur its going to either be global over the whole photo (where its closer to handshake) or you're going in and spending quite a lot of time adding the effect -

No longer global.

Add creative blur to photos | Adobe Photoshop CC tutorials

 

[Buckster]

Thing is if you edit in motion blur its going to either be global over the whole photo (where its closer to handshake) or you're going in and spending quite a lot of time adding the effect -

No longer global.

Add creative blur to photos | Adobe Photoshop CC tutorials

Yeah, it's not "quite a bit of time" either.

 

[gsgary]

Why are fake motion blur effects needed? If you want motion blur, why not just shoot at a low ISO and shutter speed? It's not like cameras can't do this anymore.

Your wasting your time explaining, most on here don't understand why we still shoot film

 

[Didereaux]

Why less motion blur (other than half hour long shots of water falls). It's simple, it takes work to produce a good shot with proper blurring, and if there is any common trait among todays camera users it is the fact that they are LAZY! Of course the upside is that although there are zillions of pictures being taken they are of such low quality, and unimaginative that those who can produce a good one have a chance at being recognized.

 

[Overread]

I wouldn't go as far as to say lazy; simply that they do not aspire to the same goals.

It's the same as driving a car - most of us are rubbish at it. At least if you compare our driving skills to those of the emergency services, armed forces, racing drivers etc... Heck most of us only get our driving licence and that's it - no top-ups every few years - no higher level driving certificate etc...

We reach a point where we are as competent with the tool that we desire to be and for many of us its also less than our full potential could be. However for most its also a balancing act - learning takes time and resources to perform and sometimes whilst you might recognise your own potential to achieve better the investment to get there is too great for the standard of result we want and when pitted against the rest of our lives.

 

[gsgary]

I wouldn't go as far as to say lazy; simply that they do not aspire to the same goals.

It's the same as driving a car - most of us are rubbish at it. At least if you compare our driving skills to those of the emergency services, armed forces, racing drivers etc... Heck most of us only get our driving licence and that's it - no top-ups every few years - no higher level driving certificate etc...

We reach a point where we are as competent with the tool that we desire to be and for many of us its also less than our full potential could be. However for most its also a balancing act - learning takes time and resources to perform and sometimes whilst you might recognise your own potential to achieve better the investment to get there is too great for the standard of result we want and when pitted against the rest of our lives.

Speak for yourself, I'm an advaced motorcyclist and passed my cardington test to train other motorcyclists [emoji34]

 

[unpopular]

No longer global.

Yeah, it's not "quite a bit of time" either.

As with fake bokeh, it is easy to fake a motion blur in uncomplicated cases. Where the blur direction is uniform and running perpendicular to the focus plane shouldn't be too much of an issue. In many cases where you'd want motion blur, this will be the situation.

But, say a runner or cyclist moving at an angle to or from the camera, getting motion blur that is physically accurate won't be easy.

It just depends on the level of complexity and realism that you're going to need. A bad fake blur though will always be distracting.

 

[gsgary]

I take it your not familiar with Alexey Titerenko

 

[unpopular]

Yep. His "City of Shadows" series is exactly a case which wouldn't faux blur easily. I'm not about to say it's impossible, but it's certainly beyond the ability of most, and would take hours and a lot of effort to blur in that kind of detail.

ALEXEY TITARENKO | PHOTOGRAPHY