Assign #3: Shallow Depth of Field

LisaK24 · Mar 14, 2008

went out the other morning and shot this in my backyard :]

mdw · Mar 15, 2008

Big Bully said:
And mdw, the paw... too cute!

And you haven't even seen the rest of Noa!

Tasmaster said:
Shouldn't the reflection be out of focus too?

Why would the reflection be OOF as well?

LisaK24 said:
went out the other morning and shot this in my backyard :]

Nice one, with which lens did you shoot this one? You can make it a little brighter the image I think?

Tasmaster · Mar 15, 2008

mdw said:
Why would the reflection be OOF as well?

Because of the shallow depth of field. The reflection is (coming from) a lot further away than the part of the door that is blurred. With that shallow DoF, it should be out of focus too. I don't know how this whot was made, i am used to reflections from mirrors and can't think why this would be any different. Just like when shooting a mirror, if you focus on the mirror itself, whatever is reflected will be out of focus if you go for shallow DoF.

mdw · Mar 15, 2008

In my opinion, the reflection on the doorknob is on the doorknob itself (which is sharp because it is at a certain distance away from the camera)
Therefore, everything that is shown on the doorknob (even reflections) are sharp.

A camera can't think and doesn't "see" a reflection with distance in it. It just records the doorknob, with everything on it... :er:

LaFoto · Mar 15, 2008

Do I post this here, or into "green" :scratch: ...

Seems like nothing can stop spring any more......

Tasmaster · Mar 15, 2008

mdw said:
In my opinion, the reflection on the doorknob is on the doorknob itself (which is sharp because it is at a certain distance away from the camera)
Therefore, everything that is shown on the doorknob (even reflections) are sharp.

A camera can't think and doesn't "see" a reflection with distance in it. It just records the doorknob, with everything on it... :er:

A camera records light. You need to know how light works. The light that produces the reflected image in this case is not coming from the doorknob itself; it is coming from some distance in front of the doorknob and is reflected on it. If you want to try and picture it, the rays of light are bent, not shortened.

Pictures are worth a lot of words, so here is one to illustrate my point (and a further submission to the thread). Cropped and resized, no other editing. Notice how the surface of the mirror, whereupon the light is reflected, is in focus but the reflection is not.

That said, i can't reverse engineer the shot in question, i don't know how it was made, that's why i am asking.