Is there a reason to upgrade dslr?

[matthewo]

When i buy the 70-200 then i'll be posting pictures like this: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/40/42/63416119327772/0/howto-make-magical-bokeh-photographs.w654.jpg

Oh a colorful background with a soft subject with clipped highlights and shadows. I hope you can aspire to better

 

[hamlet]

When i buy the 70-200 then i'll be posting pictures like this: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/40/42/63416119327772/0/howto-make-magical-bokeh-photographs.w654.jpg

Oh a colorful background with a soft subject with clipped highlights and shadows. I hope you can aspire to better

These flaws your talking about are invisible to me. Is there some literature i can perhaps read that can teach me to see what you're seeing?

And to be fair to that pictures sharpness, its a picture that was taken of one of those fast hovering little bird, its amazing they even got a picture of it. Here is a picture i am able to produce with my 50mm.

As you can see this is what i would get with the correct setup, but i was only able to produce this on something with absolutely no dof.



And this is what happens when i use my 50mm on something with even a little dof:

The sides of the head are out of focus and my background isn't as blown out as i'd wish to be.

 

[manaheim]

Invisible to you.

That's the key. You're not good enough to know if or when your camera is failing you. That's not an insult. It's normal.

If and when the flaws become visible... and if and when those flaws are a problem for you... then you identify what you need to solve them, and (if available and in your budget) you buy that equipment.

Stepping outside of photography for a moment...

I have a low-end professional grade Trumpet. A Vincent Bach silver. Beautiful horn. Was about $2500 new when a standard student brass horn was about $300.

I was sitting next to a younger fellow playing and he said "Gee that's a nice horn." I said thanks and he asked if we could trade for a bit. "Sure, why not?"

His horn was nowhere near as nice, but with effort I could make it sound pretty good because I had a good fifteen years of playing on this kid. His efforts on my horn sounded about the same as his efforts on his.

After a while he handed it back. He scoffed at me and said "What a rip off... that thing doesn't play any better than mine." I smiled and went back to my playing, relieved to have my better tool back.

Experience makes a very big difference.

 

[EIngerson]

When i buy the 70-200 then i'll be posting pictures like this: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/40/42/63416119327772/0/howto-make-magical-bokeh-photographs.w654.jpg

Oh a colorful background with a soft subject with clipped highlights and shadows. I hope you can aspire to better

These flaws your talking about are invisible to me. Is there some literature i can perhaps read that can teach me to see what you're seeing?

And to be fair to that pictures sharpness, its a picture that was taken of one of those fast hovering little bird, its amazing they even got a picture of it. Here is a picture i am able to produce with my 50mm.





And this is what happens when i use my 50mm on something with even a little dof:

The sides of the head are out of focus and my background isn't as blown out as i'd wish to be.

A couple things on this one. The sides of the head are blurry because your depth of field is very shallow. The focal point is also the tip of the nose. (always use the eyes because that's where the viewers eye naturally looks.) The background you're going for isn't blown out, it blurred, meaning more separation from the subject. (blown out is a term used for something that's over exposed) The way to achieve the look you want is to have the background further away from the subject while increasing your aperture get the depth of field deep enough to cover the entire head on the portrait.

It's not actually that bad of an image, you just have to be able to read it better and make adjustments to get what you want.

 

[runnah]

Nope, you need to spend at minimum $10k on new gear.

 

[hamlet]

@EIngersan

I know that, but my goal was to isolate my subject, it becomes less and less isolated if i do what you say on my 50mm. I've got the pictures to prove my point:

 

[runnah]

Invisible to you.

That's the key. You're not good enough to know if or when your camera is failing you. That's not an insult. It's normal.

If and when the flaws become visible... and if and when those flaws are a problem for you... then you identify what you need to solve them, and (if available and in your budget) you buy that equipment.

Stepping outside of photography for a moment...

I have a low-end professional grade Trumpet. A Vincent Bach silver. Beautiful horn. Was about $2500 new when a standard student brass horn was about $300.

I was sitting next to a younger fellow playing and he said "Gee that's a nice horn." I said thanks and he asked if we could trade for a bit. "Sure, why not?"

His horn was nowhere near as nice, but with effort I could make it sound pretty good because I had a good fifteen years of playing on this kid. His efforts on my horn sounded about the same as his efforts on his.

After a while he handed it back. He scoffed at me and said "What a rip off... that thing doesn't play any better than mine." I smiled and went back to my playing, relieved to have my better tool back.

Experience makes a very big difference.

Is that what they mean when they say "toot your own horn?"

 

[EIngerson]

@EIngersan

I know that, but my goal was to isolate my subject, it becomes less and less isolated if i do what you say on my 50mm. I've got the pictures to prove my point:

Your subject is isolated just as much, if not more than the other one. You've just framed it different. Your camera is further away from the subject. Move it towards the subject and don't forget, the closer you are to it the shallower your depth of field. You might have to close your aperture to cover the subject the closer you get.

 

[hamlet]

Maybe i'm doing something wrong, but that doesn't work on things that are three dimensional. This is as out of focus i can get my background.

 

[EIngerson]

Maybe i'm doing something wrong, but that doesn't work on things that are three dimensional. This is as out of focus i can get my background.

You didn't do anything wrong. You have a pretty wide field of view behind a small subject. You're not going to get much more bokeh than that. If you want to get more, get a 70-200, zoom out to 200 and frame the subject to almost fill the frame. Your blur is fine, if you crop that image tight to the subject you'll see what you're looking for.

 

[hamlet]

That's what i thought too, but i wasn't too sure because i have a pension to make decisions without all the facts at my disposal. But its good to know that its not just me, my lens has reached the limits of what it can do for me.

 

[kundalini]

Is there a point to ever put down my d3200 and buy one of the higher model dslr's?

No.

 

[The_Traveler]

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/feedback-suggestions/347128-tpf-internet.html#post3116367

 

[robbins.photo]

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/feedback-suggestions/347128-tpf-internet.html#post3116367

More to the point I think, did Al Gore invent TPF?

 

[pgriz]

The amount of out-of-focus you get is one thing. The "bokeh" which is the quality of the out-of-focus stuff, is another.

The amount of blurring you get is related to the DOF. And DOF is related to sensor size, aperture, focal length, distance of subject and distance of background. f/8 on a view camera (8x10) will give a very different DOF than will f/8 on a P/S sensor. DOF with a 18mm lens at f/5.6 is very different than the DOF with a 300mm lens at f/5.6. DOF at f/1.2 is very different from DOF at f/11. All these things interact to give you the degree of "separation" between foreground and background.

Here's a test. Put something at your len's minimum focusing distance (which I think is about 0.6m), and have the background at least 100 m. away. Shoot at your widest-open aperture (which I think is f/1.8 if I'm not mistaken). That's shot 1. Do not change the position of the camera (it should be mounted on a tripod). Now move the subject back 1 meter (3 ft), while not changing anything else except for the focus. Shoot again. That's shot 2. Now move the subject to say 3 more meters. Refocus. Shoot. That's shot 3. Now compare the background appearance of shots 1-3. I'll tell you what you will find, but I'll let you do the experiment first before I make my comments.