Not sure if this belong here or not..

dana44 · Oct 3, 2006

I recently came across a photo that I really like.. but i am wondering, was it edited in photoshop, or did the person take the picture?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/punkrobot/picturre3040.jpg

if this picture was taken and not edited in photoshop, what kind of lense does it take to get that affect? ya know.. the persons in focus, but that back ground blurry? I know that macro will do that up close... but ya

thanks!

jimcollum · Oct 3, 2006

nope, you don't need photoshop to do this.. longer lens (85mm+ for 35mm film) and wide aperture will do it. (ie 85mm f1.2, 200mm f2.8.. )

i'm sure there are those on the forum that can tell you the actual lens make, focal length and aperture (as well as type of film)

jim

dana44 · Oct 3, 2006

jimcollum said:
nope, you don't need photoshop to do this.. longer lens (85mm+ for 35mm film) and wide aperture will do it. (ie 85mm f1.2, 200mm f2.8.. )

i'm sure there are those on the forum that can tell you the actual lens make, focal length and aperture (as well as type of film)

jim

Ah.. So you'd have to have a special lense for that, AND FILM? I remeber I had the almost same affect while playing with the zoom and focus on my old concord Digital camera.. IT wasn't as good, but it still had the same basic "in focus persons" and "out of focus background"

Dave Parker · Oct 3, 2006

Are you talking about the people being in focus and the background out of focus? if so, it is a pretty easy task to achieve, we do it all the time with fast telephoto lenses, such as a 300 f/2.8 shoot wide open and make sure your subjects are in the same plane of focus, very common technique we use in the wildlife business to isolate subjects.

Dave

copake_ham · Oct 3, 2006

dana44 said:
Ah.. So you'd have to have a special lense for that, AND FILM? I remeber I had the almost same affect while playing with the zoom and focus on my old concord Digital camera.. IT wasn't as good, but it still had the same basic "in focus persons" and "out of focus background"

A) You do not need film. In fact this looks like a digi shot.

B) You do not need a particular focal length of lens.

C) What you are seeing is and effect of Depth of Field (DOF). By using a fairly wide-open aperture (e.g. f2.8) and focusing on the subject (here the couple) the background (and in some cases the foreground) will be rendered Ouf of Focus (OOF) often giving a pleasing effect.

D) Related to OOF is Bokeah which is a Japanese concent dealing with the "quality" of the OOF aspects of particular lenses.

Tom Hoskinson · Oct 3, 2006

copake_ham said:
A) You do not need film. In fact this looks like a digi shot.

B) You do not need a particular focal length of lens.

C) What you are seeing is and effect of Depth of Field (DOF). By using a fairly wide-open aperture (e.g. f2.8) and focusing on the subject (here the couple) the background (and in some cases the foreground) will be rendered Ouf of Focus (OOF) often giving a pleasing effect.

D) Related to OOF is Bokeah which is a Japanese concent dealing with the "quality" of the OOF aspects of particular lenses.

George, this looks like a Digital pic to me, too.

BTW, I also like film better.

jimcollum · Oct 3, 2006

no.. you don't *need* film to accomplish this.. however, since this is a forum where you don't offer digital advice/recommendations, my recommendation was film... and the lens really doesn't need to be special.. you just need a wide enough aperture relative to the focal length to give you an OOF look.

jim

dana44 said:
Ah.. So you'd have to have a special lense for that, AND FILM? I remeber I had the almost same affect while playing with the zoom and focus on my old concord Digital camera.. IT wasn't as good, but it still had the same basic "in focus persons" and "out of focus background"

dana44 · Oct 3, 2006

copake_ham said:
A) You do not need film. In fact this looks like a digi shot.

B) You do not need a particular focal length of lens.

C) What you are seeing is and effect of Depth of Field (DOF). By using a fairly wide-open aperture (e.g. f2.8) and focusing on the subject (here the couple) the background (and in some cases the foreground) will be rendered Ouf of Focus (OOF) often giving a pleasing effect.

D) Related to OOF is Bokeah which is a Japanese concent dealing with the "quality" of the OOF aspects of particular lenses.

Dave Parker said:
Are you talking about the people being in focus and the background out of focus? if so, it is a pretty easy task to achieve, we do it all the time with fast telephoto lenses, such as a 300 f/2.8 shoot wide open and make sure your subjects are in the same plane of focus, very common technique we use in the wildlife business to isolate subjects.

Dave

did I mention I am a big n00b to photography? XD

Dave Parker · Oct 3, 2006

dana44 said:
did I mention I am a big n00b to photography? XD

Whats a "Big n00b" I don't know the meaning of that one..

LOL

Dave

dana44 · Oct 3, 2006

Dave Parker said:
Whats a "Big n00b" I don't know the meaning of that one..

LOL

Dave

In other words, I don't know anything about photography, I know how to use most camers, but when it comes to the terminology, I don't know anything.

Dave Parker · Oct 3, 2006

dana44 said:
In other words, I don't know anything about photography, I know how to use most camers, but when it comes to the terminology, I don't know anything.

Oh, Okay, I had never heard it called that before, hang around here for a while, you will be amazed at the amount of information available here to help ya out.

Dave

copake_ham · Oct 4, 2006

dana44 said:
did I mention I am a big n00b to photography? XD

Hi Dana,

Yes, I remember you introducing yourself and figured "nOOb" is slang for "newbie" which is slang for "newcomer".

You're question was a reasonable one. I would suggest you pick up an intro to photography book. Just about anyone of them will discuss Depth-of-Field etc. along with much more. Try to get one that covers film, as well as digital. [Jeez, I remember when that was said the other way around!]

And as they told me years ago, there are no stupid questions. Just stupid people who don't ask questions!

dana44 · Oct 16, 2006

Basically... I really won't be able to do that until I get a good camera, neh?

I only have a Nikon Cool pix... 4.0 Megapixels.. 3x zoom (34-102MM) lense is a 5 7-17.1 MM 1:2.9-4.9

That is what I have currently..

Dave Parker · Oct 16, 2006

The Nikon Cool pix has adjustable appertures when you put it in manual mode, and you can practice with this until you pick up a real camera, the principal is the same...

Dave

dana44 · Oct 16, 2006

Dave Parker said:
The Nikon Cool pix has adjustable appertures when you put it in manual mode, and you can practice with this until you pick up a real camera, the principal is the same...

Dave

How do I change that? wow, totally sorry. I just borrowed this from a friend

dana44 · Oct 16, 2006

Dave Parker said:
The Nikon Cool pix has adjustable appertures when you put it in manual mode, and you can practice with this until you pick up a real camera, the principal is the same...

Dave

oh, it's the coolpix 4600 i don't think those has manual mode

Stephanie Brim · Oct 16, 2006

If you really want to learn about photography, get yourself a basic SLR. Something older, but with a few auto functions. At the beginning, I cherished the aperture priority auto that my Nikon FE had. Do some research on terminology...there was an excellent site with definitions for most photo terms...but I can't remember the URL. Anyone want to help me here?

Dave Parker · Oct 16, 2006

I have to agree with Stephanie, if you can get a hold of a basic manual focus camera with manual aperture settings, you will really be way a head of the game to learning Depth of Field and shutter speed operations, keep an eye out on the classifieds here on this website, or if you have a camera store around you, check to see what they have in used older bodies, once you understand the basic principals, you will then be able to expand and grow from there, the new all auto cameras are not always the best way to learn the game of photography..

if you have more questions, feel free to give most any of us a hollar and we will help anyway we can.

Dave

Soeren · Oct 16, 2006

Dana44
If I were you I'd get rid of that Coolpix thing and find me a SLR of some kind.
If you can't afford to buy one in a Photostore you might be able to find one in a thriftstore, on a fleamarket or even have one for free from someboby.
Though there is some reasoning in looking at systems e.g Nikon or Canon thats not important in the first place, an old battered Zenit or Practica will do as long as it works. You could even find a 6X6 TLR for next to nothing if you are lucky. Go to a store that sells old books cheap and find some old books on photography, get dome film and start learning. Youll also be able to get equipment for developing and printing your B&W film for a song.
Remember this is APUG (Analog Photographers User Group) so the D-thing will only get you in trouble here.
Cheers
Søren

Ole · Oct 16, 2006

I confess to owning a Coolpix myself, but I don't think it's "Cool" at all. For one thing, the auto-everything almost consistently guesses wrong (I tried 50 times to get a sharp picture of one particular mushroom, but the camera didn't want to focus correctly no matter what I did). But more serious is that the tiny little sensor means you're using short focal lengths - so short, that betting a blurred background and sharp subject is almost impossible.

The good thing about film is that all (well - almost all) film sizes are larger, which means longer focal length for the same angle of view, which again makes it far easier to use narrow depth of field to isolate subject from background.

You don't really need a "good" camera, just a "real" one. One with a film or sensor size (did I just say that? ) that is visible without a loupe...

Soeren · Oct 16, 2006

Ole said:
SNIP=> so short, that betting a blurred background and sharp subject is almost impossible.

The good thing about film is that all (well - almost all) film sizes are larger, which means longer focal length for the same angle of view, which again makes it far easier to use narrow depth of field to isolate subject from background.

<=SNIP

Had a talk with Tom A. last saturday. We agreed we must be the only people in the world who considered large depth of field a problem. Thank god we are not it seems.
Cheers
Søren

Ed Sukach · Oct 16, 2006

Although D******l is a wee bit "off-topic", I've experimented with a Nikon "Coolpix" 3100 (borrowed from Youngest Daughter). It IS possible to focus and expose "manually" - that is, set both focus and aperture manually - or more properly "pseudo-manually" for aperture (select a *very*fast shutter speed - and the aperture will follow - to as "wide open" as possible).
That will result in a very thin depth of field = subject/s in focus; background very "out-of-focus" ... as in the example.

What is necessary is to read the Coolpix maunal, or more properly, wade through it. It took me a day and a half to find out how to shift to black-and-white, and turn the #$$%^# built-in flash OFF.

It probably took far more time for each of us "Analog Types" to grasp depth of field, and its effect, but, once learned, it seems to be very simple.

dana44 · Oct 21, 2006

I currently have an old Minolta SRT200 camera.. I just have no lense for it.. and I can't really find it for it. The coolpix isn't for my photography, it's for crap that I do at work, and don't have to use film

dana44 · Oct 21, 2006

Ed Sukach said:
Although D******l is a wee bit "off-topic", I've experimented with a Nikon "Coolpix" 3100 (borrowed from Youngest Daughter). It IS possible to focus and expose "manually" - that is, set both focus and aperture manually - or more properly "pseudo-manually" for aperture (select a *very*fast shutter speed - and the aperture will follow - to as "wide open" as possible).
That will result in a very thin depth of field = subject/s in focus; background very "out-of-focus" ... as in the example.

What is necessary is to read the Coolpix maunal, or more properly, wade through it. It took me a day and a half to find out how to shift to black-and-white, and turn the #$$%^# built-in flash OFF.

It probably took far more time for each of us "Analog Types" to grasp depth of field, and its effect, but, once learned, it seems to be very simple.

I am not sure how to do all that on this "cool"pix. I just wan to fool around with it until I can get some lense for my Minolta.

John Koehrer · Oct 22, 2006

dana44 said:
I currently have an old Minolta SRT200 camera.. I just have no lense for it.. and I can't really find it for it. The coolpix isn't for my photography, it's for crap that I do at work, and don't have to use film

dana44,
Try KEH for used lenses. If you could find a lens at a garage sale or the like they'd be even less $$$.
Many time you can pick up a normal lens ~50mm for less than $10

Not sure if this belong here or not..

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency