Favorite photos?

May 27 00:44 UTC 1996

What are some of your favorite photos of? What makes it so special?
Please do share--and give us some ideas...

And generally speaking, what KINDS of things do you like to shoot?

response 2 of 40:

May 28 01:19 UTC 1996

I, too, enjoy nature scenes, though I have a lot of 'people' phots, too.
Lately, I've been trying to look and SEE differently, trying for
different perspective.

I think my favorite picture from my last batch is one that I actually
DIDN'T like at first.  One afternoon last fall I was out at a lake and
I took some nature pictures. But I also was noticing the long shadows
as the sun going down. So I have a picture of me near a 'street'light
[that was in the parking lot]--so the picture is of the shadows of 
me and the lamppost... I'm thinking about doing something with it, maybe
calling it something to the effect of "A study in Contrasts" since the
lamppost is so tall/long and thin and me so short and definitely NOT 
even close to thin!

I guess I'm going to have to look through some photos to see which ARE
my favorites...

response 4 of 40:

May 28 21:57 UTC 1996

How about from half-way down, on a bungee cord?

response 6 of 40:

May 29 05:10 UTC 1996

 Re 4-  Maybe if I was crazy. ;) Still, that would be a cool shot.

  I never took formal photography classes, so I only know the basics, and 
depth of field is something that I don't know anything about, but I would like
to learn.
  I certainly would be interested in learning, Marc.

response 8 of 40:

May 29 19:12 UTC 1996

 I see. My camera doesn't do that. But I still get good pictures.

response 10 of 40:

May 31 13:51 UTC 1996

when I was learning about DOF I used this common sense logic to remember how
to control it:
        when you 'stop down' to a smaller aperature (higher number) you use
        more of the center of the lens, and less of the periphery.
        when you 'stop up' to a larger aperature (smaller number) you use
        more of the entire lens area.

        during manufacture, the center point of the lens is the most
        accurately ground, with slight imperfections (optical distortions)
        increasing as you grind further away from the center.

        therefore, using the center of the lens (smallest aperature, highest
        F#) you get the best optical effect from the lens, and more of your
        subject is in focus = greater _depth_ of focus.  conversely, if you
        use the entire lens area (largest aperature, lowest F#) you get the
        worst optical performance from the lens = narrow _depth_ of focus.

DOF is also a function of focal length, with wide angle lenses providing a
greater depth of focus and telephoto lenses providing a more narrow depth.
that is why a lens in the range of 75mm-125mm (on a 35mm SLR) is best for
portrait shooting.  You can soften the background and isolate the subject.
Using larger telephotos will make your subject "jump off the image" at you,
and wider angle lengths will let the subject drop into the background too much
to highlight it.

IMO, manipulation of depth-of-focus _and_ creative lighting are the 2 most
valuable technical aspects to fine photographs...composition notwithstanding.

response 12 of 40:

Jun 1 11:24 UTC 1996

This brings up a couple of useful "rules of thumb".

1) Generally lenses are sharpest at or near the center of their F-stop range.
   Most lenses have significant fall-off at the extremes of their F-stop
   range.

2) If you are shooting a picture and a certain field of focus is desired, 
   (ie, you are shooting a group of people randomly spaced at a party), be
   sure to focus 1/3 of the way into the group rather than at the closest 
   member of the group.  The field of "near focus" is 1/3 in front of the 
   plane of focus and 2/3 behind.  This method maximizes the liklihood that
   all of your subject will be pleasingly focused.

response 14 of 40:

Jun 1 23:25 UTC 1996

Rane, I think a pinhole is not sharp, but does have an infinite depth of
field.  I have made several pinhole photos and have seen some in books and
they all look very soft to me.  If sharpness is the ability to see a high
number of lines/mm, I doubt if the pinhole would be as good as a moderately
priced lens.  

Regarding why are they the sharpest at the center, I don't know but I tested
my own lenses at one time and the extremes were indeed very soft.  I don't
know of any technical reason that this should be true, but I believe I have
read it several times in the popular photo magazines.  Come to think of it,
I think most of the lens performance reports (resolving power vs f-stop) show
a curve high in the center area.

I think I have a book on optical performance - if I find it i'll be back.

response 16 of 40:

Jun 2 16:47 UTC 1996

My favorite is one I took in High School with my dad's Leica.  It's a night
shot, a few seconds exposure, of the street with street lights, etc.  Looks
like a slightly warped daytime shot, and I have to tell people it is at night.

response 18 of 40:

Jun 3 04:43 UTC 1996

No, even a *perfect* lens will still exhibit a finite depth of focus. A
perfect lens will produce a perfect focus for all images at a single
distance, but anything in front of or behind that distance will be out
of focus, and it can be shown it will be out of focus more for light
entering the lens at greater radii. Stopping the lens down removes
that more out of focus light and leaves the better focused light. The
latter is still there, of course, at a lower stop, but swamped by the
out of focus peripheral light. [I tried to make this point in #11, but
see that I did not make it clearly. Have I now?]

response 20 of 40:

Jun 4 03:34 UTC 1996

Yup, in general. It takes a lot of engineering to get around that one.
Lenses compensated for color are called achromats (meaning, not (responsive
to) color), and consist of compound lenses made from different glasses.

response 22 of 40:

Jun 4 21:37 UTC 1996

Maybe a better analogy is not having to know how a television works in order
to watch one. However, in photography, once one gets past "just taking
pictures", one is working very close to the real physics and chemistry.

response 24 of 40:

Jun 5 22:21 UTC 1996

Every added knowledge expands your capabilities.