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?

40 responses total.

About 50% of my photos are nature scenes, and perhaps 40% of buildings, doors,
windows, roofs, etc.  The balance is reserved for old cars, with very few of
people.  I am absolutely nuts about old cars, and I think these are my
favorites.  At one of my last jobs, I had a complete wall full of 3-1/2x5"
photos of old cars.  

I did a lot of B&W of old barns, too.

How about you?

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...

 One of my favorite shots is one I took in West Virginia. It's a shot looking
across Bluestone Dam, where there are some perfectly placed mountains that
seem to add depth to the shot. You'd really have to see it to appreciate it.

 I hope to get a series of shots of the New River Gorge Bridge at sunrise.
It seems that that is the best time to take pictures there.
I'd also like to get some shots of the bridge from the floor of the gorge.

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

Does anyone here manipulate depth of field to enhance the photo?

 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.

I've been pleased with the effect of short depth of field, especially
when photographing flowers, but I can't say I've intentionally manipulated
it. One reason might be that I don't experiment much with the same "shot" -
taking several photos of the same object while manipulating speed and stop.

Omni, depth of field is the distance range over which a scene is in
focus. If you stop way down - like f22 in normal light - the depth of
field is large, and everything is in focus beyond a certain distance.
However if you increase the speed and open the lens - to f2.2 say -
things are in focus over only a short range of (close) distances. So,
by narrowing the depth of focus, my shot of a flower has the flower in
focus, but the background very out of focus. The effect is to concentrate
the attention of the photograph on the flower. 

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

But you might be able to get *better* pictures..... :)

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.

DOF has nothing to do with lens imperfection. A perfect lens will exhibit
DOF depending upon the stop. At focus, a perfect lens brings an object to
a perfect focus for light entering at all radii. If you are not quite in
focus, the defocusing is more severe for light at greater radii. It is
this different *sensitivity* to defocusing at different radii that
determines how DOF responds to the f stop. 

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.

Do you have an explanation for lenses being sharpest near the center of
their F-stop range? The sharpest lens is a pinhole (with no glass!), and
its DOF is "infinite". I would have thought the same would apply when
you put glass in. 

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.

Your pinhole has to be much smaller than the resolution you want (but
much larger than the wave length of light). Yes, lenses are better. 

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.

#11:    Agreed, a _perfect_ lens can bring light into focus from all radii,
and therefore, exhibit infinite depth of focus.

Do you know of any such lens ever created by the (imperfect) hand of a human,
or machine created by a human?  How much might such a lens cost?

I take no opposition with your theory, but my 'common sense' analogy continues
to serve well, as you point out.

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?]

Don't different wavelengths focus in different planes, also?

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.

I appreciate the physics of the problem, just never had need to remember the
deep details.  As i said, my common sense analogy, while not _technically_
accurate serves very well to explain the DOF phenom...much as Newtonian
physics does an excellent job of explaining forces which most likely are
operating at a much more intricate (relative/quantum) level.

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.

Hmmm...  does one have to understand how to "push electrons" (reaction
thermodynamics/catalysis, etc) in order to know that mixing baking soda and
vinegar will cause a predictable reaction?  You can be rather creative in how
you do that, and make some really cool "volcanos" and stuff.

Every added knowledge expands your capabilities. 

Well, back to favorite photos...

Was anybody outside between 8:30pm and 9:00 pm last night?  I was on the West
Side, walking out of the Ice Cube, and there was this full rainbow against
a fairly dark sky.  I watched for awhile and it became more and more intense,
and finally formed a second rainbow, a bit fainter, and which could also be
seen from end to end.  It's rare to see the violet band so distinctly.

I was in luck!  I had my camera and tripod with me...and an umbrella as well!
Unfortunately, 28mm was the widest lens I had and it wouldn't get even 1/2
the full arc, so I settled for a different composition and only photographed
a portion of the rainbow.  I can't wait to use up the rest of the roll and
get these photos back.

I've tried to photograph rainbows, but I think you have to be pretty lucky.
The colors of the rainbow are pure spectral colors, but all the film has
is ryc. Therefore the way in which other colors appear depends on the details
of the sensitivity bands of the dyes. So - Good Luck! 

I did see the rainbow, but didn't even think of grabbing my camera!  Let me
know how it turned out.  (I'll bet it looks fine)

Hmm, this sounds cool! 

I remember a couple of years ago, when visiting in AA, I had come out 
from dinner with some friends and we had seen a double rainbow. I couldn't
see it end to end because of all of the other buildings and such, but I
did get a picture... 

Well, I just dropped off my film.  I'll let you know in a day or two how/if
the rainbow pics came out.

#28:  How did _your_ rainbow pic come out?

Did you ever see those hokey photos which are made with a transparent rainbow
painted on some sort of a filter?  Pretty bad.

Well. I got my pics back and they're OK...not great.  Problem is the sky is
very grey so, even though the rainbow colors came out (invcluding the violet
band) the photo looks "muddy".  In the shots with the treetops showing their
full color (direct sunlight on them) you can appreciate the grey sky, but it
is oppressively grey.

I'd guess if one were to perform some 'darkroom magic' these shots could be
made to look better.  I have to admit, I was a bit handicapped using a new
camera (Canon Elan IIE) and not yet understanding exactly how to control it
manually.  I took 3 shots with different 'creative mode' settings and one
which I was on full manual (I think!), but all came out nearly the same.  Oh
well, time to pull out the users manual  8^}

For somewhere around $30 you can get the barcode scanner and find a sample
picture of a similar sky, maybe even a rainbow.  Then "scan - zip" you have
the proper settings.

  [I'd rather play at it myself...that's the fun part]

If you are in the area of the Ann Arbor Public Library, they have about 100
amateur photos for their up-coming "parks in Michigan" contest.  They are on
the main floor directly in front of the main entrance.  I have one photo
entered, but from the looks of the submissions, I will be an also-ran in this
one. 

Marc, how long will these photos be up for?? I hope at least through
this next week!! Hmm, I wish they had a similar contest for parks and
such down here in NC!

There is a judging on the 14th, and I believe they come down shortly after
that - I'm not sure of the date they come down.

Well I'm back from a camping trip to Lake Michigan and I must say I've been
re-insipred.  I have a few pretty good landscape shots, on the beach and in
the dunes, along a river, etc, and lots of good pics of my kid with dramatic
(sunset) lighting.

I've never really been able to get a good sunset photo that pleased _me_, and
I missed the one really great sunset we had by not having my camera on the
beach that night, but I did get some unusual compositions.

I decided to use full manual and brought a tripod.  That way I could take pics
even after sunset.  I used 100ASA color print film (would have preferred
slower but didn't have any handy) and concentrated on composition, where I
could find it.

There was this knarly stump becomming exposed as the waves washed the sand
away from it.  the roots made tunnels and other areas you could look through,
and the surface was smooth, but irregular.

I took a few shots of it "normal", but then experimented with a technique I
think I remember from Ansel Adams.  focusing on the stump, I did exposures
at several slow time settings.  As the waves rushed up, over, through and then
back off the stump the blurring effect is like a fog, or a cloud.  alas, while
these do look interesting I think I over did it on the slow shutter end.  Now
that I see the pics I'd like to have had a few with faster shutter speeds,
but still slow enough for the blurr effect.  I'll try again next trip.

OK, it's been a few years since this item was discussed...  Do any of you have
any NEW favorite photos that you can tell us about?

I think mine include some photos of the Atlantic coast in NC as well as some
indoor shots of various food items, including some at a Durham tea shoppe.

I post my favorites to Flickr.

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