Unanimously, the non-photographers (and a photographer interested mostly in portraits), opted wor a wide DOF, and I can understand why, the "more is more" doctrine, the picture shows more things, wich many people consider a good thing:
Still not convinced, I turned to past colleagues from the photography course Cursphoton, and I found voices opting for the shallow DOF, or what I like to call in this case "less is more":
I find the difference interesting and telling, but obviously the definitive question is still "who is the target for the photos?" and this may tell you which option to prefer...
And of course I tried another version of the photo: dark background and an intermediary aperture value, it tells a completely different story:
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If I want to have a picture of a flower I go for the wide DOF to make sure the whole flower is sharp.
ReplyDeleteIf I want to have art, I'll go for a shallow DOF, but since I'm not an artist, I won't do that.
In case of portraits, I think the story that the portrait tells is more important than the art expressed, so I'd never shoot portraits with shallow DOF.
What a late reply... sure you can use a shallow DOF for portraits, for example if the story is "what beautiful her eyes are" or want to cut the subject from the background
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