It's a bit like the argument about wide angle lenses. How wide Well, you can always crop with a "too wide" lens but you can't always back up. I recall debating a 47mm vs 55mm for my 4x5 years ago. A more experienced friend said to go for the wider angle lens for the above reason.
Regarding aperture, with a slower lens, you can open the aperture only so wide. An f/4 lens won't go to f/2.8.
RustyRus wrote:
Of course you can- My comment is around no one is choosing to stop them down. All of the photos are starting to look the same- In a basement or in France?
C'mon. How can you claim that "no one is choosing to stop down" their large aperture lenses? Are you checking EXIF on all of the photographs you see that use smaller apertures and verifying that they did not use a f/1.4 or f/1.2 lens?
I have a couple of f/1.4 lenses that I occasionally use for things like for night street photography. I only rarely shoot them at the maximum aperture. More typically — even at night in urban settings — I'd be at f/2.8 or f/4.
Your claim that "no one is choosing to stop [these lenses] down" reminds me of the old canard that all photographs that use HDR suck. The flaw in that notion was first pointed out to me by a photographer whose work is in the lineage of Ansel (he worked with him) who I know, who when I said something about HDR a few years ago said, "you only notice the bad stuff. There are lots of ways to use it well where you would not even realize that the technique was employed." (Paraphrasing him here.)
When you look at some photo shot at a big aperture, you have no idea how many times that photographer uses that lens at f/8 or f/11, do you? Essentially you made up the claim that "no one is choosing to stop them down," and then based this thread on that completely unsupported claim.
Looking at the first 3 pages of the Sigma 135 1.4 thread it appears the vast majority of the images were shot wide open to induce the background blur. That’s fine as the lens is made for portraits…but at least this small sample set does backup the OP’s statement.
It's fine to express an opinion, eg. 'wide open images are boring', there are plenty of people who would agree.
But, fast lenses and shallow dof are nothing new, except that optical quality is much higher now (competed to decades ago) so high quality fast lenses are easier to achieve (eg F1.4 short tele's). I regularly enjoy my Canon FL 58/1.2, c. 1968, wide open for maximum aberrations for creative effect. Same with a Sony 50/1.2 GM, albeit with very few aberrations. I had Canon FD SSC Aspherical 85/1.2 and the FD 24/1.4 SSC Aspherical back in the '80s. Shot mostly wide open, of course. I wish I still had them, if only to sell to some cine guy for stupid money, but I digress. Point is, fast lenses, used wide open, is nothing new. And I'm not a fan of the 'f16' ethic or aesthetic either, but each to their own.
Repetition of anything is boring. So yeah, repeated shallow DoF viewpoints of stereotypical subjects is boring. How many ways can a cat’s eyeball be photographed uniquely?
I'm not sure how to answer the question other than thinking about how I use my own lenses.
My 50 Summilux is probably the lens I’m shooting the most right now. I shoot it wide open a lot, but I enjoy it just as much stopped down to f/5.6, and sometimes even f/11. That’s probably part of what I like about it. It’s fun at pretty much any depth of field.
My 35 GM is also a 1.4 and I shoot that wide open quite a bit, but I don’t think it has quite the same ability to obliterate the background that the Summilux does.
Then there’s my 70-200 GM II 2.8. I almost always shoot it wide open. I rarely feel like I’m losing the sense of where the photo was taken with that lens. I just love what it does. It makes the subject pop, the background falls away enough, and the overall look requires little to nothing in post.
So I’m definitely not against shooting wide open. I just know that I personally haven't kept two really good and well regarded Fast f/1.2 lenses. Those being the Voight 40/1.2 and the GM 50/1.2. Both are great. Excellent. I get more satisfaction from the 3 lenses i have in my bag. Whatever any of that means, I don't know.
RustyRus wrote:
With the sheer amount of fast glass on the market today, has the wide-open look become the default?
It seems every new prime ships at f/1.2 or f/1.4, and half of them look the same: subject sharp, background obliterated. Context is getting lost to bokeh balls. If a portrait tells you where you are, is that becoming the outlier? You can't tell if the shot was made in Lisbon or a parking garage, and it doesn't seem to matter in most cases.
Shallow depth of field is a great tool. But when it becomes the reason for the picture instead of a choice in service of it, you're left with something technically clean that could've been made anywhere by anyone. Thoughts?...Show more →
Well, you can always crop with a "too wide" lens but you can't always back up. I recall debating a 47mm vs 55mm for my 4x5 years ago. A more experienced friend said to go for the wider angle lens for the above reason. 