gdanmitchell
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 Re: which lens has the least 3D POP? | |
Fred, I think there are three perspectives relative to these threads.
One is that the thing called “3D pop” doesn’t exist. (I’m not quite in that camp. See below.)
Another is that it is primarily or largely the result of using particular lenses. (I’m definitively not in this camp.)
A third is that the term “3D pop” is an understandable subjective way of referring to photographs (or other kinds of images) that have a sense of dimensionality, depth, or whatever you want to call it, and that this quality is hte result of a variety of well-known and well-understood principles of visual design.
That last one is my view, and I’ve tried (along with some humor) to make that point in the original thread — with strong agreement from some and disagreement from those in the second group I described above.
My position, and so far I’ve seen no evidence to contradict it, is that lens brand/model choice plays little to no meaningful role in producing this “thing,” whatever it is.
Instead, it comes from using some or all of a list of visual techniques, and that those who aspire to produce images with this “3D pop” character will most successfully get there if htey understand those things. They include:
1. Compositional choices — about where the primary subject may be placed in the frame and that subject’s relationships with foreground and background.
2. Use of things like leading lines, perspective lines, and so forth.
3. Use of lighting to differentiate between subject and other elements.
4. Color and luminosity relationships. (Often contrasts between the foreground/background that they produce.)
5. Other techniques that tent to strengthen our attention on the primary subject, including such things as vignetting, out of focus backgrounds, and more.
Most of this is not new knowledge. Painters have understood much of it for centuries, and photographs have for nearly 200 years. Learning to understand and apply these objective techniques gets visual artists much closer to being able to produce such effects themselves. Buying a particular lens won’t. (You can buy the world’s best violin, but it won’t help you become Itzak Perlman.*)
The place where I agree with you is that it doesn’t come from a single source. That’s why my list above is so long… and could be longer. The place where I’m not in agreement is with the presumption that those lens characteristics — in the original thread purportedly the characteristics of one “best” lens — have much to do with it at all. As I pointed out elsewhere, “3D” dimensionality has been produced effectively in paintings for centuries!
I think that the main controversy in these threads has been between those who, like me, believe that it is these other factors that are best employed by those who wish to create this sense of dimensionality or depth, and that while lens quality is not unimportant it has little importance here.
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* There’s an old joke about this in the music world. It isn’t a perfect fit, but it gets at what one really needs to focus on. It goes something like this: “A pedestrian on 57th Street sees a musician getting out of a cab and asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Without pause, the artist replies wearily, “Practice.” (The versions I’ve heard have the musician, or someone else, saying “Practice, practice, practice.”
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