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?
I don’t think there is any less interest ini the narrow DOF, abundant bokeh style. That’s been around for a long time and seems to continue to show up a lot.
I do think there is an increased recognition that smaller maximum aperture lenses have some compensatory advantages for certain kinds of use, most of which are obvious: smaller size, lower weight, decreased cost, excellent optical quality. And with cameras’ high ISO performance (and post-processing NR) continuing to improve it is less likely that one needs the super large apertures in order to deal with low light.
There is still a place for the big aperture lenses — though f/1.2 really doesn’t gain you much over f/1.4 — but there’s an increased recognition that a larger aperture lens is not automatically a better lens.
By the way, those large aperture lenses can also shoot at smaller apertures, which your critique of the lenses seems to ignore. If you are doing a shot, say a portrait, and you want some level of detail in that Lisbon shot to be less fuzzy, you just stop down. Photographers have always know that the extra large aperture is something that is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not.
In essence, I think your critique may be more about hypothetical photographers who might always shoot wide open and not about the lens capabilities. I’m sure that some overuse that technique, just as some overuse just about every technique or trick in photography. But that doesn’t mean the technique isn’t valid — it just means that it isn’t always the best choice.
Aug 29, 2026 at 04:05 PM
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