Help understanding this technique (close subject and sharpness/bokeh)

what aperture would you all say this was shot at people?

(equipment is canon 5d mark II and 35mm 1.4L, i know the person that took this as well)


Ok well from experience at shooting at 1.4 i didnt think these was shot at that setting, but guess what...? it's shot at 1.4. HOW is this possible? if it were me shooting with the same setup (which i own and use) i would get her nose sharp and NOTHING else would be, being that close, same with the couple pic as well she wold be in focus but he wouldnt, probably i would have to shoot at 2.8+ to emulate that level there and then i would poorer looking bokeh. Also i find this this photographer seems to have MUCH better/creamier bokeh than i get at the same settings, exact same equipment.

So with that in mind is there some magical way/combination of settings were i can achieve bokeh that is as nice as his, ie shooting at 1.4 and some special ISO setting or some BS because im going crazy trying to understand this!

Also i know this photographer also tends to shoot with manual settings as well as manual on his lens as well!

My take?

1. Distance from subject; The further you are from the subject, the larger the DoF. With the 5D MK II and 35 1.4...At 5 feet away, that's a 6" depth of field. At 10 feet, the DoF is just over two feet. He could be further away and cropping as well.

2. Only sharpening the focal point can make the bokeh appear more...Bokehey. And some people are pretty good at adding bokeh in post (as are some plugins/extensions).

Master of Defenestration wrote in post #15082379
My take?

1. Distance from subject; The further you are from the subject, the larger the DoF. With the 5D MK II and 35 1.4...At 5 feet away, that's a 6" depth of field. At 10 feet, the DoF is just over two feet. He could be further away and cropping as well.

2. Only sharpening the focal point can make the bokeh appear more...Bokehey. And some people are pretty good at adding bokeh in post (as are some plugins/extensions).

What re these extensions? i know they he uses lightroom... but to say that he uses this adding bokeh on EVERY shot from a wedding ie around 500 pics? must take months to edit properly!

I don't use them, I was just assuming that some actions existed after browsing a thread that had the sole purpose of artificial bokeh techniques in PP. But if it's an action/extension/whate​ver, it probably takes about 3 seconds to execute (10 seconds if it's adjustable) on each photo.

And I wasn't saying that he had an automated process to add bokeh...Just that it's possible. Most likely, it's got everything to do with his distance to the subject and if/how much he's cropping.

Master of Defenestration wrote in post #15082458
I don't use them, I was just assuming that some actions existed after browsing a thread that had the sole purpose of artificial bokeh techniques in PP. But if it's an action/extension/whate​ver, it probably takes about 3 seconds to execute (10 seconds if it's adjustable) on each photo.

And I wasn't saying that he had an automated process to add bokeh...Just that it's possible. Most likely, it's got everything to do with his distance to the subject and if/how much he's cropping.

i agree about it being more likely to do with the subject distance however how can that person take a photo and judge from the lcd on the back what level of sharpness things are to be happy, especially on manual? he must take 50 shots of the same scene at infinitesimal subject distance to make sure 1 out of those 50 is sharp. This is impossible at a wedding!, heck shooting manual lens at a wedding is seriously risky at 1.4 how on earth are you going to be sure you have that awesome tack sharp image where it needs to be? the lcd is misleading in the extreme.

Also if he is cropping at an extreme amount, shooting at 1.4 it wont be at all sharp especially if his iso goes above 800-1250 (yes even on a 5d mark 2) thats another thing as well, if he shoots on manual in camera then how the heck in low light can it work if the iso is stuck to 100-400 max? its not possible on some of the shots ive seen. It not just this photographer either it seems to be a trend of photojournalistic style of wedding photography, nobody seems to talk about the style for some reason? photographic snobbery perhaps? i don't get it, where are the tutorials for such an approach? it exists for every other kind of photographic style!

Why wouldn't 1.4 be fairly sharp? Hard to tell if it isn't on the images you posted, as they're not nearly big enough to pixel peep that deeply. His PP also tends to accentuate the bokeh, with the vignette and all.

And that first image has a pretty narrow DoF. Only her left eye is in focus. Seems about right to me.

Just my uneducated opinions anyway.

Master of Defenestration wrote in post #15082514
Why wouldn't 1.4 be fairly sharp? Hard to tell if it isn't on the images you posted, as they're not nearly big enough to pixel peep that deeply. His PP also tends to accentuate the bokeh, with the vignette and all.

And that first image has a pretty narrow DoF. Only her left eye is in focus. Seems about right to me.

Just my uneducated opinions anyway.

Mine are sharp at 1.4 but if there is a crop involved it will be quite a bit less sharp, massively so. the vignette is is there because there is no lens correction applied (and as a result of shooting at 1.4 consistently), i doubt its been added from what i understand on how he edits he doesnt do more than just tone curves and thats it.

EDIT: what does PP mean?

PP = post processing

I wish the images were still here; can you at least post a link to them?

He could have done multiple frame focus stacking. Or shot the image wide, then cropped it. Hard to say without having an image to examine.

I can only guess, as the images are gone, but I think this technique would create what you are describing.

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1138306

They weren't Brenizer-ified. They were just shots with plenty of bokeh. I didn't see anything unpossible about them @ 1.4.

Master of Defenestration wrote in post #15083423
They were just shots with plenty of bokeh.

"Bokeh" is not something that has any quantity. The word "bokeh" relates to the aesthetic qualities (which really are not measurable in any way) of background blur in images, but "bokeh" is not a word that can be used to replace "background blur" or anything like it.

Well then there was plenty of blur.

They looked like normal shots taken at F1.4 to me.

Because the background blur in the images didn't really change with distance from the camera, I got the impression that much of the background blur was done in post-processing. Unfortunately, the images are not available for us any more so we can't prove ideas.

Nah, it was a smooth transition. Like I said...Looked pretty normal to me.