Shallow DOF a crutch used by too many photographers?

blind squirrels find nuts too.

I'll have to take your word for it, never having seen a blind squirrel score a nut.

you see them all the time, they are mixed in with the normal squirrels. it only when you look at the full collection of nuts do you realize they are blind.

I'm not going to check out some squirrel's nuts, blind or not.

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Myboostedgst wrote in post #17888311
Interested in your thoughts. Obviously faster lenses are needed for low light situations, but is super thin DOF a crutch too many photographers use, especially for portraits?

Yes. Some photographers do use super thin DOF as a crutch (figuratively speaking, of course). But there are also photographers who have a more balanced, accurate assessment of its usefulness and importance, and therefore do not use it as a crutch. I would say that yes, too many photographers do use it as a crutch - I say this simply because even one person doing something wrong is "too many".

Myboostedgst wrote in post #17888311
Do photographers put too much emphasis on super thin DOF?

Yes, some photographers put too much emphasis on super thin DOF, while other photographers do not put too much emphasis on super thin DOF.

Myboostedgst wrote in post #17888311
But if they need to use super thin DOF, are they compensating for their lack of skills/understanding in other areas?

I believe that yes, the photographers who continually need to use super thin DOF are often doing so as a means of compensating for their lack of understanding in other areas, specifically, the area of spatial relationships between the camera, foreground elements, the subject, and background elements.

My answer is based specifically on your use of the word "need" in the question you posed in your original post. In many shooting situations, the photographer could achieve some wonderful subject isolation by controlling the ratio of camera-to-subject and subject-to-background distances. If a photographer does not have complete understanding and command over these variables, then he/she may indeed only be able to gain significant subject isolation by employing super thin DOF.

In other shooting situations, the photographer may not recognize the aesthetic strength that could be achieved by incorporating background elements into the portrait (or non-portrait photo). In these cases, a photographer will often isolate the subject with super thin DOF when a much better image could have been created if the background elements had been incorporated into the scene.......but the photographer blurred the background out completely, so all of those wonderful supporting elements are just wasted. I see other wildlife photographers do this very often when shooting wildlife. It is aptly called "subject fixation".

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Again, I say that sometimes you cannot help but to have a very narrow DOF, especially wildlife shooters. Wildlife is most active in dusk or dawn conditions, or during low light conditions or during cooler periods of the day, again possibly placing you at a time of lower light than high noon.

If you buy a respected long lens for those situations, let's say a 400mm f5.6, and you shoot at wide open to get a shutter speed you want for the exposure you want, your DOF is very narrow at 50' out, and gets wider the farther away the subject. If a deer was about 2/3 a football field from you, you have about 10' past the animal that is in reasonable focus (depending on how your lens is focusing and any MFA). If this animal is in a field, then the background will be mush. If the animal is coming out of a clearing, you will get a distinguishable surrounding.

That is not a crutch, the result is what it is because of necessity and the reality of the scene. For something to considered a crutch, you have to know the intent of the photographer, and cannot make assumptions based on the images unless you knew all the factors of the scene and what the full image looked like, and then could reasonably draw a conclusion.

Is the background mush due to the photographer purposely shooting wide open to get that result, or are they trying to shoot at a low ISO, high shutter, and are compensating with aperture creating the narrrow DOF? Or were they shooting with a longer lens wide open to a subject fairly close? DOF isn't always the first consideration and can simply be the result of other objectives being met.

Tom hit the nail on the head. The question isn't so much "is using narrow DOF a crutch" as it is "if someone always uses it, and can't create images without it, is it then a crutch?"

Myboostedgst wrote in post #17893606
Tom hit the nail on the head. The question isn't so much "is using narrow DOF a crutch" as it is "if someone always uses it, and can't create images without it, is it then a crutch?"

Sounds about right.

What if, instead of saying it is 'a crutch', we alter the original question to ask,
"If you use shallow DOF all the time, could you say the photographer is in a rut?!"

somewhat less judgmental way of implying over reliance on one specific tool used when something else might look much better. Doing something all the time is 'in a rut'.
Really shallow DOF use in a master woodworker's shop setting for an 'environmental portait' might be one example..."It's a portrait, yes, but where is the subject's environment that makes him what he is?! Photographer is in a rut!"

Myboostedgst wrote in post #17893606
Tom hit the nail on the head. The question isn't so much "is using narrow DOF a crutch" as it is "if someone always uses it, and can't create images without it, is it then a crutch?"

That makes alot more sense to me, and would garner a bit different discussion.

Myboostedgst wrote in post #17893606
Tom hit the nail on the head. The question isn't so much "is using narrow DOF a crutch" as it is "if someone always uses it, and can't create images without it, is it then a crutch?"

But more importantly, what part of the nail is in focus?

jsphoto wrote in post #17893641
But more importantly, what part of the nail is in focus?

i think my lens is front focusing.

mike_311 wrote in post #17893649
i think my lens is front focusing.

Just use f/22 as a crutch, and you'll never notice

yeah but then I'd have to clean my sensor :\

Shoot everything at about -5EV, and you won't notice that either. Dark objects only. No sky.