Full frame

Fair comment. I suppose it was somewhat selfish of me.

Regards, Horst

The fast lenses are still a must for shallow depth of field.

But then I have found the best for shallow DOF is to use MF older lenses anyway.

The Pentax advantage is its small primes. There is no reason why they could not have a standard range of small, light and sharp primes with a few select fast/larger equivalents for the people that want them.

Don't we have a ' size transition advantage' over the other brands that developed smaller mounts for their aps-c dslr ranges? Our mount, and presumably the space inside the camera, mirror box etc, it's already FF sized isn't it, and on nice compact bodies? The others retained much larger mounts and mirror box areas for their FF dslrs, which took on the dimensions of the existing pro model film slrs.

Perntaxian wrote:

Are they rally?

The following two pictures of my grandchildren where taken at F6.3.
This was the largest opening this 90mm lens had.

Regards, Horst








I think less dof would not show up the nice greenery in the back ground.

going off those shots yes - that's hardly shallow depth of field in my eyes :

That's not shallow DOF. Beside, some backgrounds gain to be blurred, some don't.

In some cases, very shallow DOF is a necessity.

I never said it was very shallow dof. I tried to show, that in my opinion, it doesn't do any harm to have a bit of shallow background.
Of course in the end, it is a matter of taste

Regards, Horst

Horst... Quite a lot of bokeh testing has been done on the
3 Amigos in your part of the woods

See here_link

Sadly some of the photos have been deleted.

To simulate FF blend a few APS-C shots together.
(Ryan Brenizer style)


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Thanks for the link.

I think all images could have done with more dof.

The way they are, the background just looks like a mess and actually distracts more from the statue than if it was somewhat cleaner.

The first f2.8 image is the best of a bad lot.

But as you said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Regards, Horst

I don't think they were meant to be works of art just a standard way
of comparing bokeh. I usually do the same with bottles of beer and
then drink the contents

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And after enough beer the bokey improves, no matter what lens you use.

Regards, Horst

The short answer is you are quite right - you don't! The ISO point is correct, and if you are a shallow DOF-phile, FF will allow shallower DOF without needing to upgrade to faster lenses.

For instance on APSC it's near impossible to get shallow DOF on a wide angle lens, whereas on 35mm the tiny, cheap DA35/2.4 will give you 'the look'.




May not be the world's greatest snapshot, but I like the sense of depth given by the OOF background, while the relatively wide angle retains the sense of space (which you lose by employing a telephoto lens).

I'd always assumed those big monster lenses you see in packs at big sporting events, stuck onto EOS 1Vs or whatever, were really all big apertures for light gathering purposes to get the shutter speed needed for those actions situations, or in the case of paparazzi to get steady enough shots from long distances. For them the DOF was incidental.

The technology of these monsters goes back a fair few years, back to the years when even the top Pro model bodies they were made for did not have what we would call 'ISO performance' at all. They needed that light gathering and wobble reducing speed because you just could'nt crank up the ISO like we can now - I mean, really, back in 2004, 10 years ago ... these lenses were all around then , but could you take usable shots at ISO 6400, even on the FF Pro bodies of the other brands?

Great example. Horses for courses.
It gets even harder the smaller the sensor, so m4/3 and below really struggle to produce a wide angle with shallow depth of field, unless you go all Brenizer Method stitching on it.

Not everyone will be into this, but that doesn't mean that some aren't. This style is very popular with the wedding photography set for instance.