I see that you and @europlatus have made the same choice. That does have the advantage of only requiring one finger to operate. I don’t find the exposure compensation dial on my body (X-T20) to be excessively stiff; I don’t know which model you have. Having said all that, I just now tried using only my thumb on the exposure compensation dial (I’ve always used thumb and index finger) and yeah it is stiff when used with just the thumb.
My basic workflow with it is to compose, focus (back button focus set up on AF-L button), get a visually good image in the EVF with aperture/shutter speed/ISO, display large histogram (mapped to AE-L button) and use the exposure compensation dial (or rear command dial if in manual) to ETTR. And often forget a step somewhere along the way…
I think the X-H2S, X-H2 and X-T5 successors should be safe. Not sure if the X-PRO and X-S lines will be immune.
It is definitely too stiff on my X-T5 to use just my thumb, which is one of the reasons I leave it in C and use the front command dial. Also worth noting is that I rarely use a tripod. I’m 95% a handheld shooter, so I always have two hands on the camera, with the left only controlling the lens aperture ring and steadying the camera. The exp comp dial needs to be handled with two digits.
Thanks for pointing to some examples of wide-aperture shots. I can see the appeal, especially when you really want to isolate the subject. Although I’m not sure it’s my style. I find some of the out-of-focus backgrounds to be too distracting and almost uncomfortable for my eyes.
Like the one below in particular. I think I’d rather see more of the environment.
But that’s just a personal preference of mine, and I’m sure others feel differently. And I’m glad these super-fast options exist so everyone has the chance to explore the art that they want to create.
My point was that for photos like the one you included, where the subject is close, f0.95 is pointless (at least to me). It’s useful at longer distances, like the ones below (both shot at f0.95):
A large aperture is indeed needed to achieve separation at distance with a 35 mm lens. To go back to where I started: a 23 or 27 mm f/2.8 on APS-C would offer barely any separation.
especially on the last one the defocused areas adds nothing to the composition. they could have done that shot at f/8 and it would have been just as good.
I pretty much agree. I just used his samples to illustrate what background separation is possible at a certain distance. The subject, composition etc. is a different matter altogether.
I’d still prefer those mountains in focus, but that’s just a personal preference.
For the vintage car, I feel similarly to @Tamas_Papp that something doesn’t look right there. The cross in the background seems suspiciously in focus for f0.95. Unless it’s much closer than it looks…
Yes, I read that after I posted.
I know what f0.95 can achieve, but I’m still wondering when it’s really useful. At least in my experimentation, I haven’t found a scenario when it really adds to a photo. But I don’t generally shoot portraits, so that’s maybe when it starts to shine.
There always seems to be a clamour for faster and faster lenses when I read comments online, but I find the use cases to be rather limited.
Not trying to argue, so apologies if it sounds like it.
that bokeh is so super duper nervous. i just had a similar discussion with a friend about using lenses with fancy bokeh. but I find many of the old bokeh just super nervous and distracting. the TTArtisan 75 f/1.5 has some fancy bokeh. also lenses like pentacon
but it just feels to nervous.
Personally I find anamorph more interesting as kind of novel lens for photography.
also anamorphs can be a nice hold over until we get a digital xpan
I agree, the photos in that Ilford post just don’t look that great in my opinion. Large format is great but very rarely because of the bokeh, it’s almost always the resolution and additional micro contrast it has that makes it look so good.
Pentacon’s look great in my opinion
Maybe it’s from watching too many movies but you begin to appreciate good compositions with high DOF in the context of environmental portraits like in the examples above. Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life showcases this pretty well.
Agreed. Really not to my taste at all. I think I’m gradually realizing that I don’t care that much for bokeh in general. Looking through the photos in my catalogue that I would actually put on my wall, I find very few have noticeable bokeh. And those that do, it’s more of an indistinct blurred background rather than particularly noticeable blurred details like in the examples above.
I’m actually glad I’m not a bokeh chaser because I can’t afford the expensive fast lenses and would rather not lug around heavy glass anyway
These look like fascinating collector’s items, but in practice, I find that panoramas, especially for stills like landscapes, are the easiest thing to reproduce digitally from multiple photos.
Also, the large the sensor, the more it costs. So I would not hold my breath.
As for the TX-1: if I am doing the math right, the 45mm f/4 lens has an angle of view that is definitely nested in a 24mm full frame lens, which is not even considered ultra wide angle. So, why not just get a 24mm (or equivalent) lens and crop? This is angle is not what I think of as panorama.
I like an out-of-focus background in a portrait shot as much as anyone, although, for my concert stuff, I want it recognizable. But this is not the main reason that I like fast lenses. The main reason is the other sort of of speed: the wider the aperture, the higher the shutter speed can be with lower ISO.
If I could take a pic of a musician with everyone else around in focus too, I would. I often want to. I sometimes try to, but venturing to f8 or even f5 means a keeper without motion blur and or noise where I do mind it is improbable rather than probable.
There’s a balance point to this relationship between physics and art, though, that means I do not hanker after f1.4, let alone f1.2 or faster, because, at 135mm even f1.8 will often only give me one eye in focus and it is usually set to f2 or f2.2.
(I am rarely able to take a straight-on full-face pic, because then a singer will have a mic in front of their face. Or I’m in the way of the venue’s video camera, which would be unpopular)
Yes, I like fast lenses, but no, it isn’t about bokeh, especially the balls. I think it is wrong that fast-lens conversations always focus (ahem, no pun intended) on it.
I agree. I mainly want to use faster glass for low light. I understand the uses for isolating subjects, particularly portraits from messy backgrounds (though maybe just find a better background if it’s a portrait session with a pliant subject). I also get that dreamy effect might be useful, stereotypically focusing on some sheaves of wheat while the sunset behind is deeply out of focus. Still, a lot of the use of that particularly ultra shallow depth of field seems to highlight the equipment rather than the subject. We don’t really “see” (as in how our brain computes a scene) that way, I think. So it can turn into a bit of a “look at me” with my camera rather than a “look at this.”
Ugh its such a pita in post though. I always end up shooting very loosely around my subject so all the warping and stitching and what not leaves me room to crop. Never mind if its windy or there is other motion in the scene. Then you probably need to spend time cloning all the little stitching imperfections.
Not gonna lie, this is one of the reason I got the GFX. With an xpan crop applied, there is still 50mpix of data left, and I can shoot a single frame. Its glorious and really simplifies capturing.
I think these two images (that are not yours) illustrate well that it may not be so much help in using a small DOF to blur the background, when the main subject in the image is surrounded by very light areas /strong light close by that anyhow fight hard for the attention.
In the second image the blurred white halo immediately grabs my attention, and I really have to struggle to get contact with her relatively dark eyes.
(In the first image I would have taken down a tad or two that lit window frame and part of the wall to the left of the jacket. At capture one could possibly have moved slightly to the right (and perhaps somewhat lower) to avoid the issue by hiding most of it behind the subject.)
