[Leica] A specific example

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

>>>
Pictorial photography begins and ends with perception...KISS yes, but "it's
the picture, stupid," is also true. If it looks good, it is good. If it
doesn't, it ain't. Perception is the whole ball game, not only in the
meaning of the subject, but in pictorial photographic technique, too.<<<

For a specific example, check out:

http://gemma.geo.uaic.ro/~vdonisa/fa85_14/bos2.html

Under the section titled "Bokeh & Sharpness vs. aperture" you'll see five
test shots that Bruce Dayton made of his little girl. First, take a look at
the f/5.6 shot compared to the f/1.4 shot. To me--and this is only one
viewer's opinion--the f/5.6 shot is too sharp. Specifically, the background
is coming into focus enough to be distracting; the lens's rendition seems
analytical, the texture of the skin (even a child's skin) is beginning to be
too apparent. That is, it has too much attention drawn to it.

Now look at the f/1.4 shot. To me (again, just to me--I'm not dictating),
it's the more pleasing picture of the two. The eyes are just sharp enough
not to frustrate with too low a level of detail; the background is entirely
out of the picture and not distracting, while at the same time not looking
fakey; the skin texture is not prominent to the observer's eye.
Aesthetically, this looks better to me.

Now look also, if you like, at the other shots in between. Aesthetically,
which looks best to you? I imagine everybody will have his or her own
opinion, because each of us have our own taste. To me, the f/2 shot is the
best balance. In that one, the eyes are clear enough, and not just at the
verge of being questionable as they are in the f/1.4 shot. The head has
detail a little further back. Yet the background is still soft and not much
of an element of the picture. The skin is still not showing too much surface
texture. I prefer this to the f/5.6 shot.

Yet even in the f/2 shot, the actual resolution is quite poor. Certainly as
we view it onscreen, the f/1.4 shot is very poor in terms of presenting fine
detail.

- --Mike

P.S. My friend Bob Meier just had a picture published in _The New Yorker_.
It's in the Nov. 13th issue, page 111. It's his first in that magazine so I
wanted to blow his horn a little bit. He's a Leica shooter, although I'm not
sure what equipment he was using in China.