DOF & beauty

[Roberto Lequeux]

Wow. Stunning. Thanks for sharing. This guy is a machine!

 

[Andrew Rieger]

And this is what many in the art world consider to be the most realistic painting ever created: http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp

No one believes it is a painting but this proves it.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

He paints such amazing photorealistic paintings that people must turn to him and say: Your photographs are kinda nice.

 

[Jacob_Ross]

damn! I just came across this thread.... what a goldmine!

thanx dudes.

 

[Omar Saad]

I don't have my copy of EYES WIDE SHUT, but I seem to recall Kubrick using a good number of really beautiful deep-focus shots, even in situations that appeared to be shot in low light.

I really need to get a 1080p copy of Eyes Wide Shut and watch it again. The film is very underrated, IMO.

Tom L,

get it on BR and it's a great movie.

Also forget the critics...

This is quickly becoming possibly my favorite Kubrick film. It gets better every time I watch it. I also think it may just be the most beautifully shot film I've seen, at least as far as night cinematography. And yes definitely get the Bluray... it's stunning.

On a slightly twisted side note... it's one of my favorite films to watch during Christmas time. Nearly every shot has some great holiday set dressing going on. Can't help but get one in the mood holiday cheer...lol.

 

[Jerrod Cordell]

And this is what many in the art world consider to be the most realistic painting ever created: http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp

No one believes it is a painting but this proves it.

Holy Crap!

Wow...Just wow.

 

[Andrew Wilding]

And this is what many in the art world consider to be the most realistic painting ever created: http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp

No one believes it is a painting but this proves it.

What a horrendous waste of time. Painter as bad photographer.

 

[James T Mather]

What a horrendous waste of time. Painter as bad photographer.

Is there really such a difference between these two works in a way:

Although today it is deemed to be a work of note, this is a particularly modern train of thought - it was deemed unremarkable until around the 19th century.

Although to us it might seem "classical" and "venerable" due to our unfamiliarity with the style, wardrobe, facial characteristics etc - at the time it represented a pretty standard commission (with some unusual flourishes such as an exterior elevated backdrop) of a rich man's wife (to celebrate the birth of a son). Her hair, clothes and facial characteristics (such as pulling the eyebrows) may have seemed just as tasteless and parochial to a local at the time as the stylistic, makeup and hair choices in the Blair work.

In short - the people of Florence might well have, at the time, viewed this painting as you do that one.

 

[Andrew Wilding]

Theoretically I can see where you are coming from - but I think we can be realistic and say that there is no comparison between the two, at all.

And as for wether or not La Giaconda seemed tacky at the time -

In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease.
—Giorgio Vasari

Though for what its worth, I can not for the life of me understand why it is singled out as the quintessential Leonardo piece. His talent was so much greater and diverse than a single portrait.

Also, just to be safe, I hope you wont read my comments as antagonistic. I know tone can be hard to decipher online.

Oh - but what La Giaconda has over the airbrush thing - It has leonardo in every brush stroke. It is full of soul - The most gifted of artists are the ones who transpose there own spirit and humanity into whatever it is that they are painting. Subjectively, I dont see that in the airbrushed picture. I just see empty technical perfection, in absence of not only spirit but even of taste.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

And this is what many in the art world consider to be the most realistic painting ever created: http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp

No one believes it is a painting but this proves it.

Interesting technical exercise. He accomplishes in over ten hours what the camera captured in less than a second. The fact that a human can emulate machine is the punchline and at the same time the only thing truly interesting about this work. It is both sublime and ridiculous. The closest analogy to what this is for me: A man that spends his life becoming an eloquent speaker in a beautiful language yet discovers he has nothing important to say. If this portrait were on the hood of a car, it would have more intrinsic artistic value than it does in its present context. And yet, the technical ability of the painter is staggering. What a throughly contemporary problem: to be gifted with such skill and yet so incapable of harnessing it in a way that is actually illuminating. Which leaves me with the conclusion that if art communicates at all, then this is the message itself.

"Fill my empty soul!", The Audience screamed at the filmmaker. The filmmaker was blinded by a vanity made possible only by the splitting of the atom. The splitting of the atom made possible only by the emptying of a million souls.

And yes, I hold myself to the same standard. And yes, I regularly fall short of it.

 

[Scott Crawley]

On a slightly twisted side note... it's one of my favorite films to watch during Christmas time. Nearly every shot has some great holiday set dressing going on. Can't help but get one in the mood holiday cheer...lol.

Slightly twisted? Lol You must throw some interesting Christmas parties at your place. I'm reminded of Sting's lament that couples were choosing Every Breath You Take for their bridal dance.

Thanks all for some wonderful frames to consider. David's Innocents example with the young girl in the foreground works for so many reasons; luminance and contrast levels, the strength of frame position and leading lines...

I love the bathroom singles from The Shining. David raises great points RE: Grady's single being POV, Jack's character certainly doesn't see himself as a part of Grady's world, so he certainly wouldn't appear in reflection. I like the way the lines behind Grady depict him in a box of light. Likewise, I love the factured red lines directly behind Nicholson's head... Brilliant! Also, if memory serves, this is the brightest, most saturated scene in the film for all of the right reasons. I've always found it amusing that Torrance is confronted by his situation in a way that finally begins to register with him in a bathroom, of all places. I suppose many drunks have had similar realizations while praying to the porcelain god.:001_smile:

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Thanks Michael

Mixing different focal lengths gives a surreal feeling to the scene and that was the purpose to this exercise.
do you have a pic for us to share. I would love to see it.

Here is another one.

That is freakin' yummy. One of my favorite images this month, from any medium. I'd love to see more of your work.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Theoretically I can see where you are coming from - but I think we can be realistic and say that there is no comparison between the two, at all.

And as for wether or not La Giaconda seemed tacky at the time -

In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease.
—Giorgio Vasari

Though for what its worth, I can not for the life of me understand why it is singled out as the quintessential Leonardo piece. His talent was so much greater and diverse than a single portrait.

Also, just to be safe, I hope you wont read my comments as antagonistic. I know tone can be hard to decipher online.

Oh - but what La Giaconda has over the airbrush thing - It has leonardo in every brush stroke. It is full of soul - The most gifted of artists are the ones who transpose there own spirit and humanity into whatever it is that they are painting. Subjectively, I dont see that in the airbrushed picture. I just see empty technical perfection, in absence of not only spirit but even of taste.

I don't know, isn't the modern painting supposed to be eerie and ironic, maybe even creepy? It is to me. The Mona Lisa, to me, resides in the bottom third of Leonardo's work, and I'd put his architectural work at the very top, not his painting. That said, some of his lesser known works are. to me, some of the best paintings ever created on earth. Just not the Mona Lisa, so much.

 

[Andrew Wilding]

The Mona Lisa, to me, resides in the bottom third of Leonardo's work

I agree. But even the most meagre of Leonardos chicken-scratch would surely be invested with far more soul then that airbrushed thing.

 

[Jesper Sichlau]

My favorite danish movie is a film called "Kongekabale" or "King's Game" which is a political thriller based on real events and inspired by "All the President's Men." Kongekabale was the debut film of a great relatively young filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, which was probably why this film was shot on Super 16. Like in most cases you don't realize the film was shot on S16mm simply because it looks beautiful. The DOP Rasmus Videbæk is also concidered one of Denmark's finest and I asked him recently how he achieved a very shallow DOF for the movie. The way he did it was simply to move the camera away and use long lenses. Sometimes they would put something close to the camera to get the feeling of shallow DOF. The f-stop was mainly f2-2.8 through out the movie. This film serve as a big inspiration for me on several levels. This is why:

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Thank you for posting this Jesper. Gotta see that film.

 

[Sam Eilertsen]

Two opposite opinions on the net:

http://www.groupf16.org/Diffraction.html


http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm


--

While the second opinion sounds more logical and matches what you said, that the focal length is not relevant in diffraction, just the f-stop, the fact that telephoto lenses are able to be stopped down further than f/16 suggests that they are more "usable" than a wide-angle lens at deep stops, maybe not so much from a sharpness standpoint but in the fact that there are no real advantages to stopping down a wide-angle lens (in 35mm photography) much more than f/16 from a visual standpoint, whereas you can still see changes to image depth of field in a telephoto lens stopped down to f/16, then to f/22, then to f/32, etc. So the ability to keep increasing depth of field in a very telephoto image makes these super deep stops practical, even with the sharpness limitations caused by diffraction. Plus with a physically larger lens, with a physically larger aperture, it's probably easier to design an iris that closes down beyond an f/16.

If wikipedia and my two years of college physics serve me correctly, only f-number should affect diffraction size (that and the wavelength of light coming in -- blue objects will be a little sharper than red ones!)

Awesome thread. Need to finish reading it.

 

[Jesper Sichlau]

Found this video http://vimeo.com/19238173 which was shot on the Si-2K camera which is 2/3" sensor. I think it looks quite nice, and with lots of shallow DOF.

 

[andrewhake]

This is a fantastic thread, one of the best I have ever read on reduser, but I am always a little confused by them. People "discovering" that composition IS important, framing IS important, color IS important, contrast IS important... This is coming from someone more used to doing it all from scratch (animation) where DOF is absolutely the last thing that comes to mind as it is an effect of the camera that isn't the easiest to illustrate and actually takes many more technical steps in animation (or some squiggly lose lines here and there, haha)

I am not saying this about anyone in particular posting here, but film-makers often have a very narrow view of only looking at other films for inspiration, especially the newer crowd getting into the game. (This is coming from someone in the younger crowd...) I am not saying everyone should go take a life drawing course, but if if you sincerely believe what these intelligent people are discussing here about DOF is rubbish, you should consider doing it on your own, scribbling a storyboard frame every once in awhile won't kill anyone. Drawing well does not mean drawing accurately, but capturing, the bits that are inspiring to you, just like you do with a camera. Just like any asshole with a camera can point it at something and capture a moment exactly, any asshole with a pencil/paper and patience can draw a scene exactly how reality depicts it. To put it as frankly as possible. Fuck that... To elaborate more on that, any asshole with a big sensor and a big aperture can make something look a bit dreamy, but it takes talent to convey the message you really want. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against shallow DOF what so ever, but when shallow DOF becomes your AutoTune you are no longer making something look filmic, you are making it look filmak (TM 2011 Andrew Hake), the film making equivalent to elevator music.

Or to take that painting example that was brought up - http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp
Great, looks super realistic, bet that took a lot of time, and I am impressed by your technical skill and patience, but completely uninspired creatively. The reason we care about the Mona Lisa is almost 100% to do with the artist it was painted by, it is only after we learned why he is important that we bothered to give a shit about the technicalities and artistic qualities of this work, and it is the connection to this person that makes that work so interesting, we know there was a lot going on in that mans head, he has more than proven this to us.

And consider the shot of the boy that someone painted...

"stunning someone said", but what makes that stunning? Are you stunned by how realistic it looks? You think you are stunned and amazed the moment you realize that it was all meticulously done bit by bit, until it looked extremely realistic, but you will forget about it 24hrs later and never even think about that again. What you will remember is the look on the boy's face, the fantastic contrasting colors swooping through the frame, and even more that someone captured this moment in an instant, without hours of meticulous work but on a whim of creativity. Able to bring it back to your eyes thanks to 100+ years of human technical achievement, and make you feel something, maybe 90% of what they felt when they took the photograph. There is so much confusion here I think, being a painter does NOT make you an artist, or even a creative person. If anyone ever tells you they are an artist, smile and nod and walk away as quickly as you can, as you are about to be bored. The most intelligent and creative people are the ones that are more interested in inspiring themselves and it just so happens other people enjoy their work.

And to keep the discussion going:

Doesn't even need to be high-resolution, there is a lot going on in that little contact sheet, and it absolutely is not limited to the vision of the director or cinematographer. Everything is everything people.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

i have just found out this thread had been in my old bookmarks