[ennuipoet]

I see our resident Photography Snob has made his appearance in the thread this week. The guy is a good photographer, but his attitude makes me want to slap him. There are hundreds of photography sites on the net that welcome smug, pretentious douchebags to comment on their strictly average photography so they all feel special together, don’t bring that nonsense into my Farktography.

/End Rant

[ennuipoet]

Man, I was afraid shaped apertures would come out…

What about adding “Note: Bokeh refers to the out of focus/blurred elements in an image. Show us images that use bokeh creatively.” ?

You know…that actually works! It’s no “It’s blurry muthafarka!” but it has the benefit of being concise! 🙂

[ennuipoet]

I sure hope you posted that so that we could all laugh WITH you, ’cause I’m laughing and I’m going to feel bad if it turns out to be AT you. 😆

But no remote shutter release cable? Good grief, man, you’re in NYC, hie thee to B&H and buy a cheap one for $5.

Oh, it’s both, trust me, it’s both.

I bought the radio triggers because I wanted to be able to move around freely when shooting portraits and they work great for that. I am going to upgrade to Cowboy Studio’s Triggers which are much more reliable. And buy a shutter release cable.

[ennuipoet]

I took a walk this morning brainstorming for this theme. Whilst strolling along the park, the word “Bubbles” drifted into my mind like…well, bubbles on the wind. Whistling a merry tune I did my best Silly Walk to the local purveyors of Soap and Glycerine Mixtures in small plastic bottles packaged with a tiny appendage boasting an aperture from which the exhalation of oxygen and carbon dioxide would produce floating spheres, or, the 99 Cent Store.

Arriving at my domicile, I did a brief search upon the Internets for tips upon my endeavor. Fortified with the information I removed my cardboard box light tent, stapled a dark blue pillow case on the back and used a paper clip to stand the bubble wand on. I removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent. My idea was to photograph the bubbles as the left the wand, the so clamped the wand into place and removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent. I focused on the the wand, zooming in to true macro 1:1 ratio. I placed my flash off camera to the left at a 45 degree angle with a radio trigger. I placed the second radio trigger on the camera’s PC port so I could fire the camera and flash remotely while leaning in to blow the bubble. I removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent. I checked my focus, loaded the wand, check my focus and then went back to breath. The bubble mixture had ran out of the wand. I reloaded the wand, removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent, reloaded the wand, leaned in, exhaled and blew the most amazing bubble. Just as the bubble was forming on the wand I triggered the camera and the flash. The flash did not fire. I checked over the lighting set up, turned on the radio trigger on the strobe, reloaded the wand, removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent, reloaded the wand again, leaned in, exhaled, blew a lovely bubble, just as the bubble was leaving the wand I triggered the camera and the flash. The flash fired, the shutter clicked, the bubble blew out, the cat chased the bubble. I ran to the camera to chimp the shot: black screen.

I checked the lens cap, it was off. I reloaded the wand, removed the cat from the cardboard box light tent, reloaded the wand, exhaled, bubble forms, trigger the camera and flash, the flash fires, the shutter clicks, run to chimp the shot: black screen. Repeat ten times. Check all the settings. Remove the cat from the cardboard box light tent. Repeat the exhale and trigger, chimp the shot: black screen.

At this point in time, I am somewhat frustrated.

I removed the remote trigger from the camera PC port, because the cheap ass Chinese knock offs will not remote trigger the camera and the flash at the same time. I remove the cat from the cardboard box light tent, load the wand, place the wand, check my focus and attempt to blow a bubble from two feet away while manually releasing the shutter. I spray bubble mix all over the back of the cardboard box light tent.

Repeat ten times, speckle the dark blue pillow case back drop with bubble mix. No bubbles. Decide to try several angles, remove the cat from the cardboard box light tent, and discover that from any angle I cannot both blow a bubble AND trigger the camera.

At this point in time I am very frustrated because I have realized for this work without remote triggering the shutter, I would need to violate several laws of physics regarding matter existing in two separate places at the same time.

I put the cat in the cardboard box light tent, since the damn cat wants to be in there so badly. I focus the camera on the cat, align the strobe and go to click the shutter because at this point in time I want to take ONE FARKING PHOTOGRAPH OF ANYTHING, shutter fires, chimp the shot, to see a blurry streak of a black and gray tail as the cat leaves the cardboard box light tent.

[ennuipoet]

/Trying to make this as complicated as possible.
//It’s working.

HAH! Then I say we just post: “Bokeh: It’s Blurry Muthafarka!” 😛

[ennuipoet]

Honestly not too concerned about it. If they’re reading the contest (which never happens anyway right) they can google something if they can’t figure out what’s going on.

If you guys are talking about clarifying the description of the contest, I think a little bit more info would be helpful to voters and some of us submitters too. I doubt many of the non-photog voters will take time to go read up on what ‘bokeh’ is or how it relates to depth of field & the contest.

Rav, I’d also like to hear what others think, I’d lean towards the first, but am a bit confused too.

OK, how about: “Bokeh/Depth of Field is an object (or objects) in focus while the remainder of the image is pleasingly out of focus or blurry”

[ennuipoet]

Could I get some opinions? I’m trying to decide between these two:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lJziaj3ARVWUGwyhjBiZCQ?feat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ohEkGv7mx8galmyH1QE3Yw?feat=directlink

I already have a flower photo, but I’m just not sure the portrait is bokehey enough. I’ll be traveling most of tomorrow…today…Tuesday (whatever it is), but I’ll be able to check in a couple times during the day. Posting on Wednesday is going to be interesting, since the contest will go live at 2PM local time. I’ve gotta figure out how to fit that in my schedule.

I would go with the first one as I expect this will be a very flower intensive week. NTTAWWT, but difference will be noticed.

[ennuipoet]

I did want to say that my feelings are not coming a from a political stance. I think people of conscience on both sides of the political aisle can and should be concerned about the slow erosion of our freedoms. Nor is this some great conspiracy to install a police state in the U.S. This is good people doing what they think is right, 99% of cops are genuinely concerned about protecting the public. The laws are ill thought and reactionary. The problem is most people are law abiding and never think they will ever be touched by these laws. Until the day they are in the park and stopped. Perhaps their name is similar to someone on a watch list, perhaps they forgot to pay a parking ticket, perhaps a glitch in the system shows a warrant in their name. These things happen all the time. It is only then they get concerned. I’ve been approached one time by security out shooting, I was below the George Washington Bridge and a guy came and very politely asked me not to take photos with a zoom lens of the underside of the bridge. He did not demand, he requested, very professional. I was happy to comply with his request. If he DEMANDED or threatened, I would have reacted differently.

[ennuipoet]

An addendum such as “Show your Bokeh/Shallow Depth of Field (Photos with clear foreground and blurry background)” PSAEF, why I do not know.

Why limited to clear foreground and blurry background? Why not the opposite?

And, asking again, what about bokeh created from a lens reversal macro? The technique I use creates a soft, dreamy blur, with incredibly shallow depth of field.

That would also qualify! See how hard it is to explain! 🙂

[ennuipoet]

I read the article and the thread on Fark about this. While this instance ended with the officer IDing and releasing, the underlying reason for stopping the photographer is the issue. The departmental guidelines are so broad and vague as to allow a photographer to be stopped, identified and questioned for basically any reason. Let’s take the threat to infrastructure issue out of the mix and try this hypothetical:

You are shooting for Summer Daze at the local park. Say you are out with your kids and they are running and frolicking off in the distance and you are snapping shots of this. An officer comes along and sees you there, and assume you are man for this. There are events, no sign of people watching or participating, no birthday parties, no signs that you have any reason to photograph these children. The office decides that there are no esthetic reasons for you to be photographing anything here, and hey maybe you are a child molester staking out your victims. He better ID you, just to be safe. So, he walks up to you, asks what you are doing and for your ID.

You haven’t broken a law. There is no probable cause for him to stop you, ask for you ID, or detain you in any fashion. Sure, you are a law abiding citizen, so you produce your ID, tell the officer those are your kids, the come up to meet the police officer and that is it. Not a problem.

Except you just lost your freedom without any underlying cause. When I was a cop, before 9/11, my peers used to moan about how restricted they were! We had to have reasonable suspicion or belief that someone was committing a crime before we stop them. We needed to have probable cause before arresting them. I imagine those peers are wetting themselves with joy these days because they can stop anyone the please merely by inventing a anti-terrorism excuse. The way this policy is constructed and the legal thinking behind it removes a fundamental check on the powers of the government to deprive you of freedom, even if only for a few moments. One of the fundamental tools of oppression is to create an environment where the state can place a check on your freedom of movement, thus the Cold War cliche of being asked for your “papers” on the streets of East Berlin. The dividing line between a Stasi agent checking your papers and a Long Beach PD officer checking your ID without legal cause is very, very blurry and growing dimmer every day.

Benjamin Franklin said those show trade their freedoms for security shall soon have neither. So long as governments continue to twist the threat of terrorism into a tool to keep check on the public for ANY reason, our freedoms are in jeopardy. Yes, in this case, the photographer was released, but the power granted to government to deprive people of liberty has increased. The next time the government might make him erase a photo, seize the camera or arrest the photographer. It happens all the time.

Guard your freedoms jealously, or you may wake to find them gone.

[ennuipoet]

I still have no clue as to whether anything I have even remotely defines excellent (or really poor) bokeh, and I’ll just probably go with posting the shots I like best, and voting be damned. If parts be clearly focused and parts be not, that’s about all I’ll ever understand about doing bokeh.

Am I the only one feeling this way?

Rav: The truth about bokeh is the who concept was made up by camera companies to convince you to buy more lenses. (Assumes facts not in evidence) The truth is, good bokeh is in the small details, which most people never actually see. Take a photo with a strong background blur and zoom in. The points of light in the background should be smooth, and the rounder the better. (This is entirely the effect of how many blades make up your aperture ring, 9 blades make a more circular hole than seven) The if background blobs are rough and octagonal then that not great bokeh. The physical objects in the background blur should have smooth edges rather than jagged, yet you should be able to see (for example) where one flower stem ends and another begins. This is a property of the actual glass, (as I understand) and how well the elements work together. Producing the bokeh effect relies on focal length, f-stop and focal distance.

So, you are doing exactly the right thing, pick the shots you like and run with them. The only way to “do it wrong” in this is have everything in the shot in the same plane of focus. Good bokeh or bad bokeh, that is for you to decide for yourself. (Or, you can spend a lot of time reading about it in magazines and message boards, time which I will never get back!) Shoot with what you have, save for what you want, and have frickin’ fun!!

[ennuipoet]

U-Man: I figured maybe we were saying the same thing, but differently. I keyed off your suggestion of showing bokeh through “shallow depth of field” and wanted to be sure we weren’t talking about limiting it to things like millimeters’ or inches’ worth of dof. We probably do want to say something more than just “show us bokeh” only because that’s a pretty jargon-y term that not everyone will understand.

In a world of cellphone cameras and cheap point and shoots, DoF is a jargony term as well. (Snark, but accurate snark) An addendum such as “Show your Bokeh/Shallow Depth of Field (Photos with clear foreground and blurry background)” Bokeh is like porn for the non-photographer world, they don’t know how to describe it (or what it is) but the like it when they see it.

PS: libranoelrose is asking for you in the PSAEF, why I do not know.

[ennuipoet]

It’s a Bee that inspired the “A”s tonight

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ennuipoet/6030893574/in/photostream/lightbox/

The portal in question is a portico that used to lead to a manor house in what is now Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. I love the light in this shot, I have to go back same bat time same bat channel to reshoot with better alignment.

[ennuipoet]

/p/ is the 4Chan Photography Board

http://boards.4chan.org/p/

It’s not as wild ad /b/ but I still wouldn’t go in there without gloves on.

Also, the HDR Hole is not the use of the HDR, but the use of HDR for EVERYTHING! I went there, churning out crappy blown out pics of stuff containing perfectly suitable dynamic range.

I still use HDR, just not so much as the early days 😀

[ennuipoet]

So, no clerics then?

I would think a Druid would meet the criteria.

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