Your Thoughts on Depth of Focus

[RGS]

Ansel Adams and his group f64 emphasized depth of focus. I learned to use view camera movements combined with small f-stops to maximize depth. Now, we have focus stacking, so depth of focus is easy to achieve. The photo I posted (Sunrise on Broken Bow Lake in SE Oklahoma) is a three-shot focus stack.

But today, on a different site, I saw a beautifully processed photograph that I am certain was stacked because the focus was UNNATURALLY sharp all over. The impression of depth in the photograph was, to me, compromised by the unnatural depth of focus. So I'm posting this hoping to engage in a discussion about when to expand the depth of focus and when NOT TO. Please post your thoughts. Thanks.

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[Archibald]

It is the artist's choice. The eye adjusts naturally to near and far distances, and having everything in focus in a photograph allows us to see the scene that way.

Maybe our perceptions are affected by being accustomed to photographs that show a shallower DOF.

Did painters in the Golden Age use selective focus? No, I don't think so.

DOF = depth of field. Depth of focus is something else.

 

[RGS]

It is the artist's choice. The eye adjusts naturally to near and far distances, and having everything in focus in a photograph allows us to see the scene that way.

Maybe our perceptions are affected by being accustomed to photographs that show a shallower DOF.

Did painters in the Golden Age use selective focus? No, I don't think so.

DOF = depth of field. Depth of focus is something else.

Of course it is the artist's choice,. My point is not to establish a rule, but to find those times when a subject may be better interpreted with less depth. Our two-dimensional photographs cannot exactly mimic what our brain does with a realtime view of a three-dimensional subject. It seems to me that sometimes sharp focus front to back flattens the illusion of depth in the photograph while a subtle fading of sharpness in a two-dimensional photograph gives a greater sense of depth.