[Sorry for posting this again: this version should display the picture correctly.]

Here is an example of the type of photo that I think may be more difficult to visualize with an M6 than with an SLR, as suggested in the recent thread on Huger Foote using the M6:

While I could more or less visualize the out-of-focus area behind the plane of focus, I think its very difficult to visualize the large out-of-focus area at the bottom of the photo in front of the plane of focus. I would think that the effect of this image would be easier to see through a SLR. With an M6, one has to just shoot and then see how things come out on the slide tray. Huger Foote has many photos of this type in his book, _My_Friend_from_Memphis_.

I am interested in these type of photos that depend on the relationship between the bokeh in front and behind the plane of focus to the areas that ar in focus. I used an M-75/1.4 probably at f/2, but possibly at f/1.4.

--Mitch/Bangkok

-- Mitch Alland (malland@mac.com), January 07, 2002

Answers

Hallo Mitch,

very nice photograph this. Let Huger Foote go his way and you go yours. Show us more.

best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), January 07, 2002.

K.G.:

Thanks. But I must say that I am always skeptical about taking pictures of orchids or Japanese gardens because either nature or the garden designer has done the work for you: almost any photo of an orchid at wide aperture will look beautiful. Somehow I am more interestd in creating beauty, in the manner of Eggleston or Foote, from objects that are not in themselves beautiful. Anyway, I'm trying to explore the idea of out-of-focus areas both in front of and behind the plane of focus. I'd like, and also the i dea of creating an almost abstract form through a color photograph. I'd like to post more photos but am having problems with my scanner right now.

--Mitch/Bangkok

-- Mitch Alland (malland@mac.com), January 07, 2002.

Mitch, I don't think your ever going to get the answer you seem to want to hear from everyone - that this (and Footes work) are 'SLR' photos. Think back to all the amazing photos that came from people like HCB, Capa (and on and on) from, say pre 1960 when very few people were using SLRs. A lot of these images used juxtapostion of in and out of focus areas and I'm quite sure it was not all by chance. As a number of people have said (and you can include myself) I find it just as easy, after 25 years of shooting to pre-visualize my depth of field in my head. Though I have an R camera (and in the past used lots of Nikon and Olympus), and use it for certain things, the depth of field preview is something I use very rarely.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 07, 2002.

"...the depth of field preview is something I use very rarely."

In my Nikon days I used to use the DOF preview A LOT - but not to preview depth-of-field.

I used it like one of those 'contrast viewing' glasses - to darken the image and bring up the grain of the focusing screen - as a tool to previsualize how the picture would look on grainy B&W film, or on contrasty saturated slide film.

In my 9 months of shooting Leica RF almost exclusively most of my best pictures have been taken at f/2 or thereabouts. I was at first amazed and surprised by the pictures - now I know pretty well what a lens/ aperture combo will do, but I'm still AMAZED by what I get sometimes (just rarely surprised)!

It may be easier to visualize certain optical effects using an SLR - but I'd still rather use the M. Experience and skill weigh a lot less to carry around than mirrors, prisms and aperture linkages. 8^)

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), January 08, 2002.