Creative portraiture: ultra-shallow DOF

pjm1

pjm1

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I'm not sure where to post this - here or creative photography...

I'm wanting to experiment with some more creative and pretty unconventional shots of people. In fact, I'd hesitate calling them portraits even thought they will have a person in frame...

My thinking: if I use a longer focal length and short subject-camera distance, I get a super shallow depth of field. We obviously see this with macro lenses, but I'm wondering about its application here? What do we think the smallest f/number that would be "pleasing" would be?

For example, at 80cm (the minimum focus distance) camera-subject distance with my 85mm lens at f/1.8, I have a depth of field of 8.6mm - enough to get eyes and eyelashes in focus and not much more. We see a bit of this shallow DOF style, so nothing new there. In portrait orientation, the frame would capture a subject 22cm x 33cm, which is bigger than a head, so not quite frame-filling and in fact, it would fit in fine in landscape orientation too, perhaps allowing a nice crop of the hair to get the eyes lifted up in the frame.

Now comes the experimentation: if I switch to a 150mm macro, I could JUST squeeze in the width of a head in landscape orientation at a distance of 70cm. It would be a close-up of the central part of the face - eyes & nose basically. Even at an aperture of f/4 (which would probably the maximum achievable given macros don't operate at f/2.8 at high magnification), this would give a crazy shallow depth of field of 4.1mm. That's probably enough to get the curve of the eyeball in focus. Just. To achieve similar with the 85mm at its MFD, you'd need an aperture of f/0.85!

So, what do we reckon the limit of acceptability for depth of field is with "artistic" (i.e. for creative effect rather than as a faithful repro/useable headshot) portraits? f/1.4 looks lovely, f/1.2 probably looks lovelier... but what about sub 1?
 
For portraits I normally like to see at least the eyes and the tip of the nose in focus. But since you've already said you're doing creative and unconventional things you can do whatever you like; there's no limit.

I'm interested to see what you make. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that while a shallow DoF can be very useful it's an over-used effect.
 
I remember doing the super shallow DOF shots with the Brenizer technique. Used the 85f1.4 and had equivalent results with ultra shallow DOF
 
Thanks Simon and Shaheed (how's the MF going?! I remember my first forays so fondly - especially the first few goes at developing... you're going to get hooked!)

I think it'll be interesting to see what works and what doesn't. I'm not holding out much hope simply because I haven't seen it done - which means people will have tried it and decided it looks crap :)

Agree with you Simon that a bit like milky water, shallow DOF is over played, but tbf I still love it. When it's done well, I just can't resist it. And funnily enough, I nearly referenced you by name when I was posting this because it's your pictures that started me down this track!!

I might also try some Brenizer with my 120-300 at some point. But right now I'm still playing with the macro!
 
pjm1 said:
Thanks Simon and Shaheed (how's the MF going?! I remember my first forays so fondly - especially the first few goes at developing... you're going to get hooked!)

I think it'll be interesting to see what works and what doesn't. I'm not holding out much hope simply because I haven't seen it done - which means people will have tried it and decided it looks crap :)

Agree with you Simon that a bit like milky water, shallow DOF is over played, but tbf I still love it. When it's done well, I just can't resist it. And funnily enough, I nearly referenced you by name when I was posting this because it's your pictures that started me down this track!!

I might also try some Brenizer with my 120-300 at some point. But right now I'm still playing with the macro!
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I've got the Bronica, just not had time to shoot. Already being a lot more considered about it - planning what and how I want to shoot!
 
Sir SR said:
I've got the Bronica, just not had time to shoot. Already being a lot more considered about it - planning what and how I want to shoot!
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That's what I enjoyed most and the main reason for getting one... just S L O W it down. Looking through that viewfinder is still a treat.

I bought myself a Sekonic (not sure if the Bronica is the same as the Mamiya in having no metering with the waist level finder) but to be honest, I actually like having my DSLR and the Mamiya set up side-by-side and translating the settings from one t'other. Especially useful if your doing flash/studio stuff! But maybe a bit cheaty?
 
FWIW, I found that it was necessary to all but clamp the subject's head in a vice to keep the area I wanted in sharp focus in sharp focus. The ultra shallow DoF I was after meant that the slightest move bu99ered up what I was trying to achieve - a royal PITA even on home brewed B&W 135, let alone MF!
 
Nod said:
FWIW, I found that it was necessary to all but clamp the subject's head in a vice to keep the area I wanted in sharp focus in sharp focus. The ultra shallow DoF I was after meant that the slightest move bu99ered up what I was trying to achieve - a royal PITA even on home brewed B&W 135, let alone MF!
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That's a good point Nod. I was thinking they'd be seated and I may need to put some sort of rest (like a long metal ruler) behind their back so they can rest their head against something fixed. Otherwise they'll bob, swap and generally move more than the 4mm of DOF that I'd have...

(I'll be shooting on a D750 for this btw... not getting the film camera out for such experimental work!)
 
pjm1 said:
That's a good point Nod. I was thinking they'd be seated and I may need to put some sort of rest (like a long metal ruler) behind their back so they can rest their head against something fixed. Otherwise they'll bob, swap and generally move more than the 4mm of DOF that I'd have...
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Could you get your subject to lie down? And perhaps use a pillow for maximum stability?
 
juggler said:
Any in particular? I rarely use a very shallow DoF and don't think of myself as creative.. I shoot a mixture of whatever's in my head and a lot of dry technical experiments.
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Sorry Simon, my fingers and brain were on different planes when I typed that - I meant it was @Sir SR 's shallow DOF shots (f/1.4 etc.) which started me down this track...

Your photos are just "clasically" brilliant - although I'm pretty sure there's a fair bit of creativity in there too!
 
juggler said:
Could you get your subject to lie down? And perhaps use a pillow for maximum stability?
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That is an excellent idea, except for the proximity to the "background" - which if we're filling the frame with eyes/nose would be fine, but I also have a wish to try a 9-shot stitch as well... (once I've started to see the effects at least)
 
I'm with @juggler for a face to look pleasing the dominant eye must be tack sharp so whatever depth of field gives that. I keep toying with the idea of picking up a sony from the A7 range to get focus peaking with no mirror slap for shooting really shallow portraits after watching some of Peter Coulson and Miguel Quiles shoots. If you want to be creative with it I'd definitely go with the macro here's one of my wee boy, remember his head is a lot smaller than an adult so this was in close and about as shallow as I would go to keep eye fully sharp, this was f4 on a tamron 90mm, If you were face on you could go shallower but need to be careful to keep focus plane flat across both eyes.
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If the object was to be creative going super tight and stitching as Shaheed said could be cool but you'd probably need some type of rig to keep the cameras focal plane and keeping subjects still would be a nightmare. If you had access to a tilt shift You can make cool portraits tilting forward so tip of nose and eyes can be sharp whilst exagerating how out of focus the rest of the image goes.
 
Hi Craig, that's a very smart image (the sort of thing I'm looking at, TBH) and the thing I really like - and hadn't thought of - was to turn the head so the tip of the nose and the eyeball are in the same plane.

A bit of lateral thinking (or in this case, rotated ;) ) is all that's needed sometimes!

I think with adult subjects, it might be easier simply because we can keep a bit stiller. I have a gimbal head which I normally just use for my long lens but the macro (being a 150mm) has a tripod foot... so I could turn that into a nodal pivot, I think. I now need to find some time in between work (!) to have a play :)

This has been a really helpful discussion. Sometimes threads take a bit of time to get going, but this has been good. I need to post some outputs now!
 
pjm1 said:
Sorry Simon, my fingers and brain were on different planes when I typed that - I meant it was @Sir SR 's shallow DOF shots (f/1.4 etc.) which started me down this track...

Your photos are just "clasically" brilliant - although I'm pretty sure there's a fair bit of creativity in there too!
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Ta.. That makes sense.. @Sir SR makes shallow DoF work in a way that few others manage - but then his pictures would work just as well without IMO (sorry, Shaheed, for the unsolicited critique; it's intended as a compliment :) ).
 
CraigDHD said:
I'm with @juggler for a face to look pleasing the dominant eye must be tack sharp so whatever depth of field gives that. I keep toying with the idea of picking up a sony from the A7 range to get focus peaking with no mirror slap for shooting really shallow portraits after watching some of Peter Coulson and Miguel Quiles shoots. If you want to be creative with it I'd definitely go with the macro here's one of my wee boy, remember his head is a lot smaller than an adult so this was in close and about as shallow as I would go to keep eye fully sharp, this was f4 on a tamron 90mm, If you were face on you could go shallower but need to be careful to keep focus plane flat across both eyes.
17606377119_2ca6dccc70_o.jpg

If the object was to be creative going super tight and stitching as Shaheed said could be cool but you'd probably need some type of rig to keep the cameras focal plane and keeping subjects still would be a nightmare. If you had access to a tilt shift You can make cool portraits tilting forward so tip of nose and eyes can be sharp whilst exagerating how out of focus the rest of the image goes.
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This is lovely but I do wonder whether it's a photographer's shot? i.e. what does the shallow DoF add? Does it make it more engaging? Help with subject isolation? Create mood? They're genuine questions, btw, I'm not picking holes.

It does give the image more depth and the low contrast blurred area do drive attention to the eye but at the same time the effect draws attention to itself :thinking:. It'd be interesting to see the same pose with much deeper DoF to do a nerdy analytical comparison.

fwiw my very limited experience of focus peaking on the A7II was that it wasn't good enough to rely on, but that the magnified live view in the viewfinder was very helpful.
 
My view on the shallow DOF is it gives a tiny peek into the detail of his face, pore structure etc, but leaves the overall impression of him being soft and childlike. An ultrasharp, high clarity image where most of his face is in focus would probably look too harsh for a child and leave it looking a bit "Zack Snyder"?
 
pjm1 said:
My view on the shallow DOF is it gives a tiny peek into the detail of his face, pore structure etc, but leaves the overall impression of him being soft and childlike. An ultrasharp, high clarity image where most of his face is in focus would probably look too harsh for a child and leave it looking a bit "Zack Snyder"?
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Off to google Zack Snyder.. nope, none the wiser ;)

Well, lighting is at least as important but you already knew that. There's only one way to find out and that's to do the comparison; I'm looking forward to seeing the results.
 
I do love a shallow DOF portrait. Rarely using anything above wide open for most of my stuff, whether that's at minimum focus distance or full body shots or even group shots at weddings. That's either 85mm F1.4 on the DSLR or 80mm f2.0 on 645 film. Will be interesting to see what you produce.
 
juggler said:
Off to google Zack Snyder.. nope, none the wiser ;)

Well, lighting is at least as important but you already knew that. There's only one way to find out and that's to do the comparison; I'm looking forward to seeing the results.
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Sorry, film reference. He did 300 and his films tend to have an overly stylised look. Imagine taking clarity up to 100 and saturation down a bit on a film. Craig's image isn't like that (before he accuses me of calling his images "slider-max") in part I think because of the shallow DOF. As you say, the lighting is key and, again, Craig's off-camera look confers another advantage of allowing the subject's face to point to the light.
 
juggler said:
Ta.. That makes sense.. @Sir SR makes shallow DoF work in a way that few others manage - but then his pictures would work just as well without IMO (sorry, Shaheed, for the unsolicited critique; it's intended as a compliment :) ).
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And that's exactly how I read it! Thank you [emoji106]
 
For me the attraction of shallow dof close up portraits is the same as shallow dof wide shots, the in focus areas draw the eye to the important parts. I've never gazed at a face and thought to myself, omg that's a spectacularly attractive area of cheek or damn that's a lovely sprawling forehead! You're eye goes to the brightest, biggest or most in focus area of an image so if your in tight on a face and include less in the frame controling a shallow dof can make the viewers eye go to important areas same as a larger scene.

That said, I'll be honest that was shot the night I got my tamron 90mm as a test for shooting super shallow and was just done quickly with an on camera bounce while he was engrossed in tv and was purely to demonstrate what I interpreted the idea as. It also just happened to be the first one I came too.

I'd agree about the lighting, for shooting really shallow before with studio heads I used a 4 stop nd filter but this slows focusing and as mine was cheap and could cause bad flaring depending on the lighting used. Using a smaller flash lets you go lower power without an nd but can cause issues with ambient levels interfering. I've recently picked up a godox ad600 and have found using hss offers a number of advantages for shallow portraits as you can kill ambient easier with shutter speed in a reasonably well lit room when using it.
 
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That's a good point Craig re: light levels. I have a 200Ws head which has (I think) a 5 stop range so I'm hoping that will go low enough... I actually use my ND 2 stop a fair bit when I'm shooting outside so I can get things within sync speed - so I shouldn't imagine a 2 stopper would cause many problems indoors as long as the modelling lights are up high enough!
 
I have lencarta smartflash 2's which are that spec, a 2 stop should be fine with the macro with a slightly more closed apperture but I found going f2 and below that at min power when in fairly close with the light that it was too hot I could get away with a 3 stop but biggest issues came when I wanted to add a kicker light as I couldn't always stay at minimum power then to balance everything and it flared badly if any kicker light got in to it. There's a thread I made a while ago here though not as extreme as your talking about most were f2.2-f2.8 range.

Here's a good video from Miguel Quiles on shallow dramatic portraits again maybe not quite what you had in mind but clearly part of my inspiration for the above thread.

***edit***
another option is just using the modeling lights on the heads but this can leave the pupils really big which isn't always desirable when in as close
 
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This isn't what I was after, but as a placeholder it might trigger some more discussion and thoughts...

RWlbhBH.jpg


A very close subject-camera distance and more than I was intending, which accounts for the even shallower DOF. It starts working against you as you get closer because the aperture closes up (this was a minimum f/4.2).

Clearly this isn't a portrait, but it highlights the challenge of stitching more of these together and getting anything usable.

Since it was an experiment, I thought I'd see what it was like losing the eyeball itself - my son has rather noticeable eyelashes so went for them instead. The consequence and something that should have been noticed by me at the time was this also brought the skin between his cheek and nose into focus, which for most of us is a bit more blemished.

I also should have moved the box away a little as even at low power it was pushing the highlights. I should have switched to my other head which has a greater range of power control (the 5 stop one).

Worth a different take later in the day, perhaps more face-on.
 
Personally I think here you're a bit too shallow, if it's deliberate on the eyelash it's certainly not wrong but without explanation I imagine most people will look at that and think you missed focus as the eye isn't as sharp. Remember getting in closer makes dof tiny so in that tight closing down to f8-f11 will still look very shallow and may make it easier to control your lights and keep more in focus when your not flat on. It's suffering from big pupils as well, imo anyway, this tight in you want to get your ambient up so the iris is more prominent as it's the pretty, interesting part of the eye.

That said I like the tightness and idea, I've wanted to do a series in the vein of the intro to orange is the new black in super, super tight on people but like most of my ideas I never get round to following through. Looking forward to see where you take it.
 
Thanks Craig, that's really helpful. I actually forgot to put the modelling light on which would definitely help with the pupil size as you say. I'll definitely have a play with different apertures and see how shallow makes sense!

Appreciate the feedback (y)
 
For inspiration: Martin Schöller's portraits are very shallow depth of field. No idea how he manages to keep things in the right plane with a large format view camera - that must be his secret sauce.
 
At first I didn't like his style of photo (shocking, I know!) but it's actually grown on me because whilst utterly distinctive, you can see the fantastic engagement he manages with his subjects, which is what we're all aspiring for I guess.

Thanks for the video - that's interesting! (Also great to see the lighting setup although it's pretty much as guessed from the catchlights)

Edited to add: is it possible to have a studio head to act as modelling light only? i.e. to provide ambient lighting until the moment of flash, at which point it goes off but doesn't flash itself?

I'm thinking just in case the modelling light of the actual light(s) aren't quite bright enough to contract the pupils sufficiently?
 
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pjm1 said:
Edited to add: is it possible to have a studio head to act as modelling light only? i.e. to provide ambient lighting until the moment of flash, at which point it goes off but doesn't flash itself?
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Yes, kindof. Disable slave / cell mode. The modelling light won't go off for the instant of the flash - but the flash will totally overpower it anyway,
I'd assumed that those strobe units which turn the modelling light off do so during recycling to give a visual clue that the flash has fired & recycled and to allow more power to go into the recharging, not so that they are dark during the flash.

My engineer-ish head says there's no way a tungsten bulb can fully dim at the same instant a flash fires but maybe someone's found a way to do it.
 
pjm1 said:
Edited to add: is it possible to have a studio head to act as modelling light only? i.e. to provide ambient lighting until the moment of flash, at which point it goes off but doesn't flash itself?

I'm thinking just in case the modelling light of the actual light(s) aren't quite bright enough to contract the pupils sufficiently?
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Usually it's the modelling lights that cause pupil restriction. Your iris isn't fast enough to restrict upon flash (otherwise you'd never really see red-eyes).

edit: Duh, read this incorrectly.
 
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juggler said:
Yes, kindof. Disable slave / cell mode. The modelling light won't go off for the instant of the flash - but the flash will totally overpower it anyway,
I'd assumed that those strobe units which turn the modelling light off do so during recycling to give a visual clue that the flash has fired & recycled and to allow more power to go into the recharging, not so that they are dark during the flash.

My engineer-ish head says there's no way a tungsten bulb can fully dim at the same instant a flash fires but maybe someone's found a way to do it.
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Cool, thanks. I'll be fine with one 200Ws flash dialled down but I was just thinking that the modelling light (given it's also firing through a big softbox) might actually be quite dim. A bare bulb on a second light stand which doesn't contribute to the flash might be useful in contracting the irises...
 
pjm1 said:
Cool, thanks. I'll be fine with one 200Ws flash dialled down but I was just thinking that the modelling light (given it's also firing through a big softbox) might actually be quite dim. A bare bulb on a second light stand which doesn't contribute to the flash might be useful in contracting the irises...
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I've got a bright LED torch in my bag which I've always planned to use for the same purpose. Haven't yet, though.
 
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