Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 for Fuji - KEVIN TITUS

MMitchellorg wrote:

Banderras wrote:

To make images like those in the review blog posted, you would need to use lighting more than anything else. f0.95 won't magically make portraits flattering and well lit.

Interesting Banderras.

I thought that the aperture being more open would cause a more shallow depth of field like the photos in the review.

I can create those photos at F2 by using more light?

This is great news for me and saves me the $500!

Shallow depth of field - no, subject separation and pop - yes, flattering portraits - also yes. Again, buying this lens is prob a good idea if you have experience with manual focus on people, or want to learn and deal with that. I am just saying that to make these kind of portraits you either have to be extremely lucky to get great natural light at location at the right moment, or more likely you need to bring the light with you. Also do some pp for colour pop & contrast.

If you study the photos in that review they all have different DoF and yet all look flattering - single ladies waist/shoulder level have just the face & ears in DoF, 2 ladies and single lady full body have full body DoF. What does it tell you? Moreover they are posing in a way that the faces are parallel to the focusing plane, while bodies are at an angle, resulting in a gradual focus falloff. Further, you can play with the bokeh by choosing the distance between the subject and the background. Note that you can have too much bokeh, just like too little, there is a balance which depends on the f number, focal length, but also on the distance to the subject from background/foreground, and the angle at which the background/foreground is positioned to the focusing plane.

You can get similar DoF results with your 35mm f2 but with tighter compositions, albeit with a slightly different perspective. e.g. roughly waist level f1 = shoulder f2, shoulder f1 = headshot f2, very roughly.

I am sure you have plenty of your own results, but here are some of mine from a touit 32mm f1.8.

f1.8

Here the Dof is not enough for both eyes because the face is at an angle to the focusing plane, so the DoF is not the problem here, but the light, lack of colour to contrast her lips and eyes and obviously the setting in the car are.

f2.8

This is at f2.8, drop it one stop and the DoF would be similar to a waist level portrait on the f1. Here the body is flat with the face and focusing plane, so no amount of DoF control would make it look like the portraits that you linked to. I still love these photos because they are of my friends.

Point is, there is much more to a pretty subject separation than a one or two f stop difference. You can have too little, but equally too much, therefore you need to learn and plan.