Should I be happy ? Pixel peeing and focus failing.

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

MightyMike said:

Very good write up, however I'm not sure your second last photo was with a kit zoom lens.

Click to expand...

It was taken with the 36mp sensor along with a 24-85 ƒ3.5-4.5

The image was fabricated to demonstrate the point in another thread done several months ago that there was too much of a hit to IQ when using a zoom and felt it was a rather good fit here also, just like in that thread no one even questioned whether on not it was taken with a zoom kit or a prime. One of the sad points of the thread a great deal of the post are deleted.

Click to expand...

Intriguing, I agree the bias against zooms is unfortunate and I also would say that there is a quantifiable (on paper and sometimes in image) difference between zooms and primes. The only way I can suggest that people learn to realize that zooms aren't as bad as suggested is to simply use zooms and see for themselves. Also, sometimes we need to learn to look at the picture and not the pixels.

--
Mike from Canada
"I am not a great photographer! God is a great creator! All I do is capture His creation with the tools He has provided me."
'I like to think so far outside the box that it would require a telephoto lens just to see the box!' ~ 'My Quote '

No exif data for the Fuji images ?

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

James O'Neill said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth wrote:

Click to expand...

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Many times, people will clump too sharp with in fact it can be processing that are causing the problems. This can be caused by the use of sharpening to correct for miss focused. This can cause noise, reduce the quality of how the in focus transition into out of focus and even decrease the look and the quality of the bokeh.

Click to expand...

I am starting to think I've been underestimating the significance of sharpening in the process. Because there is a "pretty much sharp" zone, a "really unsharp" and a transition zone, what is in each and how rapid the transition is forms part of the composition, sharpening in processing messes with what is those zones and with the rendering of the out of focus parts.

Click to expand...

It is kind of a catch 22, If we need to apply sharping to give the appearance of sharpness in a missed focus shot just as you say it messes with those other zones. We also see that as iso is increased we have to contend with noise and that sharpening will exacerbate that noise so start to use more aggressive NR, this then requires more sharpening that can lead to unnatural looking details and that fine detail.

So instead of having nice looking hair, feather and fur detail that should look 3D and soft look we are left with flat looking with very little dimension to the structures. One that really bothers me is peoples need to sharp the eye to an unnatural look and loose the fine details around the eye and then there is also the ridged look to the catch light in the eye from over sharping when it should look smoother

Click to expand...

I think there is also a problem of habitual sharpening - which is where I am, that back when pictures where 6MP we used sharpening to compensate for a lack of resolution and smudging caused in the De-mosaic process. Now with 36MP (and playing with 100MP fuji) the images don't need sharpening, and it's not being applied globally to compensate for the whole picture being a little out of focus or a a not very sharp lens, maybe I want an eye lash or eyebrow sharper ... on other forums people complain about pictures of people where the "clarity" is set to -Max and the skin looks like plastic.

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

.

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Would you be shocked to know this was taken with a kit zoom wide-open, without the need for heavy sharpening in post you don't see the many of the distracting artifacts from missed focus.

Click to expand...

I'd say DPR is showing me the wrong exif data then. But I take the point that it is well focused

Click to expand...

It was taken with a kit zoom

Click to expand...

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

This was taken with a 50mm lens from the 70's shot wide-open at ƒ1.2. everyone tell me this lens was not very sharp but when focused correctly it really is.

Click to expand...

I think this is from things like "but wide open are the corners sharp?" (answer "How would I know, I never put what I want to have maximum sharpness in the corners")

Those no lack of sharpness in that picture overall.

Click to expand...

One of the problems I have with DLSR is that when shooting wildlife often times I am placing the eye or the point of interest near the outer limit of my AF points. If I want to place a bird in portrait orientation while filling the frame with the subject the eye falls at eh very edge of the AF coverage.

Click to expand...

Yes I suffer from that too

I can't embed the picture here but I put something on PF showing the overlay of the focus points and how I wanted to frame the shot and how I needed to shoot and then crop it.

MikeArts said:

No exif data for the Fuji images ?

Click to expand...

It's because of how resized it from 100MP to internet friendly

CameraManufacturer : FUJIFILM
CameraModel : GFX100 II
Software : Adobe Photoshop 25.11 (Windows)
LensMake : FUJIFILM
LensModel : GF110mmF2 R LM WR
FocalLength : 110
FocalLengthEquivIn35mmFormat : 87
SubjectRange : 0
Exposuretime : 0.0125
FNumber : 5.6
MaxApperture : 2
ShutterSpeedValue : 6.322Tv (1/80 Sec)
ApertureValue : 4.971Av (f/5.6)
BrightnessValue : 2.7
ISOSpeed : 1250
SensitivityType : Standard Sensitivity
StandardOutputSensitivity : 1250
MeteringMode : Multi-Segment
ExposureProgram : Aperture Priority

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

MarBa said:

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

Click to expand...

The issue I have is (having calibrated all my lenses and been surprised how much adjustment the 85 needed) most pictures are focused where the the focus point is (or I think it is.) the shot immediately before this her left eye (frame right) is sharp as I wanted for this... focus errors tend to be locking onto something in front of the eye - nose, eyebrow, hair, giving me more front focused than back focused errors but two shots before this frame before this her right eye - our left - was tack sharp but where I wanted focus to be - the nearer eye (our right, her left) was slightly soft, so that was back focused. No harm in checking the calibration once more but the symptoms don't lead me to expect that to change much.

There's a philosophical question about how much focus error does it take to declare a fail - especially when the hand and the rings on it are part of the picture as much as the eyes.

James O'Neill said:

MarBa said:

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

Click to expand...

The issue I have is (having calibrated all my lenses and been surprised how much adjustment the 85 needed) most pictures are focused where the the focus point is (or I think it is.) the shot immediately before this her left eye (frame right) is sharp as I wanted for this... focus errors tend to be locking onto something in front of the eye - nose, eyebrow, hair, giving me more front focused than back focused errors but two shots before this frame before this her right eye - our left - was tack sharp but where I wanted focus to be - the nearer eye (our right, her left) was slightly soft, so that was back focused. No harm in checking the calibration once more but the symptoms don't lead me to expect that to change much.

There's a philosophical question about how much focus error does it take to declare a fail - especially when the hand and the rings on it are part of the picture as much as the eyes.

Click to expand...

With such shallow DOF is anyone taking into account the sway of the subject and the sway of the photographer? I mean unless its you are using a very sensitive continuous AF system then such sway is just going to happen and therefore some photos might not have the focus perfectly as intended.

James O'Neill said:

MarBa said:

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

Click to expand...

The issue I have is (having calibrated all my lenses and been surprised how much adjustment the 85 needed) most pictures are focused where the the focus point is (or I think it is.) the shot immediately before this her left eye (frame right) is sharp as I wanted for this... focus errors tend to be locking onto something in front of the eye - nose, eyebrow, hair, giving me more front focused than back focused errors but two shots before this frame before this her right eye - our left - was tack sharp but where I wanted focus to be - the nearer eye (our right, her left) was slightly soft, so that was back focused. No harm in checking the calibration once more but the symptoms don't lead me to expect that to change much.

There's a philosophical question about how much focus error does it take to declare a fail - especially when the hand and the rings on it are part of the picture as much as the eyes.

Click to expand...

If the focus is not at the location, you have decided then I would call it a fail. What would you call it if you decided to place the image plane near the midpoint in between the eye and the hand with the rings. This is something I do frequently is to focus as to place as much DOF on the subjects you are trying to capture. If the focus was not placed in the area you wanted, I would call it a failed focus.

For a lot of wildlife, I like to focus more behind the eye, placing more DOF behind the eye and less in front of the subject eye as there is less of the subject in front of the eyes.

James O'Neill said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

James O'Neill said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Many times, people will clump too sharp with in fact it can be processing that are causing the problems. This can be caused by the use of sharpening to correct for miss focused. This can cause noise, reduce the quality of how the in focus transition into out of focus and even decrease the look and the quality of the bokeh.

Click to expand...

I am starting to think I've been underestimating the significance of sharpening in the process. Because there is a "pretty much sharp" zone, a "really unsharp" and a transition zone, what is in each and how rapid the transition is forms part of the composition, sharpening in processing messes with what is those zones and with the rendering of the out of focus parts.

Click to expand...

It is kind of a catch 22, If we need to apply sharping to give the appearance of sharpness in a missed focus shot just as you say it messes with those other zones. We also see that as iso is increased we have to contend with noise and that sharpening will exacerbate that noise so start to use more aggressive NR, this then requires more sharpening that can lead to unnatural looking details and that fine detail.

So instead of having nice looking hair, feather and fur detail that should look 3D and soft look we are left with flat looking with very little dimension to the structures. One that really bothers me is peoples need to sharp the eye to an unnatural look and loose the fine details around the eye and then there is also the ridged look to the catch light in the eye from over sharping when it should look smoother

Click to expand...

I think there is also a problem of habitual sharpening - which is where I am, that back when pictures where 6MP we used sharpening to compensate for a lack of resolution and smudging caused in the De-mosaic process. Now with 36MP (and playing with 100MP fuji) the images don't need sharpening, and it's not being applied globally to compensate for the whole picture being a little out of focus or a a not very sharp lens, maybe I want an eye lash or eyebrow sharper ... on other forums people complain about pictures of people where the "clarity" is set to -Max and the skin looks like plastic.

Click to expand...

Clarity I find is often overused when there is other methods used for sharpening< the big one for me is what clarity does to the bokeh.




No sharpening




Clarity

clarity much of the time hardens the bokeh.







I like to use a Deblur tool as it is more focused on the fine detail

There are times that I will use clarity but it is not for sharpening.

James O'Neill said:

James O'Neill said:

.

James O'Neill said:

James O'Neill said:

Would you be shocked to know this was taken with a kit zoom wide-open, without the need for heavy sharpening in post you don't see the many of the distracting artifacts from missed focus.

Click to expand...

I'd say DPR is showing me the wrong exif data then. But I take the point that it is well focused

Click to expand...

It was taken with a kit zoom

James O'Neill said:

James O'Neill said:

This was taken with a 50mm lens from the 70's shot wide-open at ƒ1.2. everyone tell me this lens was not very sharp but when focused correctly it really is.

Click to expand...

I think this is from things like "but wide open are the corners sharp?" (answer "How would I know, I never put what I want to have maximum sharpness in the corners")

Those no lack of sharpness in that picture overall.

Click to expand...

One of the problems I have with DLSR is that when shooting wildlife often times I am placing the eye or the point of interest near the outer limit of my AF points. If I want to place a bird in portrait orientation while filling the frame with the subject the eye falls at eh very edge of the AF coverage.

Click to expand...

Yes I suffer from that too

I can't embed the picture here but I put something on PF showing the overlay of the focus points and how I wanted to frame the shot and how I needed to shoot and then crop it.

Click to expand...

--
The Camera is only a tool, photography is deciding how to use it.
The hardest part about capturing wildlife is not the photographing portion; it’s getting them to sign a model release

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

James O'Neill wrote:I think there is also a problem of habitual sharpening - which is where I am, that back when pictures where 6MP we used sharpening to compensate for a lack of resolution and smudging caused in the De-mosaic process. Now with 36MP (and playing with 100MP fuji) the images don't need sharpening, and it's not being applied globally to compensate for the whole picture being a little out of focus or a a not very sharp lens, maybe I want an eye lash or eyebrow sharper ... on other forums people complain about pictures of people where the "clarity" is set to -Max and the skin looks like plastic.

Click to expand...

Clarity I find is often overused when there is other methods used for sharpening< the big one for me is what clarity does to the bokeh.

Click to expand...

I was thinking abut "negative" clarity where someone takes a picture like one on the left and sees that clarity -10 is a bit flattering so clarity -100 must be really flattering and makes something like the one on the right ...





The problem with increasing clarity and sharpening (to some extent) is we get lenses which look nice in bother the out of focus areas, and the transitions, and then the algorithm comes along and tries to make something that should be drifting out of focus into something that passes for sharp. And your examples show how that can be undesirable with "hard" or "choppy" bokeh.

MightyMike said:

James O'Neill said:

MarBa said:

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

Click to expand...

The issue I have is (having calibrated all my lenses and been surprised how much adjustment the 85 needed) most pictures are focused where the the focus point is (or I think it is.) the shot immediately before this her left eye (frame right) is sharp as I wanted for this... focus errors tend to be locking onto something in front of the eye - nose, eyebrow, hair, giving me more front focused than back focused errors but two shots before this frame before this her right eye - our left - was tack sharp but where I wanted focus to be - the nearer eye (our right, her left) was slightly soft, so that was back focused. No harm in checking the calibration once more but the symptoms don't lead me to expect that to change much.

There's a philosophical question about how much focus error does it take to declare a fail - especially when the hand and the rings on it are part of the picture as much as the eyes.

Click to expand...

With such shallow DOF is anyone taking into account the sway of the subject and the sway of the photographer? I mean unless its you are using a very sensitive continuous AF system then such sway is just going to happen and therefore some photos might not have the focus perfectly as intended.

Click to expand...

The "sway" motion is small but it's not zero. I commonly lean against things when I'm shooting, and I know that the slowest speeds I can hand-hold thanks to IBIS are slow enough that a model's breathing will move her enough to notice. Models also end to shift between poses so with the near zero d.o.f that we get with Pixel peeping, it's necessary to move refocus each time - in this case the shots either side of this have a change of hand position, but in moving her hands the model moves her head as well.

James O'Neill said:

Ian Stuart Forsyth said:

James O'Neill said:

James O'Neill wrote:I think there is also a problem of habitual sharpening - which is where I am, that back when pictures where 6MP we used sharpening to compensate for a lack of resolution and smudging caused in the De-mosaic process. Now with 36MP (and playing with 100MP fuji) the images don't need sharpening, and it's not being applied globally to compensate for the whole picture being a little out of focus or a a not very sharp lens, maybe I want an eye lash or eyebrow sharper ... on other forums people complain about pictures of people where the "clarity" is set to -Max and the skin looks like plastic.

Click to expand...

Clarity I find is often overused when there is other methods used for sharpening< the big one for me is what clarity does to the bokeh.

Click to expand...

I was thinking abut "negative" clarity where someone takes a picture like one on the left and sees that clarity -10 is a bit flattering so clarity -100 must be really flattering and makes something like the one on the right .

Click to expand...

I see

One of the tricks I like to use is when you are finished editing the portrait and you are finalizing the image size for print or a display I like to make 2 identical layers.

On the top layer I apply a levels adjustment of something similar to this ( really depends on the final intent)



Then on that top layer apply a gaussian blur of around 1 pixel, follow by adjusting this layer's opacity to around 30% . This can take the edge off of much of the hotspots and blemishes



I like that it can also takeoff much of the digital look, but again this is done only at the final known display size. What is also nice is that you can erase some of the blur around what you want to keep sharp.

This is also what I like to do with flowers and much of my B/W.







--
The Camera is only a tool, photography is deciding how to use it.
The hardest part about capturing wildlife is not the photographing portion; it’s getting them to sign a model release

James O'Neill said:

MightyMike said:

James O'Neill said:

MarBa said:

Dear James,

you say: "... because I selected the focus point one position too high in the frame and the camera has locked onto the hair above her eyebrow ..."

but I don't see that the hair is in focus. I would say that you have quite a bit of front focus and you should think of calibrating your lens (compensation in the camera).

If your intention was to focus on her lips, then all would be fine (it would be your artistic decision) .. but if you say you wanted to have the eyes in focus, then I would say that this was a fail since the eyes are quite far out of focus. (the photo is still interesting and nice .. but not what you wanted).

Best,

M

Click to expand...

The issue I have is (having calibrated all my lenses and been surprised how much adjustment the 85 needed) most pictures are focused where the the focus point is (or I think it is.) the shot immediately before this her left eye (frame right) is sharp as I wanted for this... focus errors tend to be locking onto something in front of the eye - nose, eyebrow, hair, giving me more front focused than back focused errors but two shots before this frame before this her right eye - our left - was tack sharp but where I wanted focus to be - the nearer eye (our right, her left) was slightly soft, so that was back focused. No harm in checking the calibration once more but the symptoms don't lead me to expect that to change much.

There's a philosophical question about how much focus error does it take to declare a fail - especially when the hand and the rings on it are part of the picture as much as the eyes.

Click to expand...

With such shallow DOF is anyone taking into account the sway of the subject and the sway of the photographer? I mean unless its you are using a very sensitive continuous AF system then such sway is just going to happen and therefore some photos might not have the focus perfectly as intended.

Click to expand...

The "sway" motion is small but it's not zero. I commonly lean against things when I'm shooting, and I know that the slowest speeds I can hand-hold thanks to IBIS are slow enough that a model's breathing will move her enough to notice. Models also end to shift between poses so with the near zero d.o.f that we get with Pixel peeping, it's necessary to move refocus each time - in this case the shots either side of this have a change of hand position, but in moving her hands the model moves her head as well.

Click to expand...

I suspect holding the shutter down so that it fires as soon as focus is acquired could minimize errors due to sway but then you'd best have the composition ready before you focus or be setup to adjust the composition in post. Also another workaround might be to burst if the lighting setup can handle it and then you can select the best desired focus for a specific photo look.

alex_virt said:

alex_virt said:

The second is was processed with the lightroom defaults. I wonder if with a lens that sharp on a 100MP chip, I might need to turn that down.

Click to expand...

Default sharpness is 40, which is way too high for portraits.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily (depending on the mask).

James O'Neill said:

I think there is also a problem of habitual sharpening - which is where I am, that back when pictures where 6MP we used sharpening to compensate for a lack of resolution and smudging caused in the De-mosaic process. Now with 36MP (and playing with 100MP fuji) the images don't need sharpening, and it's not being applied globally to compensate for the whole picture being a little out of focus or a a not very sharp lens, maybe I want an eye lash or eyebrow sharper ... on other forums people complain about pictures of people where the "clarity" is set to -Max and the skin looks like plastic.

Click to expand...

I feel like this is overgeneralizing too. The amount of sharpening you need depends on the output medium and size, plus the raw data from the camera, the lens you're using, the focus distance with that lens, and probably more factors as well.

--
You are talking to crazy. With too many cameras.

Dear James,

Using cameras with a larger sensor than smartphones, you will always end up with sharp, not so sharp and even blurry parts within your photo.

Being photographer (at least enthusiast hobby photographer), I do not see it as a problem but as a design element I have to use to create the photo I want.

In general, for portrait photography, the eyes are what should be in focus. If they are slightly out of focus and even if they are track sharp, you may try in post-processing if sharpening would improve the photo.

If your aim is at jeweellery, the ring the lady wears is to core of the photo and it should be the element where focus has to be set to.

The rest of the photo is environment of the core - which does not mean that you do not have to arrange it in a way that it supports to look of the core element.

You could either select a pose, where the eyes and the ring are in focus - or you could bring the face of the lady so far your ot focus, that it just is a smooth wrapping of the ring.

If find the sharp - and almost sharp mixtures a little tricky. People who are looking at the face an think that it should be core of the photo may think of a faluty photo in terms of focus problems.

As it is a matter of selection of focus layer within the photo, I do not see it as AF problem but as design problem. The decision of your AF system can't be wrong, as it does not know what you are aiming at. It is your decision and for this reason I like to use the AF system as help to find a rough focus, but I am focussing manually in the end.

Best regards,

Holger

Holger Bargen said:

Dear James,

Using cameras with a larger sensor than smartphones, you will always end up with sharp, not so sharp and even blurry parts within your photo.

Being photographer (at least enthusiast hobby photographer), I do not see it as a problem but as a design element I have to use to create the photo I want.

Click to expand...

Yes on both. Very short focal lengths produce very small circles of confusion when things go out of focus, so small sensor get more d.o.f ; and focus and light tell us what is subject / foreground and background. How much the extremes go out of focus, and the transitions between sharp and unsharp are part of making the picture .

Holger Bargen said:

In general, for portrait photography, the eyes are what should be in focus. If they are slightly out of focus and even if they are track sharp, you may try in post-processing if sharpening would improve the photo.

Click to expand...

And this is really the key part of the question - how sharp / unsharp is OK. What global and localized sharpening improves the picture (and who we are photographing varies that). And question I threw out there how much does the slight unsharpness matter? It's a bit of philosophical question rather than a photographic one. I'm editing some more pictures at the moment where the situation meant that my preferred primes were not quite the right focal lengths so I used my ancient travel zoom and it is noticeably soft - are

Holger Bargen said:

If your aim is at jeweellery, the ring the lady wears is to core of the photo and it should be the element where focus has to be set to.

Click to expand...

The jewellery is a supporting element - I often get the model to bring their hands into the shot and with someone who wears a lot of rings on both hands that's another thing to incorporate.

Holger Bargen said:

The rest of the photo is environment of the core - which does not mean that you do not have to arrange it in a way that it supports to look of the core element.

You could either select a pose, where the eyes and the ring are in focus - or you could bring the face of the lady so far your ot focus, that it just is a smooth wrapping of the ring.

Click to expand...

Indeed. There are multiple approaches I could have used, and other shots from this sequence did use other set ups , and got different focus results.

Holger Bargen said:

If find the sharp - and almost sharp mixtures a little tricky. People who are looking at the face an think that it should be core of the photo may think of a faluty photo in terms of focus problems.

Click to expand...

And what I was trying to gauge is how many people's thinking is around the focus being a little off and how many really don't care.

Holger Bargen said:

As it is a matter of selection of focus layer within the photo, I do not see it as AF problem but as design problem. The decision of your AF system can't be wrong, as it does not know what you are aiming at. It is your decision and for this reason I like to use the AF system as help to find a rough focus, but I am focussing manually in the end.

Click to expand...

Well... I was testing a Fuji GFX at the same shoot, and it can be left to find the point to focus at where the K1's can't. Then it's a case of either manually selecting the focus point and letting the camera focus the lens there or manually focusing until the right focus indicator comes on. And trying to shoot portraits the way I do, I don't want to spend a long time refocusing each shot - you can see the change in expression if the model is asked to hold it for too long.