Motion blur London nightime skyline

click photo to enlarge
Too many photographers, it seems to me, obsess about how sharp their camera/lens combination is. This is particularly prevalent among those new to photography. The fact is, very few photographs are ever judged deficient because they are not sharp enough. Sharpness is not usually one of the primary requisites for a good image. There are exceptions - macro photography and some kinds of landscape photography, for example, need sharpness to reveal the detail that contributes a lot to the final image. But most genres don't require the knife-edge sharpness that is too often thought desirable.

There's certainly a case to be made for the painterly effects produced by older lenses that exhibit a little softness. They can be useful for portraits, landscapes, flowers and many other subjects. There's also much to be said for blur caused by deliberately defocusing the subject. And then there's motion blur. I have a collection of photographs that I've put together where I've deliberately set a slow shutter speed to blur the subject (see these boots, this river and these reflected trees for example. I also have some where I've purposely moved my hands having set a slow shutter so that the image is traced across the frame. This effect can even occur serendipitously by accident.

Today's photograph is an example of the latter (purposeful) technique where I deliberately moved my hands from left right and up and down as I took the shot. It was taken at the same time as the smaller photograph on this recent post. I had an idea of what the camera might produce but only an idea - one is never entirely sure. What I didn't imagine was that it would produce such sharp motion blur!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1.6 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

In praise of blur

click photo to enlarge

I've said elsewhere in this blog that the technical and technological side of photography doesn't interest me very much. In fact, I engage in it only to the extent that I have to in order to make the photographs that I require. The truth is that I pursue photography because I like making pictures.

I do, however, occasionally visit photography forums and one thing I have gleaned in my surfing is the extent to which many photographers value sharpness above all other qualities in a camera/lens combination. Consequently lens acuity as measured in lines per millimetre seem to be very important to many. Questions about new lenses or lenses that someone is considering buying often solicit forum members' evidence of sharpness. Colour rendition, bokeh, contrast, flare handling and all the other qualities that are desirable in a lens come well down the list of sought after features - if they are considered at all. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate a sharp lens, and I also understand that a sharp lens can be manipulated to lose some of its sharpness whereas a lens that isn't very sharp is difficult to sharpen. But, sharpness isn't everything, and some subjects are the worse for it. Moreover, using your lens in ways other than to secure maximum detail is often the right thing to do.

I was thinking about this when I photographed a bed of coneflowers the other day. I took a shot of the blooms aiming for sharp examples in the foreground and blurred heads behind. But, as I looked through the viewfinder I found I preferred the out of focus flowers to the sharp examples. So I took a few shots, some that resolved great detail, and others - like the one above - where nothing was sharp. Out of all the images that I gathered it was the out of focus ones that I preferred for their hazy, indistinct, painterly qualities.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On