The Sharpness Paradox - Circle of Confusion #3

[@clausgiloi6036]

Very helpful, thanks Allan!

[@fotolookconde]

Photographers please, don't run confused in circles around the understanding of the circle of confusion!!! But seriously this is the better explanation that I've heard about this subject!!!! Good stuff!

[@waddyjune]

Excellent !! Well done and explained

[@juancarlosplaza8301]

I found your KZbin channel 2 days ago, searching for a tutorial on how to use a Bellows Takumar lens I recently got. After watching some of your videos I realized I've found a goldmine!!! I love the way you explain things. And you have tons of videos!!! This is amazing. Thanks a lot Allan for the great job. I really don't understand why you have so few subscribers. You deserve hundreds of thousands. So, I decided to contribute with my grain of sand. Yesterday I subscribed to your YT channel and today I signed as a Bridge Patreon.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thank you Juan Carlos, both for the kind words and for becoming a patron! I don't understand why my work is not attracting many viewers either. I think it is because they are too long for most people. I have tried to shorten them, but have to leave out so much information, it seems like they wouldn't be very useful. Oh well! Thanks again! Allan

[@juancarlosplaza8301]

@@AllanWallsPhotography I think most people is looking for quick and easy explanations today. They only want results and are not interested in learning the how and why. Most photos are meant to last minutes and get likes. That may be the reason you have few viewers, but please keep doing things the way you do. I feel fortunate to have found your channel, because I love to study and learn things

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

@@juancarlosplaza8301 I believe you are right. But I couldn't do this work any differently than I do! Thanks again!

[@danev1969]

Allan, While I was able to follow all of your explanations (well done), it may be only because I have had a few classes on optics back in my college days. Just a few illustrations would be helpful to most of us. This is a critical subject, especially when photographing stuff that is very small. And I think you are helping us to better understand the impact of the equipment we select to use and the way we tend to use it. Thanks again.

[@chezlerq4478]

Great explanation , Allan. I love hearing the "Why" of things. And you explain things so well.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks!

[@photografiaaustralis2131]

Simplicity is divinity, and you explained this topic exceptionally well.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Greg!

[@mariomifsud1302]

Great explanation as always.Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@Leicashootr]

Well said sir 👍🏻❤️

[@balakrishnanadaganti1040]

Hi Allan, your explanations in all your videos are simply Brilliant.......Capt, Balakrishnan from India

[@JohnKimbler]

Excellent explanation! I don't focus stack, but prefer to photograph active subjects at 1x to 5x @ F11. In my experience diffraction is manageable if I can take as much control over motion as possible and keep my flash duration to a minimum. But I do like to know what I'm up against when shooting single frames.

[@mondujar279]

I have noticed that with high magnification photography I often have to reduce chromatic aberration far more than with more traditional genres. I resort, in Lightroom, to adjusting the manual sliders quite vigorously. Usually it’s effective, but I was a bit surprised how high magnification enormously exaggerates lens and sensor and light problems.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Great point, Andrew. Aberrations tend to get magnified along with our subject, especially with increasing extension.

[@Headlesh]

What I got from this is that diffraction is mainly due to aperture and that the reason why wide open doesn't have the least diffraction is because the lens/element design is compensatory. Aberration is mostly due to how interferred the light is by the elements and how it hits or is spread across a pixel or pixels...

[@Dstonephoto]

I just recently began researching this topic, and I’m wondering if the circle of confusion subject matter is one of the primary reasons why large format images look so stunning, especially as we start to factor in film flatness, thickness of the emulsion, or even the size of the film relevant to the optics used. It’s a topic I find equally fascinating yet equally confusing. I’m starting to discover that many of these core principles of photography and optics (eg sharpness), are significantly more nuanced than what many of these forum discussions would have us believe. This also explains why when I held a fresnel lens in front of my film gate that everything appeared in focus. My mind is kinda blown now.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Yes, David - you have cracked the code. We live in a world of memes, speed dialing, and hotkeys, but the truth about how the world actually works can't be described in such terms. Only a messy, inconvenient reality can give birth to a really good paradox. I made a video about 2 months ago but I never released it. I didn't put it out because it discussed this very subject and, frankly, it made us all seem a little intellectually lazy. But it is very encouraging to hear someone voice such an important, useful, and counterintuitive sentiment. I don't know if you have ever had the misfortune of writing to me for an opinion or a technical solution, but if you have, you will know I avoid short answers to simple questions, because it is the easy questions that hide the exceptions in plain sight and so deserve the most thoughtful answers. And you may just have given me the tee shirt slogan that has been eluding me!

[@Dstonephoto]

@@AllanWallsPhotography no please do share. I would much rather spend time deconstructing complex answers than dismissive simplicity. It’s a phenomenon which plagues many disciplines (eg politics). I’ve truly come to the conclusion that our (mine at least) assumptions which we learned from shit instructions are incomplete, if not completely false. Simplicity appeals to the masses. Some of us applaud and seek out this elusive knowledge. So please do share more of it despite the complexity. There’s a reason institutions like MIT, Harvard, & co exist. Let’s not forget Einstein was initially positioned as a patent clerk. Haha I feel like my diatribe is two sentences away from devolving into a rant in support of intellectual inequality. The world needs more mad scientist. Let loose!

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

@@Dstonephoto You do realize that one encouraging comment will undo all the well-meaning advice that I have been given for the last three years - "make 'em shorter", "get to the point", "don't say so dang much"? A lot of my videos are three hours long when I start editing, and it isn't rabbit holes, it is legitimate dissenting opinion, something we should also consider, or the results of someone else's work that conflicts with mine, or it's a bit of mathematics that ties the idea together - and I have to cut every bit of it to get it down to 20 or 30 minutes. Yes, just one person saying, "go on...", and I will! Thanks for the awesome comment!

[@Dstonephoto]

@@AllanWallsPhotography I had to re-read this several times! This sounds like I've put you into a major existential corner. In all honesty, I can't say with any degree of certainty which is truly the right way; they both have their merits, regardless of the quantity vs quality argument. I think a better analogy for all of this would be the 3-minute radio edit found on many songs in order to fit the airplay standards. If it's a "meh" song, ok great, we can all move on; however, do we want to live in a world where Pink Floyd songs are 3 minutes long? In my eyes this type of knowledge is the equivalent a Pink Floyd track, and not one by Ariana Grande. Ariana has her place, but so does PF. Don't be Ariana. What's the worst that can come out of this? You end up nailed to a cross?

[@Dstonephoto]

I will admit that I stand to gain a lot while losing very little at your expense (free knowledge & a mass exodus of 20k followers!). Is that the sound of pitchforks being sharpened?

[@barryt09]

Thank you Allan. :)

[@drofnasw]

Kaboom! That’s the sound of my head exploding about 2/3 way through the video. Good theory, but does it have any practical application that will improve my macro photography? (With apologies in case you answered my question in the last 1/3 of the video.)

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hahaha... sorry about your head! The last word on the subject was to take the time to test your lenses to find out what aperture is best for minimizing aberrations and diffraction softening. It is risky to just assume it is going to be f/8. And all this becomes very important if you make prints of your macro shots - that is when little errors get magnified.

[@atahassanzadeh4878]

😊🙏

[@korhancharlotte3619]

After 5 minutes into your video everything sounded like Chinese to me. :(

[@richardlewis7214]

Your Beards looking longer Al..what do you feed it on? 😉

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

I think it might be eating my face.

[@richardlewis7214]

Allan Walls Photography I thought you were losing weight