THE FLAWED STATE OF
or
ARE YOU REALLY SAVING THOSE MAGICAL
MOMENTS?
©1984 The
Anstendig Institute
Expensive
cameras of extraordinary complexity but without any provision for focusing have
plunged the photographic world back to the "prehistoric" state of the
art of the early 1900's when no portable camera could focus. Today, when
accuracy should be readily achievable, the public has been purposefully led to
believe that precision in focusing is of little importance to their
photographic needs, adds nothing important to the actual effect of a picture,
and would make little difference in most photographs.
The
truth is that absolutely precise focusing makes an enormous difference in a
photograph, a difference that profoundly affects what most photographers want
to preserve: the expression.
The
expressive quality is what makes an occasion memorable. The foremost concern of
most camera owners is the preservation and communication of emotions: the
ingenuous smile of a baby, the pride of the graduate's parents, the intense
concentration of the tennis-player, the extreme effort on the runner's face, a
loving look, or the placid, peaceful calm of meditation. Fun, bitter-sweetness,
joyousness, laughter, seriousness--such expressions are only faithfully and
accurately preserved when the absolutely precise plane of focus (the
focal-plane) is exactly on the most important point of the subject.
Because
detail and the tonal-gradations are only exact at the focal-point, that part of
the picture where the precise plane of focus lies has a completely different
character than the rest of the picture.
When
the most important subject-point is precisely focused, a phenomenon occurs that
makes the photograph come alive in a manner that accurately reflects the
subject's expression and transports the viewer right back to that valued
moment. The photograph becomes a true record of life. In most pictures that
include people or animals, the most important point is the pupil of the nearest
eye of the most prominently placed person or animal. The Anstendig Institute
has photographs demonstrating that only a slight shift in the focus will change
and falsify the expressive content of a subject's face. In one example, a small
shift of the focus from the pupil to a point slightly in front of the eyelashes
changes the subject's expression from calm to aggressive. Camera users should
be aware that all cameras on the market have a tolerance range within which no
further focusing is possible. That range can be a few inches or yards,
depending on the lens' focal-length, aperture, and distance from the subject.
No camera focuses beyond 6-10 yards.
For
a given subject-point there is only one sharpest point behind the lens where
the subject-point is depicted as a point. With even a slight focusing error,
that point is depicted as a circle, “circles of confusion”. The image becomes
diffused, the color tones are lighter (irradiated), and the tonal gradations
are changed. In fact, in any photograph, all detail that is not located precisely
at the focal-plane is diffused and lighter in tone than it really is. Points
are depicted as circles, and all detail is made up of circles of confusion
which are larger in diameter the farther they are from plane of focus. The
concept of depth-of-field is an attempt to define the allowable size of these
“circles of confusion”.
Depth-of-field has
nothing to do with sharpness. Depth-of-field
has to do with unsharpness. It is only an attempt to describe subjectively how
far in front and in back of a focused point the degree of unsharpness will
remain tolerable. Besides the fact that no camera can focus precisely on the
reference point, this effect of depth-of-field varies with each individual's
acuity of perception, with the viewing distance, with the size of the enlarged
photograph, with the medium (projected images or paper enlargements), and with
the location of the subject in the picture if the subject were able to be
precisely in focus.
Unfortunately,
photography is now universally based on depth-of-field as sharpness. This wrong
concept was perpetrated during the 1930's in relation to the Leica and the
Contax. Besides not having the slightest focusing accuracy, these early
range-finder cameras had tiny viewfinder openings that were difficult to look
through. One saw a dull, dark image. Since no possibility of achieving true
precision existed, the effects of true precision were unknown. The
depth-of-field concept was able to be perpetrated as a means of obtaining
“sharpness” because no one knew of the extraordinary phenomena that occur at
the focal-point. Today, those phenomena are still unknown. But a means of
easily achieving focal-point-exact precision does exist and it is time that the
truth about exact focus were known.1
When
the focused point is the most important subject-point, the image at the
focal-point conveys the impression of three-dimensionality (plasticity) to the
whole picture. The expression of the picture comes alive, the impression of
graininess is substantially reduced, and the viewer's gaze is drawn to that
subject-point. The impression of depth-of-field is increased substantially,
even when the most important subject point is not located 1/3 from the
front and 2/3 from the back of the picture which depth-of-field tables say
would give the greatest depth-of-field. This last fact is very important
because it disproves everything that is generally understood about
depth-of-field. Even when a small lens-opening is used for greater
depth-of-field, the focused point will still stand out from the rest of the
picture if it is on the most important point in
the picture. It must be emphasized that these effects are only
apparent when the exact plane of focus lies on an important point in the
picture.
Today's
photography is universally based on the use of the smallest-possible lens
aperture in an attempt to achieve a decent photographic image through
depth-of-field. But, because of its different, more ~plastic" character
and the influence it exercises on the total effect of the picture, the
focal-plane still needs to be precisely placed in the picture and the
photographer has no way of doing so. Thus photography is a flawed medium with
no control over its most singular and most important element of expression.
The
need to stop down eliminates another important possibility of controlling the
artistic-expressive effect: the possibility of using any lens opening, large or
small, to highlight the subject and to control the effect of the background and
foreground by purposefully making them more or less sharp. The artistic control
of the plane of exact-focus and the amount of unsharpness in the remaining
parts of the picture is the basis of photography as art. The ability to
control the placement and effect of the exact plane of focus should be the most
important element in all picture taking. But the photographic industry has not
seen fit to make any means of doing so available to the public, even though
such a possibility exists.
A
focusing device called Messraster achieves absolute focal-point-exact focusing.
It allows simple, easy, no-fuss focusing that is based on the principle of
direct-comparison, which is the only precise capacity of any of our senses. In
fact, with the Messraster, the point of exact focus is so clear and easily
recognizable that the photographer is free to concentrate on the other aspects
of picture-taking. The photo-optical industry has at least nine patents for
auto-focusing based on the principle of the Messraster. But they have not
brought out the Messraster even though it remains the most versatile and
precise. It is the only device that can focus anywhere on the whole viewing
screen with all types of subjects.
The
Messraster was introduced in 1939 by a German, Joseph Dahl, who died in 1970
after having little more than misery from his patent. A second patent allowing
exact positioning of the Messraster followed in the 1960's. This invention,
judged "the basis of exact photography" by the leading optical
It
should now be perfectly clear that the trend to non-focusing and zone-focusing
cameras is a marketing ploy rather than any advancement in photographic
technology. Worse, it misleads the public into thinking they are buying
precision along with convenience. The photographic industry should finally
acknowledge the importance of being able to achieve true focusing precision and
take on the responsibility of providing the public with the means of achieving
it.
1
The Anstendig Institute possesses the only photographic
materials that expressly demonstrate the effects of focal-point-exact focusing
precision in photography and would be happy to arrange to show them to anyone
who is interested.
The
Anstendig Institute's papers "Why No
Camera Can Focus" and Focusing Tests"
provide the technical reasons why no available cameras can focus in the true
sense of the word. These papers are available free of charge from the
institute.
The
Anstendig Institute is a non-profit, tax-exempt, research institute that was founded
to investigate vibrational influences in our lives and to pursue research in
the fields of sight and sound; to provide material designed to help the public
become aware of and understand stressful vibrational influences; to instruct
the public in how to improve the quality of those influences in their lives;
and to provide the research and explanations that are necessary for an
understanding of how we see and hear.