Originally Posted by
Ben Horne
I'll also expand on the technical side of things to clear up a few things you mentioned. I first photographed this scene back in 2012 with a 300mm lens and even when stopped down a ton, the DOF was extremely narrow. This was partially due to a front-focusing camera that was at its limits. When you focus closer, you change the distance between the lens and the camera, and it's tough to get a sharp photo because you can easily overshoot your focus. When I returned to this scene, I photographed it with a 240 lens to allow a bit more flexibility. This lens is also known for having a very flat field. I used rear focus so the distance between the lens and the subject doesn't change, and marked on the rail the focus positions for the three shots. You wrote that with a 240mm lens, the depth of field should have been a "piece of cake", but if that was the case, I could have used just one of those transparencies... but that WASN'T the case. Just as I had planned, each of those transparencies has key parts of the subject in focus. The depth of that scene is quite significant, and there was no way to get it all in focus with a single photo. Heck, it would have even been difficult with a digital kit. It was a rather straightforward process stacking the three images and getting all the necessary parts of the subject in focus.
It's very easy to denigrate other people on an internet forum, and to call them unintelligent, or to claim they don't know how to do things properly, but doing so is not beneficial to anyone, including yourself. There is a multitude of ways of approaching photography. Just because my method isn't what you would have done doesn't make it any less valid. I think the results speak for themselves, especially for such a mundane and garden variety subject. :-) Please know that what you say has an impact on others, especially when you put it out there for the whole world to read it. Please be kind to others.
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