Heisler Portraits

[Ricco]

I have been reading Gregory Heisler's 50 portraits book which is interesting. I have struggled to understand how he manages to get such a small element within the photo razor sharp with the rest of the picture in an almost "dreamy" out of focus. An example is the below (if it links right).

http://www.gregoryheisler.com/#a=0&a...=10000&s=0&p=2
or
http://www.gregoryheisler.com/#a=0&a...=10000&s=1&p=2

The eyes are sharp (as you would expect) but very little of the rest of the photo is.

Is it the camera (he often talks about his old school film cameras), the equivalent of post processing, the lens or a combination of the above?

I understand the concept of aperture and zoom and the effect on DOF, what I struggle with is that I can't imagine being able to get focus this selective and sharp with a digital camera without some form of post processing in photoshop.

Any insights?

[Manfred M]

Peter - Try shooting with a long focal length lens (around 135-200+mm on a full-frame camera) that has a very large maximum aperture (f/2.8 or faster) and focus on the eye closest to the camera. This is a fairly standard photographic technique. It is where a full-frame camera (and medium format even more so) give you an advantage over shooting crop frame.

If you look at this image closely (click on it in Lightbox mode), I've used that technique in this shot. You will find that only one eye of the young girl is sharp, and everything else is out of focus; full frame camera, f/2.8 at 200mm.

[RustBeltRaw]

The majority of Heisler's work is done on film. The back of that book contains which camera he used for each shot. I believe 2 of 50 were medium-format digital. From the book, it sounds like his weapon of choice is an 11x14in view camera. It has tilt/shift movements which one can use to relocate the focal plane. Couple that with a lens like a 305mm f/6.8 Goerz Gold Dagor, a very wide-aperture lens on 11x14in, and you can create an extremely shallow depth of field, and move it to a small area of the film plane.

This article contains a good overview of view camera movements. You can bet that Heisler knows every trick for placing his focal field for maximum effect.

[AB26]

Hi Peter,

With a 35mm f1.8 lens on my D200 I will get the eyes sharp with the nose and ears OOF. Get right into the face of your subject with a very wide open aperture and the DOF is very shallow. Try it.
Use a medium format camera with a F1.2 lens and see what that will give you.

No special tricks there.

And the proof is this image where I actually messed up.

[Manfred M]

Use a medium format camera with a F1.2 lens and see what that will give you.

That would be difficult to do; a "fast" medium format lens is f/2.8; I think Hasselblad may have a f/2.2 lens; but there are none that I know of that are anywhere close to f/1.2.

The 12" (305mm) f/6.8 Goerz Gold Dagor, noted by Lex, on an 11 x 14 view camera would have a razor thin DoF. Add to that the ability to tilt the lens and you can generate some very interesting DoF that is impossible to do with a standard lens on a DSLR (this is what a shift-tilt lens for a DSLR is for, but its range is far more limited than what can be achieved with the bellows on a view camera.

[AB26]

That would be difficult to do;

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/medium-f...um-format.html

[Manfred M]

The link you provided is interesting but not really relevent This seems to be someone using a converted f/1.2 85mm Zeiss full-frame lens on a medium format body, so I would suggest this hardly makes the case of this being a "typical" approach. More like a one-off.

Have a look at the Phase 1 (Mamiya), Leica and Hasselblad websites; which are the lenses a typical medium format shooter is going to use. Also remember that depending on the actual sensor being used, a wide-open f/4 lens is going to give you the same wide open performance as a f.2 - f/2.8 full frame or f.1.4 - f.2 on a crop frame.

Hasselblad does offer a f/2.2 100mm and Leica has several f/2.3 lenses; but the f/2.8 and slower lenses are much more common. These cameras tend to be used in studio work (which is where I encountered them) and speciality (i.e. mostly fashion) photography outside of a studio.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Manfred,people around me suggest usually 50 mm lens for portraits and if you use f 1.8 on a 50 mm lens on a cropped sensor it is possible to get the eyes sharp and the rest soft.So,do you mean it is better to use a lens with a longer focal length?Well after posting this I have come to edit it.A 50 mm on a cropped sensor means 80 mm on a full frame ,so the focal length I was talking about is not very short either.But do you mean a longer focal length than 80 mm is better because the DOF is shallower?

Peter - Try shooting with a long focal length lens (around 135-200+mm on a full-frame camera) that has a very large maximum aperture (f/2.8 or faster) and focus on the eye closest to the camera. This is a fairly standard photographic technique. It is where a full-frame camera (and medium format even more so) give you an advantage over shooting crop frame.

If you look at this image closely (click on it in Lightbox mode), I've used that technique in this shot. You will find that only one eye of the young girl is sharp, and everything else is out of focus; full frame camera, f/2.8 at 200mm.

[rpcrowe]

Although I am sure that these portraits were done in-camera, you can mimic the style in a post processing program...

The Perfect Effects portion of the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite has a Lens Blur Filter. This is what OnOne says about the filter, "Lens Blur includes the best part of FocalPoint technology to create bokeh, tilt-shift, and selective focus"

https://www.google.com/search?q=perf...w=1280&bih=629

I am certain that this can also be done in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pse...11-Tour_12.htm

https://www.google.com/search?q=perf...focus&tbm=isch

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred,people around me suggest usually 50 mm lens for portraits and if you use f 1.8 on a 50 mm lens on a cropped sensor it is possible to get the eyes sharp and the rest soft.So,do you mean it is better to use a lens with a longer focal length?Well after posting this I have come to edit it.A 50 mm on a cropped sensor means 80 mm on a full frame ,so the focal length I was talking about is not very short either.But do you mean a longer focal length than 80 mm is better because the DOF is shallower?

Binnur - Portraiture ranges from head shots down to group shots, so the answer really depends on what you are shooting as well as where you are shooting. A wider lens may be the correct choice for a group, whereas a longer lens is probably going to work better for a head shot. From an aesthetic standpoint, I tend to go longer rather than shorter as that way I can avoid making the nose, chin or ears from looking too prominant, especially as one concentrates on the subject's face.

I don't like getting too close when doing a portrait, i.e. I perfer to give my subject lots of space; as I find people tend to become uncomfortable when one gets into their "personal space", and that does show in the end product. Personal space does vary from person to person and has some strong cultural links as well. Coming from a Northern European culture, I come from a background that tends to need more personal space than some other cultural groups, so this is reflected in my photographic choices.

Focal length is going to be driven by your shooting location as well. I generally use either my f/2 105mm DC or my f/2.8 70-200mm as my portrait mainstays, but I've been in situations where the space was quite tight and I had to swtich to my f/2.8 24-70mm lens. I know some pro photographers that like using 300mm or 400mm lenses (on a full-frame body) for outdoor portraiture work. I have used a f/1.8 50mm lens for portrait work, but very rarely; even on my 1.5 crop factor D90, it is a bit short for my liking.

Longer lenses tend to make it easier to get a very narrow DoF, but this has nothing to do with focal length per se, but rather if impacts the distance between the subject and camera, so because of the magnification of a longer lens, it is easier to get that shallow DoF.

[RustBeltRaw]

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/medium-f...um-format.html

I believe that fits the definition of "difficult." But you can't argue with the results. I am not much of a bokehvite, but I'd love to give that camera a try. It definitely gets that large-format look in a handheld digital camera.

It's worth noting that a DoF calculator rates that lens (85mm f/1.2 on a 48x36mm sensor) as roughly equivalent to a 60mm f/0.85 on 35mm full-frame, or a 360mm f/5.6 on 8x10in large format. Wide, but perfectly reasonable. If you took a 200mm medium-format lens on 4x5in (long standard, like a 50mm field of view), an f/1.2 aperture would require a lens at least 167mm in diameter. Roughly the size of a salad plate, and probably well over 4kg. Impractical. But I bet someone's working on it. The good news is that camera movements let you create the appearance of shallower depths of field, even if you're working with apertures that sound tight in 35mm and 1.6x crop photography. The downside is that you need a ton of light to make an exposure on the relatively slow films available for large format cameras.

I generally use either my f/2 105mm DC or my f/2.8 70-200mm as my portrait mainstays, but I've been in situations where the space was quite tight and I had to swtich to my f/2.8 24-70mm lens.

Second vote for the 100ish-mm f/2.0 for portraits. My Canon 100mm f/2.0 is my favorite portrait lens. Both the Canon and Nikon versions are superb value.

[Manfred M]

I believe that fits the definition of "difficult." But you can't argue with the results. I am not much of a bokehvite, but I'd love to give that camera a try. It definitely gets that large-format look in a handheld digital camera.

It's worth noting that a DoF calculator rates that lens (85mm f/1.2 on a 48x36mm sensor) as roughly equivalent to a 60mm f/0.85 on 35mm full-frame, or a 360mm f/5.6 on 8x10in large format. Wide, but perfectly reasonable. If you took a 200mm medium-format lens on 4x5in (long standard, like a 50mm field of view), an f/1.2 aperture would require a lens at least 167mm in diameter. Roughly the size of a salad plate, and probably well over 4kg. Impractical. But I bet someone's working on it. The good news is that camera movements let you create the appearance of shallower depths of field, even if you're working with apertures that sound tight in 35mm and 1.6x crop photography. The downside is that you need a ton of light to make an exposure on the relatively slow films available for large format cameras.


Second vote for the 100ish-mm f/2.0 for portraits. My Canon 100mm f/2.0 is my favorite portrait lens. Both the Canon and Nikon versions are superb value.

I agree, but to permanentlly modify a what appears to be a Mamiya 645 body (around $5k new) with a f/1.2 85mm Zeiss Planar; in the range of $4k- $6K used on eBay. Hardly mainstream to drop around $10k on an "experiement"; I would love to be in a position to have that kind of "fun money".

[Ricco]

Thanks for the replies.

I must admit, when I have shot with my 100mm f2.8, I struggle to get the focus right. Considering that the subject is not perfectly stationary, the fact that Heisler is able to get this right, with film, without rapid spots that you can get with a DSLR, is remarkable.

[Manfred M]

Focus is actually not that difficult. Don't rely on one of the matrix modes, but rather switch to a single focus point.

Point that focus point on the nearest eye and depress the shutter half way and hold it there. Move the camera to recompose the image and then presss the shutter all the way.

I do almost all of my shots with a single focus point.

[RichardTaylor]

+1 on the single focus point.

I use centre focus point only, do not focus and recompose, preferring to shoot a bit loose and adjust the composition when post processing.

#1 Hand held indoor available light (there was a large window more or less behind me). Proably almost at minimum focussing distance.


Miss E by dicktay2000, on Flickr

Settings: 1/320 @ ƒ/2, ISO 800 and F=85 mm (Full frame camera - Canon 5D)

Minimal PPing.


#2 If the background is far enough away, from the subject, you may even to be able to use a shorter lens.
Available light, in a theatre, hand held, I ws sitting adjcent to the subject.


Young man. by dicktay2000, on Flickr

Settings: 1/40 @ ƒ/2, ISO 1600, F=35 mm (on a full frame camera - Canon 5D)

[RustBeltRaw]

Yet another +1 for using only the center focus point. Particularly on my 60D, where the center point is the only cross-type point. The rest of the points detect only horizontal contrast. Center is horizontal and vertical.

to permanentlly modify a what appears to be a Mamiya 645 body (around $5k new) with a f/1.2 85mm Zeiss Planar; in the range of $4k- $6K used on eBay. Hardly mainstream to drop around $10k on an "experiement"; I would love to be in a position to have that kind of "fun money".

Don't forget the $8,000 Leaf Aptus 22 digital back. At least the gentleman in question seems amply supplied with sense, since a project like that can't be done without a good understanding of the bits involved. The results are extraordinary, and probably fairly easy to get once the camera's built.

[Mike Buckley]

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/medium-f...um-format.html

That proves Manfred's statement that it would be difficult to do. Actually, "difficult" is an understatement.

[dragon76]

I have been reading Gregory Heisler's 50 portraits book which is interesting. I have struggled to understand how he manages to get such a small element within the photo razor sharp with the rest of the picture in an almost "dreamy" out of focus. An example is the below (if it links right).

http://www.gregoryheisler.com/#a=0&a...=10000&s=0&p=2
or
http://www.gregoryheisler.com/#a=0&a...=10000&s=1&p=2

The eyes are sharp (as you would expect) but very little of the rest of the photo is.

Is it the camera (he often talks about his old school film cameras), the equivalent of post processing, the lens or a combination of the above?

I understand the concept of aperture and zoom and the effect on DOF, what I struggle with is that I can't imagine being able to get focus this selective and sharp with a digital camera without some form of post processing in photoshop.

Any insights?

Peter

Not that it will give you any insights into GH techniques but if you're interested in that sort of portraits. try Lensbaby. They are relatively cheap and will give you very interesting results.

Cheers

Dean

[Ricco]

The following is taken out of the view camera article link above:
To take the photograph, the photographer pulls back the ground glass and slides the film holder into its place. The shutter is then closed and cocked, the shutter speed and aperture set. The photographer removes the darkslide that covers the sheet of film in the film holder, and triggers the shutter to make the exposure. Finally, the photographer replaces the darkslide and removes the film holder with the exposed film.

I am still struggling with how this guy actually takes photos. Presumably the above process takes at least 10-20 seconds. But we are talking millimetres in DOF that he is achieving. Surely the subject can't sit that still to remain within the focus plane while Heisler is stuffing around with putting in the film?

Unless I'm mixing up the cameras? Maybe he uses the view camera when he has everything in focus and a different type for these shallow DOF shots.

Remarkable!

[Manfred M]

Peter - you've never seen a person with a view camera focus - it takes a lot longer than 10-20 seconds when he runs all over the ground glass with a loupe checking and adjusting his focus with his head tucked under a dark cloth to block the ambient light.

The actual shot, after focus is set takes the better part of a minute; getting the film holder, inserting it, cocking the shutter, removing the dark slide, taking the shot, re-inserting the dark slide and then removing the film holder.