----- Original Message ----- From: "Stan Halpin" Subject: Re: FA 77mm Ltd. - An observation
> > > All of which is to say that, while I agree with Mark that we do > recognize and observe others at a grosser level of detail, it is also > true that we recognize and are uncomfortable at some unconscious > level when there is less detail than we are able to discern in real > life. We can cope with a softened portrait and may even find it > pleasing, but we recognize that it is an artificial representation. The most well recieved portraits we do seem to be a compromise between leaving all the warts in place, and removing them to a certain extent. One of my mentors had a very good way of teaching this: He said that if you use candle light (and quite bright at that) to illuminate a person, you would see about the right amount of detail for portraiture. After that, the idea was to throw enough good quality softening onto the lens to emulate that look. One thing to remember is that a softening filter for portraiture is not the same as a diffusing filter. Good quality Softar filters can be as or more expensive as the lens they are mounted to. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
