Re: A simple question...


"Neil Harrington" <not@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Chris Malcolm" <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Neil Harrington <not@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Victor" <Victor@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Neil Harrington" <not@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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But in such a case the subject would have to be *really* out of focus,
not
just slightly so as in the case of "Migrant Mother."

In the original print

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/12800/12883r.jpg

copy 1a)

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html


there's a thumb which is clearly visible at the bottom
right which was subsequently cropped.

This thumb is clearly out of focus.

However looking at that arrangement its difficult to see
how only that thumb, together with (allegedly) the woman's face
- more specifically the area around her fingers, her bottom
lip and left eye perhaps can both be out of focus, while
her elbow remains in focus.

You need to see an enlarged print to see what's in focus. Of the shots
shown
on the web, some are better than others but none are really good. Monitor
resolution is just not good enough for this.

I often remarks here about the limited screen resolution requiring one
to look at a large print to see some small detail, and I don't
understand why. My monitor can't realistically display anything bigger
than an A4 print, and even then it won't stand the close scrutiny a
good A4 print can take. But if I want to look at finer detail I can
easily zoom in and look at a blown up fragment of the image at an
equivalent print size of A1 or even larger, as large as the pargest
print looked at with a magnifying glass.

Sure. But that's still not the same thing as seeing a really sharp 8 x 10
print on glossy paper, or an equivalent high-quality reproduction in a book.
The fact that you have to zoom in changes the overall effect.


Monitor resolution only matters if I want to display the entire image
all at once, whcih in this case of checking which parts of an image
are in sharp focus is certainly not necessary.

If our monitors had higher resolution you *could* see the whole image at
once, as if it were a very sharp 8 x 10. I'm pretty sure that if you saw the
full-page reproduction in the book I used to have, you'd see what I mean.

But absent that book, look at any really high-quality large reproduction in
a book of photographs, and see if you think you'd be able to get the same
effect by zooming in on parts of a JPG of it with our limited resolution
monitors -- particularly if the reproduction has very sharp definition but
only in a shallow plane, as in "Migrant Mothers."

As I've mentioned, sharpness is entirely relative -- I know you know this if
you've ever focused on a plain ground glass; you have to rack back and forth
to find the best focus, you can't just go up to it and say "That's it, now
it's sharp," you have to go past it and then come back. If the plane of best
focus in "Migrant Mother" were not as razor-sharp as it is, the unsharpness
of the subject's face would not be as noticeable, perhaps not noticeable at
all.

And that is exactly what Lange had to deal with on her 4 x 5 ground glass. I
believe a photographic print can have substantially better definition than
any ground glass. If I remember correctly something I read about ground
glass theory many years ago, it is sort of a trade-off between definition
and brightness/contrast. And of course she could not possibly have forseen
exactly the results of enlargement, which further emphasized the difference
between sharp and not-so-sharp.

Neil



Indeed. But that still doesn't really address the question as to how her
elbow, folds of drapery on her lap and say the crease of skin under her wrist,
can be in sharper focus than details of her face, when they are nearer to the
picture plane.


Victor













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