Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/5, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
This Seems Like About the Right Balance
between foreground sharpness and background blur
at the Gioji Temple (祇王寺), Kyoto Japan

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I play and experiment a lot when I'm out with the camera, slowly trying to add bits of experience of what “works” and what doesn't. The photo above, from a trip a year ago to one of my favorite hidden gems of Kyoto, the Gioji Temple, is one of a series of five shots that I took at different apertures, to get different levels of blur in the background.

I often know exactly what I want in a result and how to get it, but sometimes I just can't predict what aperture will give a pleasing result, so I do this kind “same scene, different aperture” series fairly often.

Along these lines, I shared pairs of photos at different apertures last year in “Little Orange Mushrooms and Depth-of-Field Comparisons”, but because I didn't use a tripod, the jumpiness between the images of a pair is a little disconcerting.

I've finally figured out a way to automatically align the images in a series like this, so I'd like to show the five-photo series from which the shot above is taken. Sweep your mouse from side-to-side to see the aperture change:

Animatable Scene (5 frames) — slowly sweep mouse from side to side to view effect
写真の上をマウスであちこちにゆっくり動かすと景色を変わる。

At an Aperture of f/1.4

You can see quite a change in depth, and in the natural vignetting of the lens. Which one, if any, appeals to you most?

(I wish the composition were better, but I was just taking these as a depth-of-field test, so I didn't plan on sharing them.)

The interactive display above uses the same underlying technology as my wigglegrams (most recently seen on “Kyoto’s Amazing Haradanien Garden, Part 4”), repurposed to show a different kind of depth. I like the effect, though it would be better if I were to use a tripod instead of software to stabilize the sequence. I wish I weren't so lazy.

I guess I was in quite the “experimentation” mood that day, because other posts from the outing include the aperture-pair little orange mushrooms post mentioned above, and “Polarizer Examples With the Moss and Ferns”, also showing educational pairs of photos.

It was a great visit resulting in many posts, starting with “Rich Colors: A Good Start to an Amazing Day in Kyoto” and “Tag Along With Me on a Photo Shoot at Kyoto’s Gioji Temple”. As always, the “nearby photos” link under most photos shows you photos and articles from nearby, from the same visit and from other visits throughout the seasons.