The photography community discusses sharpness, auto-focus, and other technical details on the daily it seems. None of it matters. Every photo taken is out of focus.
The human eye is not sharp across your entire vision.
The human eye has around 200 degrees of horizontal vision, but central vision, processed by the fovea, is responsible for tasks requiring great detail, where it covers only about 6 degrees of the visual field. These are variable as each person has a different head shape, distance between their eyes, and other factors that impact their unique total field of view (FOV). The point I’m making is that in the 6-7 degrees of your visual field, that’s what is in focus. This is why blurred backgrounds draw us to the in-focus portion of a photo. It’s also why, in cinema, many people don’t like out-of-focus backgrounds. It’s in the FOV that should be in focus, and when it’s not, it looks fake and out of place.
In my opinion, this is why film is still preferred over digital photos for emotional viewing.
One of the largest camera brands, Sony, produces amazingly crisp and clinical images. It’s also one of the biggest nits people have with the brand. Often referred to as soulless, Sony images lack character. This image by Ansel Adams is in focus enough that the image as a whole is breathtaking. If you zoom in, you can see out-of-focus elements, and your eye sees muddled details.
No one would argue that this image is spectacular.
Modern photography is driving us mad with details that don’t matter.
Let’s take this video from Fstoppers as an example.
The critiques made of the legendary photos show the changes in expectations, and lost sight of the point. Rather than the image as a whole, it was broken down and dissected until the moment it represented was lost.
Every photo is out of focus.
Embrace the fuzzy, look for quality in the entire image, and remember that what’s not in focus tells it’s own story.
