Soft focus vs Hard focus

[Adarsh]

Soft focus Vs Hard focus

In which all situations can we use this ...

Kindly guide me , Awaiting your valuable inputs...

Edited September 4, 2021 by Adarsh

[David Mullen ASC]

You'd have to define what you mean by soft focus and hard focus.  Do you mean sharp versus diffused images? Or slow versus fast focus racks?

[Vital Butinar]

I think he might be referring to shallow depth of field vs deep depth of field.

That's what I meant when I said soft focus when I started with photography. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

There is no rule book to art OP. You do what works best and if you can't do that, you do what is 2nd best.

Some gal wrote me once asking what exposure should she use for infrared flash. 

How would I know? I wrote her back and told her to test. That is what I will tell you OP. Test the alpha and the omega and don't forget the in between. They you can see what works best for your project. And you can always fall back on the old adage...rules are meant to be broken. That is how 'Godfather lighting' came about.

Good luck!

[Peter Larkson]

I personally use sharp focus for portraits

[Robin R Probyn]

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept 

[Adarsh]

On 9/5/2021 at 2:56 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

You'd have to define what you mean by soft focus and hard focus.  Do you mean sharp versus diffused images? Or slow versus fast focus racks?

Shallow Dof vs Hard Dof 

I have heard it is good to use hard focus in happy moments like birthday celebrations and other festivities 

And also shallow focus in dream like sequences 

Is this true? pls enlighten me more about this 

 

 

[Adarsh]

On 9/5/2021 at 3:59 PM, Vital Butinar said:

I think he might be referring to shallow depth of field vs deep depth of field.

That's what I meant when I said soft focus when I started with photography. 

Yes...