In article <33d93816.14528762@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, cwpa@worldnet.att.net says...

>Am I missing something? This is the dumbest discussion I've ever seen.
>We get into some stupid arguments here, but arguing which camera system
>gives the best "out of focus" pictures seems really crazy. What am I missing?

Hmmm, well, as one who considers the WHOLE photographic image as the
"subject" (not just the tree, person, building, etc. that may occupy
part of the photograph), and who considers the textural quality of
ALL areas of the photo important (and therefore is an avid user
of the DOF preview button - not for seeing what is within the DOF,
but for checking the quality of the out of focus areas of the
photo), I find this discussion interesting... (BTW, on my web
page, there is [under "Aht Fotoz", "FT Steele Car"] an example of
a photo that depends heavily on DOF effects and the out of focus
image characteristics of the lens used [a non-AI Nikkor 50mm f1.4,
with, uh, very "bad bokeh", which therefore allowed me to make
a photograph with certain graphic effects possible with this
lens, since the out of focus image {shot at f2, focused at the
lower left corner of the image} of the contrasty subject is
rendered fairly sharply {but simplified}, even though it is
mostly quite far out of focus...]. And under "Changing Showz" you
will find some photos from the "Sun-Plant" series - these also
depend heavily on the out of focus characteristics of the lenses
used [guess I like "bad bokeh"...;-])
Hope This Helps
(David Ruether - http://www.fcinet.com/ruether )