Phony bokeh

[Mitchell]

Been wondering about my efforts to produce good portraits with wide open lenses. This can be quite a challenge with such shallow DOF. For a single subject portrait, I can often nail the focus on the subject's eyes. With more than one subject, they are often on different planes and one subject is slightly soft.
Should we be making our lives easier and shoot at f5 with a gaussian blur applied to the background in post production to simulate the desired bokeh? Am I making sense or speaking blasphemy?

[StevenV]

Should we be making our lives easier and shoot at f5 with a gaussian blur applied to the background in post production to simulate the desired bokeh?

been there, done that. Maybe it's just me and my lack of learning & practice, but the post work in selcting/masking is way more than I'd want to do for more than a few shots here and there.

[4labs]

Any way that you can use a longer lens? If not than with the 28-70 you would probably not need to stop down to 5.6 but maybe only to 4 and still get the bokeh while maintaining sharpness on all subjects.

[wxwax]

Fake bokeh is really hard to do well. If you're able to generate a shallow enough depth of field to have one person soft, then you really shouldn't have a problem adjusting your aperature to have them both in focus and still blur the background. You're not standing them against a wall or something, are you?

[Mitchell]

Any way that you can use a longer lens? If not than with the 28-70 you would probably not need to stop down to 5.6 but maybe only to 4 and still get the bokeh while maintaining sharpness on all subjects.

My problem is that I tend to view these issues as extremes and not gradations in between. When I think I want good bokeh, I generally open as wide as possible. I often sacrifice some sharpness in an effort to get great bokeh. I probably could achieve similar bokeh results with the lens stopped down slightly and have more reliable focus.

This shot was taken at f2.8 with the 28-70mm. The bokeh is nice, but my older daughter is a little soft. I tend to focus on Samantha since she is the toughest to capture.
http://clearwaterphotography.smugmug.com/photos/59563723-M.jpg

[brandofamily]

This is my last attempt at the "fake" bokeh...

http://brandolinoimaging.smugmug.com/photos/50091415-M.jpg