Depth of Field turns game into photo, especially when talking with NPCs

I'm not a fan of depth of field in the game because the blurring of distant objects makes everything look like it was recorded by a film or stationary camera instead of being a living world viewed through my eyes.

This is especially true when talking to NPCs. In the screenshot below, you can see that the NPC's body and the signpost over on the left and the rock on the right are sharp and everything else is blurry.

Without going into technical camera talk, it looks like a photo taken by a camera with settings to make only objects at a certain distance from the lens look sharp.

This is not what my human eye sees.

When my eye focuses on an object, I see that object in detail. And as the eye wanders, other things it focuses on are sharp. There is no way my eye could focus on both the NPC and the signpost at the same time. Yet both are sharp as they would be in a photo. And if I look over the shoulder of the NPC, I should see the water and hills in the distance look sharp, yet they remain blurry.

I would prefer to have everything in the game be equally sharp, then my eye could wander wherever it wanted to and see things realistically. The way it is right now, the whole game looks like an artificial photo to me.

User Specs:

OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8) System RAM: 16324
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 GPU RAM: 3020
SotA.EarlyAccess.Win.64.417.Date.11.13.16
Area: Ardoris
Area Display Name: Ardoris
Loc: (136.8, 51.9, 147.9)

 

I'm not a fan of depth of field either.. or bloom.. a lot of visual effects in gaming that are supposed to make everything "so pretty" just look overexposed and artificial. (but that is just my opinion).

 

It is so screenshots look photographic, I agree it should have off toggles until the game support head tracking AND eye tracking. Unless you know where I am looking at you cannot mimic my eye.

The worst was Skyrim SE added lens flares as if this was a JJ Star Trek....

 

What if you turn off camera blur in the options?

 

I wasn't aware of the option - I'll have to try it, thanks!

 

Did this option sneak in? I don't remember it being there at final wipe when I installed it. Bloom is very annoying since it is a screen shader and not a 3D effect - it makes background images lighter in the halo which is very wrong. If anything the background image should be darker because your eye is blinded by the bloom. It is OK if the light is hanging in front of a wall, but when it is hanging in the crafting pavilions and you look out it looks really bad.

 

You can turn off bloom as well.

 

Yes I saw that, just annoyed it is badly implemented. I like its look it is not to bad when it works, but where it does not work it is immersion destroying!

 

I agree.