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Bokeh at the Botanical Garden
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:38 pm    Post subject: Bokeh at the Botanical Garden Reply with quote

Last Sunday I set out to take photos which usually are best avoided, photos with very busy OOF backgrounds, as varied as possible. I wanted to see whether I could get the 4.5/105 Radionar to misbehave. Well, I couldn't, at least I think I couldn't. Some of the backgrounds are rather painful to look at, not because of the lens, but because my brain tries to force my eyes to achieve focus, which of course is quite impossible. However, if I concentrate my gaze at only things in focus, everything falls in place and looks in a way just natural.

A couple of examples, try to avoid looking at the background, you are only interested in the foreground plants, not the whole scene, just like looking at them in the garden. With a little bit of practice, the background becomes almost invisible.





or look just at the horizontal line of focus, the yellow flowers at the center:



More garden bokeh photos at http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/eos5d_radionar.html

(and also a self-portrait from yesterday, taken with the same lens)

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Veijo, you know that I am a fan of your Radionar but in this series it really surpassed itself, the best bokeh I ever saw from a digital camera, I think only a couple of my Contax lenses such as the 1.4/35 can *sometimes* get close - but never quite there.

I love all your garden pictures but my absolute favorite is 8298 - wow what a gem!! I would really love to see that printed large on a wall.
It has magic to itself.

About your self portrait, I am struck by your striking resemblance to Paul Gauguin - there is a photo of him, I must have that in my books somewhere, where he's taken from the same angle, for Gawd's sake, you even have the same nose!! He used to wear the same beter also.
I love those berets, I have one myself but on me it looks ridiculous, because I am a big man. On you, it looks super classy, and a bit boh?me also.


PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Excellent pics there interesting first pic seems pastel in focus foreground yet rich blues and greens on the OOF background


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio wrote:
Veijo, you know that I am a fan of your Radionar but in this series it really surpassed itself, the best bokeh I ever saw from a digital camera, I think only a couple of my Contax lenses such as the 1.4/35 can *sometimes* get close - but never quite there.


This is why I bought the 5D for it Smile

Quote:
I love all your garden pictures but my absolute favorite is 8298 - wow what a gem!! I would really love to see that printed large on a wall.
It has magic to itself.


It is nice but also one of the few photos where the foreground OOF aberrations are clearly visible at full size. In this case the chromatic aberrations are, however, probably unavoidable as the details are much narrower than the lens aperture:



In the highlight bokeh, there are at the edge some interesting reflection phenomena, some matte black paint might help:


I have put a full resolution copy at galactinus.net/vilva/retro/eos5d_radionar_files/r8298.jpg

The contrast has been slightly increased re the downsampled copy.

Quote:
I love those berets, I have one myself but on me it looks ridiculous, because I am a big man. On you, it looks super classy, and a bit boh?me also.


Presently, a beret is about the only type of head wear which suits my retro imago and my age - of course, I've had to get used to comments on the street, like "Are you some f....n' artist?" and "My grandpa used to wear one like that" Smile

Veijo


Last edited by vilva on Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:18 am; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hacksawbob wrote:
Excellent pics there interesting first pic seems pastel in focus foreground yet rich blues and greens on the OOF background


Thanks. "Pastel" actually characterizes quite well the background OOF behaviour of these lenses. The softness differs from that of more modern lenses, perhaps due to the unattenuated internal reflections, and there is sometimes a certain amount of roughness or unevenness instead of the full-blown creaminess of, say, a Sonnar 2.8/180. Of course, at f/4.5 one cannot expect very creamy results, but the reflections fill in nicely.

Veijo


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wonderful pics.
Nice that you can't get the lens to misbehave even if you want it to! Wink

Carsten


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

LucisPictor wrote:
Wonderful pics.


Thanks.

Quote:
Nice that you can't get the lens to misbehave even if you want it to! Wink


Well, the idea was to test how much leeway I really do have with this lens. It is very nice to know that one can compose rather freely, without having to fear that a busy background will play too much havoc and spoil things.

Veijo


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you Veijo for the full size copy. I have downloaded it.
Reg. the color aberration, even contemporary day zooms have them, and they ask good money for them, so they are quite forgiveable on such an old lens - actually it's amazing that they appear so rarely.

Contrasting the images is really a sword with two blades. It can help the definition, but at the same time it can really kill the bokeh. Same for sharpening, although sharpening, if limited to a very narrow pixel range, may not influence the bokeh at all. This at least with my experience.

It is really a difficult artist choice sometimes, if to get more contrast and definition, or if to leave less contrast and more of a "painterly" vision.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My ignorance makes me feel like the little boy telling the King he has no clothes. As Veijo said, I find some of these pictures rather painful to look at and the subjects, for me, are not exactly what I would call interesting. What is it about them that makes them so good?


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

peterqd wrote:
My ignorance makes me feel like the little boy telling the King he has no clothes. As Veijo said, I find some of these pictures rather painful to look at and the subjects, for me, are not exactly what I would call interesting. What is it about them that makes them so good?


It is very subjective for me, Peter. I have a sweet spot for the "organic" quality of the bokeh of this lens. I think that images 8284 and 8287 show that with the greatest evidence, but it's perceivable in the other photos too. If I attempted this kind of bokeh (crossed twigs, highlights) with most if not all of my lenses, I would get a very harsh result. I am frankly amazed at the smoothness here. Take 8287 for instance. I would like to try that shot with any of my lenses. I am sure that it would be a big letdown.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio wrote:


It is very subjective for me, Peter. I have a sweet spot for the "organic" quality of the bokeh of this lens. I think that images 8284 and 8287 show that with the greatest evidence, but it's perceivable in the other photos too. If I attempted this kind of bokeh (crossed twigs, highlights) with most if not all of my lenses, I would get a very harsh result. I am frankly amazed at the smoothness here. Take 8287 for instance. I would like to try that shot with any of my lenses. I am sure that it would be a big letdown.


of course I am voicing my opinion here. I think that many people would find these photos very poor compared to modern day lenses with regards to sharpness and contrast, and with a reason.
It's basically a matter of taste, I think.

It would actually be interesting to be able to compare shot 8287 with the same shot taken by some modern day lenses of the same focal lenght.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like these photos, because I always remember that they have been taken with such an old lens at a new cam - I just like this concept.
And the bokeh/DoF is very nice.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 2:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LucisPictor wrote:
I like these photos, because I always remember that they have been taken with such an old lens at a new cam - I just like this concept.
And the bokeh/DoF is very nice.


Yes, I think the main point here is, these about the bokeh, and the fact that it's an old lens, are aesthetical comments - at least mine are, as I don't have a scientific background - and therefore are very subjective. What looks great to me may look "hmm" to someone else. I don't think any of us wants to make absolute statements here
Smile


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

peterqd wrote:
My ignorance makes me feel like the little boy telling the King he has no clothes. As Veijo said, I find some of these pictures rather painful to look at and the subjects, for me, are not exactly what I would call interesting. What is it about them that makes them so good?


In a sense you are quite right, but the King isn't even supposed to have clothes. My only effort to compose was to find various foreground-background combinations, preferably as difficult as possible - except shooting against the Sun, which doesn't really work with these old lenses. Any resulting aesthetic value ought to be regarded more or less spurious or accidental.

However, analyzing these photos and comparing them with my recollection of the subject scenes will help me a lot later on when I'm out taking "real photos". The aesthetics and the interest value of photos are, on the other hand, a very personal matter. I do have very good, very sharp and very high contrast lenses, Leitz, Zeiss/Contax, CZJ etc. and I can certainly take very different photos with them, but these technical characteristics have very little inherent aesthetic value for most people just like photorealism in painting, there remains in a way way too little freedom for personal abstraction and interpretation, personal connotations, reminiscing or purely abstract visual enjoyment.

I have found out that it is much easier to take an enjoyable photo with an old lens, a photo which "normal" people are ready to hang on their walls even if the subject has no personal connection what so ever with them. Often even portraits can be crap in technical terms and still be liked, even very much. Here is an example, a photo taken with a Sony DSC-F505 in poor light and poorly focused and yet very much liked:



Most of the photos on the Bokeh Garden page are such that it would be completely meaningless to inspect them in detail or to try to find some deeper meaning in them. If, however, you focus on the sections in focus, they are glimpses of early spring in otherwise drab surroundings, just as you see it when your gaze fleetingly stops on some tiny detail. There is nothing spectacular, and the photos do not try to lie about it. They are perhaps not art, but certainly not kitsch, they make no pretense to appeal, they obey few if any compositional rules, and still many people do like a number of them. Part of the value derives from the fact that I didn't try to create Art or try to find something worth photographing or even try to take technically perfect photos, I was free and conscious only of spatial and visual relationships, impressions to catch, I wasn't in the straitjacket of technical or artistic prejudice. It isn't easy to let go, but it is very difficult to learn in any other way.

Veijo


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can see why this portrait is much loved. It is pure poetry!!!

Here however your taste for the composition (a very classical, inspired composition) is where most of the merit belongs. The lens' lack of sharpness helps to keep it pictorial in terms, but if the composition was not so good to start with, it would have been just garbage.

So again - no lens can teach us how to make a photograph look beautiful and this lies in the first place in the COMPOSITION !
Then of course, if you use a suitable lens, it can only enhance it.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio wrote:
I can see why this portrait is much loved. It is pure poetry!!!


Smile

Quote:
Here however your taste for the composition (a very classical, inspired composition) is where most of the merit belongs. The lens' lack of sharpness helps to keep it pictorial in terms, but if the composition was not so good to start with, it would have been just garbage.

So again - no lens can teach us how to make a photograph look beautiful and this lies in the first place in the COMPOSITION !


Yes, if a photo is crappy, it's no use blaming the lens!

Quote:
Then of course, if you use a suitable lens, it can only enhance it.


The lens can make quite a difference. Here are two compositionally almost identical photos, first 350D + Macro-Elmarit 2.8/60 at f/5.6:



and then 5D + VPK Meniscus at about f/6:



The moods of the photos are quite different. The Macro-Elmarit shot is sharp with a nice contrast but somehow it is rather drab, matter of fact, petrified, a good test shot but nothing I would hang on the wall. The Meniscus shot is in a way much more alive, even ignoring the slight difference in the composition and the much lighter sky, it could almost be a painting, there is something impressionistic about it.

Veijo


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LucisPictor wrote:
I like these photos, because I always remember that they have been taken with such an old lens at a new cam - I just like this concept.
And the bokeh/DoF is very nice.

I second your thoughts... this very thought of using old and new technology.. as a technical junkie, getting to know how the technology evolved.. is great thing..

Plus after coming to these forums.. now getting the eye for Bokeh, smoothness in final results...


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow Veijo... the Meniscus picture is a gem!

You are totally right about the precision of the Elmarit. I have a few Leica lenses, they are perfect for some genres of photographs, but they do not have a mood of their own wiht the possible exception of the Summicron-R 50 wide open (It is the only Summicron I have, the other lenses are Elmarit). In some cases it's great to see all the details of a scene, but overall I prefer the Zeiss approach, where you give up some sharpness to have more roundness of detail. The Summicron-R 50 is a sharper lens than the Zeiss Planars, but the roundness of detail of the Planar 1.4/50 makes it a superior lens in my opinion.

I still have not tried to remove the Meniscus lens from my Brownie. I have opened the back of the camera, there are some very tiny screws but I am unsure if they really unlock the lens.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Orio wrote:
I still have not tried to remove the Meniscus lens from my Brownie.


Details please.. which one you grabbed...


PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a Folding Brownie 6-20... and I am having a conscience case with it: it looks good, I feel like a criminal thinking of dismounting it Sad

The register distance looks quite short, it will probably be enough a Pentacon-EOS adapter to focus it to infinity.

It does not seem to have an aperture control - is it possible that it's a fixed aperture lens?

I will post some pictures later.