Home

Please support mflenses.com if you need any graphic related work order it from us, click on above banner to order!
SearchSearch MemberlistMemberlist RegisterRegister ProfileProfile Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages Log inLog in

Distagon 1.4/35 Lovely portraits
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
View previous topic :: View next topic  


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:10 pm    Post subject: Distagon 1.4/35 Lovely portraits Reply with quote
I have found a site with several Contax lens samples. There is a page dedicated to portraits made with the Distagon 1.4/35. I always felt that this lens could be great at portraits but I never had the chance to take any. These images I think prove that this lens (and 35mm focal length lenses in general) are very good for portraits and people should use them more.

http://gallery.ieei.org/v/test/Contax/35mm/

I'm a big fan of the 35mm focal length.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks for the link.

Yes, 35mm are nice if you want to show more than just the face.

I also like 35mm, and that's one of the reasons why I love "your" Nikkor-N.C 2.8/24 at my EOS 350D, it is close to a 35mm lens. Wink

(OK, 35mm and 50mm lenses are also not bad, they just change their original usage priority. Wink)

BTW, I love to use the Jupiter-12 2.8/35 at my FED-3b rangefinder cam. With this lens you can shoot almost anything, from landscape to architecture to street to portraits...


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
Thanks for the link.
Yes, 35mm are nice if you want to show more than just the face.


Also, I don't know why, but it feels to me like it has a less "violent" approach to portraiture than the tele lens. This because the human subject becomes part of an ambient, it's not "extracted" from it.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Bokeh on this page aren't nice at all... what do you think ?


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Flor27 wrote:
Bokeh on this page aren't nice at all... what do you think ?


It's a 35mm lens. Wide angle lenses just can't have fantastic bokeh, of the kind that you expect from a tele. It's not in their nature.
This one specifically, is not bad at all, look at the four last images (20050714-d35-1, 20050714-d35-4, 20050714-d35-6, 20050714d35-6). The out of focus rendition is gradual and smooth.
The only weak image is 20050630-4, but that harsh backlight would have put through their paces very hardly even the best of tele lenses.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio

I believe there was a movement here in the US for "environmental portraits" - meaning you provided contextual surroundings with the portrait. Some were being done with fisheyes - but personally I found them surrealistic in a not good way. Of course, street photographers have been doing this for some time.... Very Happy Very Happy

I like this idea, but it has to be sympathetic and the surrounding should not detract from the persona.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
Orio
I believe there was a movement here in the US for "environmental portraits" - meaning you provided contextual surroundings with the portrait. Some were being done with fisheyes - but personally I found them surrealistic in a not good way. Of course, street photographers have been doing this for some time.... Very Happy Very Happy
I like this idea, but it has to be sympathetic and the surrounding should not detract from the persona.


If you ask me "photo portrait?" what would I answer you?
Simply, Henri Cartier-Bresson. This is the name that comes to my mind with the words "photo portrait". And then two images: his portrait (one of the several) of Henri Matisse, and his portrait of Marilyn Monroe.
Both have captured the soul of the subject like no book could have done in two thousands pages.
And you know what? both of them are environmental portraits.
Sure it's more difficult than blurring everything behind the eyes - but when the game gets tough, that's when the great photographers start to play.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote




PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio, thanks for the link! The one model needs to eat more, she looks
very anorexic! If you have her address, I would like to send some
"Hungry Man" frozen dinners cuz it's good to be full! Laughing

Yeah nice, the two BW photos, I remember seeing the Marilyn Monroe
photo a very long time ago. Wink


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Aren't those two photos incredible, Bill?

Both of them are physically there, but with their mind, they are in their own world.

Matisse is holding a pencil in one hand, and a dove in the other. He's looking at what we see as a bird, but what he is seeing, has nothing to do with the reality.
He has nature in one hand, and art in the other.
Plato could not have done a more meaningful metaphor for his writings.
As for his room, it looks like one of the rooms he painted - a slanted set of geometrical lines, decoration patterns - only, no colours. The colours are all inside him.

Marylin is there, in the spotlights. everyone is looking at her. Above you can see other movie takers, their cameras pointing to her. And she below, pressed under the weight of her popularity, and the deep, infinite sadness that is in her eyes, looking away into a place of solitude, most probably - what was inside her mind, what maybe led her to put an end to her days - we will never know that, but that glance that is looking out, and yet goes inside, is to contemporary art what the smile of Gioconda was for the Renaissance.

Man... and they think it's easy to take photo portraits...

_


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
Aren't those two photos incredible, Bill?


One word: "Masterpiece"!


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
and he was also a great street photographer. That man had an eye that I for one would die for.


patrickh


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
and he was also a great street photographer. That man had an eye that I for one would die for.
patrickh


Yes and it's clearly seen in these portraits too. They are obviously not prepared. THey are snapshots. His greatness is that he knew exactly when to push the shutter. Most of his pictures are out of focus and /or shaken but nobody cares. This should also teach us something when we go obsessed about technical details. It's not they that make a photograph live forever.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sometimes the moment just happens. I got this one day when a dad was offering his daughter some cake she really wanted:



PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Exceptional !!!


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Look at the expression on her face! Great!


PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:25 pm    Post subject: Re: Lovely Distagon 1.4/35 portraits Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
I have found a site with several Contax lens samples. There is a page dedicated to portraits made with the Distagon 1.4/35. I always felt that this lens could be great at portraits but I never had the chance to take any. These images I think prove that this lens (and 35mm focal lenght lenses in general) are very good for portraits and people should use them more.

http://gallery.ieei.org/v/test/Contax/35mm/

I'm a big fan of the 35mm focal lenght.


I'm a 35mm fan too, especially on crop cameras, where it becomes a standard lens. But for portraits a 35mm tends to make noses look bigger when the camera is close to the subject. IMO a 50-60mm lens is better in this respect.
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
Page 1 of 1