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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

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Volna-9 Macro 50/2.8 - bokeh
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:58 am
Post subject: Volna-9 Macro 50/2.8 - bokeh
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:58 am
Post subject: Volna-9 Macro 50/2.8 - bokeh
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Volna-9 is known as a lens, which has very smooth bokeh at f/2.8. The lens has strange iris, which changes shape with different aperture values and majority of the shapes reduces smoothness of the bokeh:

f/2.8: rounded
f/3.2: serrated
f/4: serrated - starlike
f/5.6: starlike
f/8: starlike
f/9: hexagonal
f/11: hexagonal
f/13: almost rounded
f/16: rounded

The best results are at f/2.8 and f/16, while around f/3.2 and f/13 the results are still very good.

Here are some samples:

f/2.8 vs. f/16



More distant object:

f/2.8:


f/16:



sharpness (1:1 crops):

f/2.8 vs. f/16:




f/2.8 vs. f/5.6 (stars are quite visible)


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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:04 am
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:04 am
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Very nice samples of Volna-9 no-X


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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:06 am
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:06 am
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A starry shot of mine with the same Volna-9



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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:44 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:44 pm
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Hi,
@no-X: interesting comparison.
@sm0ky: nice portrait.
Marty.


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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:45 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:45 pm
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I need to go out with my Volna-9 more; I've only really taken it out once. I do like the bokeh, including the star bokeh circles in certain situations Smile


A little camera shake due to low light and no-flash policy at the museum Smile




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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:19 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:19 pm
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Love this lens - it behaves far better than one would expect and is great value. This is a second thread on a quirky lens - see the Trioplan thread.

Thanks for the extremely comprehensible series of examples.


patrickh


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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:13 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:13 am
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Interesting observation. How can the lens changes its "shaped" in such manner? Any explanation? Amd is this one of the reason why a lot of the forum members have many many different copies of 50mm?


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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:05 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:05 am
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my_photography wrote:
Interesting observation. How can the lens changes its "shaped" in such manner? Any explanation? Amd is this one of the reason why a lot of the forum members have many many different copies of 50mm?



Aperture blades on a lot of lenses change their overall shapes as they go from wide upen to smallest aperture. Some of them start out roundish, then become hexagonal (or some other very distinct polygon), some of them are clearly one polygon from start to finish, and others––mostly the multi-bladed ones with more than a dozen blades, are round from beginning to end.

The Volna-9 (as well as some other russian glass, like Industar-61, Helios-40) happen to have aperture blades that are put together so that their shapes become star-like at certain apertures, usually around 5.6-8.


And yeah, I would definitely say the different bokeh qualities are one of the reasons I have many 50s.


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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:15 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:15 am
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[quote="rawhead

Aperture blades on a lot of lenses change their overall shapes as they go from wide upen to smallest aperture. Some of them start out roundish, then become hexagonal (or some other very distinct polygon), some of them are clearly one polygon from start to finish, and others––mostly the multi-bladed ones with more than a dozen blades, are round from beginning to end.

The Volna-9 (as well as some other russian glass, like Industar-61, Helios-40) happen to have aperture blades that are put together so that their shapes become star-like at certain apertures, usually around 5.6-8.

[/quote]
Thanks for the explaination. The only Russian lens I have is the Zenith, which I do not think have this type of wonderful characteristic. Will definitely keep an eye on some of the wonderful Russian lens in the future.


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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:21 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:21 pm
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Here are the iris of Volna-9 and Industar-61 :
http://www.mflenses.com/index.php/Industar/Industar-61-vs-Volna-9-by-Tom-Tiger.html

Really special...

As far as I am concerned, I await the Industar and I am very excited to discover how it works (well I believe).


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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:08 am
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:08 am
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Love this special iris.


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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 1:16 pm
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 1:16 pm
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my volna-9 on fuji s3 pro, f5.6:

#1


#2


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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:20 pm
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:20 pm
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Volna 9 f/5.6 almoust at minimum distance of focus
https://flic.kr/p/z6vdsG


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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 7:47 am
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 7:47 am
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Yes, very nice results with this very good lens.
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