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Biotars vs. Helios
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
stevemark wrote:
That one is a typical Biotar 1.5/75mm image:

https://hispan.hu/biotar-75mm/#gallery-19

* at medium distances (here probably 2-2.5 m) there's a typical cateye / swirly bokeh with quite pronounced outlines. If you like that - go for the Biotar
* wide open, only the very central part of the FF image is really sharp. Everything else gets distorted by pretty ugly astigmatism. Too limiting for portraiture IMHO

Here I've photoshopped the above image to show you how I would take the same image:



But of course you may not like that Wink

S



Good point. I like them both, but yours a bit better. I am not a fan of extreme swirl, only a bit or subtle swirl. I think I can have control of that depending on the distance of the background from the point of focus.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
KEO wrote:
Of course, the real question is not whether you prefer Biotar or Helios, but whether you prefer Biotar or Primoplan...

Laugh 1


Yes, the Primoplan has lovely bokeh, no doubt. I guess for me it is a question of one allowing me to be off-the-wall creative/artistic and the other to be conventionally creative/artistic.


PostPosted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
...

Last edited by Blazer0ne on Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:10 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Blazer0ne wrote:
You can probably tone down that effect.

Foreground bokeh is usually very smooth. So having good foreground object placement over top of the background bokeh can smear that a little. If you leave the sky out of the photo or any bright spots it should have less bokeh balls. Same on water, metallic objects. You want all control of the light.

The effect will also be less pronounced with overcast dull light. Even out your scene lighting and look for any holes where bright light gets in. As you can see on the bottom left and right corners of the above photo the effect blends better than on the top where light cuts through and paints more obvious bokeh balls.

Canon and Fuji make special versions of a couple of their lenses where they have added a radial graduated ND effect from the outer edge of a lens in the rear group. This causes the bokeh ball to have a Gaussian blur appearance.


Thanks. I generally take my pictures in shade or overcast conditions. Personally, I don't like bokeh balls so I try to avoid highlights in the background. I have seen lovely backgrounds with no swirls on the Biotar and Helios lenses. I just need to figure out the mechanics of that. For instance, I often shoot portraits with two macro rings to blur the background even more. I don't know what effect that will have on background swirl. There will certainly be a learning curve here.
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