Bokeh or not?

[BrianV]

My first post, one of my favorite subjects...

Bokeh- out of focus qualities of a lens, tend to be caused by the trade-offs of the optical design. Over/Under correction for spherical aberration, astigmatism, field-curvature, shape of the aperture when stopped down. It's usually a "side-effect" of the lens designer trying to get a sharp image at the point of focus and everything else falling where it will. Hard to get an accurate simulation without ray-tracing. I'll post some pictures with some custom "hacked' lenses.

Trying the Attachments...

A Canikon 50/1.5 on the Leica M8. Made from a left over parts from a Canon 50/1.5 and Nikkor 50/1.4. RF Coupled. I was happy to get the focal length correct, and the lens to RF couple across the full focus range. Everything else- Bokeh. I have another "Sonnar" made from parts of German and Russian lenses, made for my Nikon SP, that gives much less harsh out-of-focus highlights. Changed out the optics and spacing between the optics until it looked nice.

 

[amolitor]

Isn't that pretty much the definitive "nervous bokeh" everyone dislikes?

 

[BrianV]

Not everyone dislikes it. Bokeh is subjective. "Good" or "Bad"- personal taste, and knowing how to employ it in an image. Sometimes images need to look nervous, sometimes calming. If I want a calm image, go for the pre-war 5cm F1.5 Sonnar.

 

[amolitor]

It's your photograph, so far be it from me to judge.

To my taste, a photograph of fall leaves feels soothing and calm. The idiom I am familiar with is a sort of Zen meditative feeling, which the bokeh work against, in this one. But that's just my personal reactions.

 

[BrianV]

This is another "hacked lens", focal length changed to the Leica standard by moving the rear optic, then set in a new focus mount.

After hacking a lens- I test them to get a feel for the "bokeh". This one is much smoother. I made the "Canikon" for fun, for halloween. "Dead zombie Lenses Rise from the Parts Bin".

This is a 1950 Jupiter-3 5cm F1.5, formerly in Contax Mount. I've been "experimenting" with spacing the optics in lenses. Shots like this: lens wide-open, minimum focus, with lots of background structure- good way to characterize a lens at it's extreme.

 

[Kolia]

Rebuilding lenses sounds like fun.

The Zombie-Fall-Leaf picture is interesting from a purely artistic point of view.

For the second picture, I'm having a hard time differentiating the subject from the back ground.

 

[BrianV]

Both images are made with modified lenses, converted to a Leica rangefinder. The focal length of the two lenses have to be set by moving the optics in the barrel and then fixing them into place. The second lens was not originally in Leica mount and had to be positioned "just right" to be able to focus correctly- within 0.02mm in the mount. These are my form of "test images" that show the lens is the correct focal length, positioned in the mount correctly, and characterize the out-of-focus background and color rendition. It's an example of Bokeh being more of a side-effect of a lens, something that can be characterized and utilized. Both of these lenses are Sonnar formula 5cm f1.5 lenses. 7 elements in 3 groups, same basic formula. An example of how Bokeh can be changed dramatically with small tweeks to the optics.

On the second image- the point of focus is the right side of the leaf just off-center.

 

[Dikkie]

Isn't this obvious that BrianV == Photfor666 ?
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/283828-bokeh-not-3.html#post2779113

Both new here and registered around the same time?

 

[Derrel]

I do not intend to come back to this forum ever again, because it is full of nonsense. Bokeh is not something you choose. It is a result of the background object shapes, the aperture setting, the zoom point (if using a zoom lens), and the lens element design. Aperture blades are not the main cause. Bokeh (or "boke" in the original westernization of the Japanese term) is the appearance we notice in the out-of-focus area of a photo. There is no level, such as "a lot of bokeh" or less bokeh. There is only some impression you get from looking at it. When the out of focus elements seem duplicated, like a series of layers of the background were place one over the other but slightly out of position, we say it looks nervous. When the out of focus area seems well-blended with no obvious duplicated shapes, we say it looks buttery.

All oddities that were considered faults in photography 50 years ago (poor focus, tilted horizon, nervous bokeh) are cheered by some modern photographers as artistic expression. Back in the old days, buttery bokeh was great and nervous bokeh was awful. A lens maker has no trouble achieving nervous bokeh. He must know his stuff and use a great (and usually expensive) design to achieve buttery bokeh.

If you want to know about depth of field, that is unrelated, except that if the depth of field is great, we have little or no out-of-focus area to talk about, and thus no bokeh to consider.

"Boke-dokey, been nice knowin' ya'!!!" (that's an ancient Japanese send-off...)

I really do appreciate lenses that deliver good bokeh. I happen to own a few that do, and I really DO LIKE lenses that do NOT have nervous, harsh, hashy, or ugly bokeh.

 

[BrianV]

Isn't this obvious that BrianV == Photfor666 ?
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/283828-bokeh-not-3.html#post2779113

Both new here and registered around the same time?

You don't know me, I don't know you, I don't know the guy that registered with "666" in his name, and I don't like accusations based on nothing. I've been around forums for a long time, this one came up in a google search with Bokeh and Photography. I probably know more than most about Bokeh: I make custom lenses to get the look i want.

If I am wasting my time here, let me know.

 

[jowensphoto]

Eh, I like the "nervous" bokeh occasionally.


flower1

That's pushing it, anything else would be much too distracting. This was taken with the older Canon 28-105mm lens. Not a bad walk around lens @ ~$100.

 

[BrianV]

If they remake the X-Files, I have the lenses for them to use.

Another "purely for fun" lens, a Nikkor-O 55/1.2 missing the rear optics which were replaced with the optics from a Leica 50mm F1.5 Summarit. I've made a couple like this, given a few away. Most lenses: the front and back sections each form a complete image, each have there own focal length. Most lenses- the two halves are designed to cancel aberrations. You can usually find a spacing to make two halves from different lenses into a the desired focal length. aberrations- all over the place.

This 50mm lens is made from left-over parts of three Russian and German lenses, wide-open at F1.5:

 

[Dikkie]

Isn't this obvious that BrianV == Photfor666 ?
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/283828-bokeh-not-3.html#post2779113

Both new here and registered around the same time?

You don't know me, I don't know you, I don't know the guy that registered with "666" in his name, and I don't like accusations based on nothing. I've been around forums for a long time, this one came up in a google search with Bokeh and Photography. I probably know more than most about Bokeh: I make custom lenses to get the look i want.

If I am wasting my time here, let me know.

I'm not accusing you, I'm just experiencing that there are 2 new users at the same time registered, coming up in the same thread discussing the same thing kind of the same way. Both of them pretending to know much about bokeh and lenses.

The first one didn't want to reply on this forum ever again, because it is full of nonsense. Why would he post in the first place? And maybe the replies would get him triggered to reply, but than not anymore with the same user.
The second one seems to have the same attitude and doubts if he's wasting his time.

Still, not accusing, but it all makes sense to me, as it looks like a total coincidence.

I've ben on many forums myself too, and I know lots of users that have multiple accounts on 1 forum. Why? That does not matter, it's just a fact that some people do have multiple accounts.

I'm just not surprised of it, and I don't blame you for doing something wrong. I was just interested if it was true or not.

 

[Dikkie]

I probably know more than most about Bokeh: I make custom lenses to get the look i want.

Yes, you probably know more than most about Bokeh.

But do you aswel make better photos than most, with your custom made lenses?

A good composition isn't made with a custom lens, for example.

I'm curious to see your work in the Galleries on this forum.

 

[BrianV]

Isn't this obvious that BrianV == Photfor666 ?
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/283828-bokeh-not-3.html#post2779113

Both new here and registered around the same time?

You don't know me, I don't know you, I don't know the guy that registered with "666" in his name, and I don't like accusations based on nothing. I've been around forums for a long time, this one came up in a google search with Bokeh and Photography. I probably know more than most about Bokeh: I make custom lenses to get the look i want.

If I am wasting my time here, let me know.

I'm not accusing you, I'm just experiencing that there are 2 new users at the same time registered, coming up in the same thread discussing the same thing kind of the same way. Both of them pretending to know much about bokeh and lenses.

The first one didn't want to reply on this forum ever again, because it is full of nonsense. Why would he post in the first place? And maybe the replies would get him triggered to reply, but than not anymore with the same user.
The second one seems to have the same attitude and doubts if he's wasting his time.

Still, not accusing, but it all makes sense to me, as it looks like a total coincidence.

I've ben on many forums myself too, and I know lots of users that have multiple accounts on 1 forum. Why? That does not matter, it's just a fact that some people do have multiple accounts.

I'm just not surprised of it, and I don't blame you for doing something wrong. I was just interested if it was true or not.

Well, I had "3" likes on my first day here. Good enough for me. I used to hang out on RFF. There are some good books on lenses in photograhy, "Photographic lenses" by Neblette and "Lenses in Photography" by Kingslake. Good reading for anyone that wants to make sense of "Bokeh". Or, buy some junk lenses, a mirrorless camera, and have some fun. It's like Lego Lenses.