Painting-like "glow" (what MF lenses can do for you) ( image )

Out and about today with a G1 and Contax (Zeiss) 50mm f1.4. Just walking to town I saw these flowers ( no idea what they are ). Took a couple of photos and when I got home and looked at them I noticed they had a wonderful "glow" almost as if they were paintings.

Since the subjects of bokeh and usefulness of legacy lenses have been on here recently I thought I'd post this to show what can be achieved. Obviously it isn't stunningly sharp, but I think it has an lovely look that I don't think you would get with a more modern lens.

For the gear heads - or anyone interested - taken at ISO 100, f1.4 1/1000s. Developed using defaults in Silkypix then resized.

Let me know what you think, good or bad



Nick

Sorry but I don't see any "glow." Also I don't find this image so unique that it cannot be achieved by "modern" lenses. The flowers in this images seem a bit soft and this may be caused by the very shallow DOF and camera shake, the latter of which can be corrected to some degree by ISed lenses.

I've noticed that the 20mm can have this kind of "glow" effect in macros as well. Just an interesting look for the bokeh. The leaves on this bamboo shot were the best example I could find of mine--sort of a "shimmering" look:



--------------------------------------------
Panasonic GF1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamgibson/

If ment to be abstract, to me it is.
--
Greg Gebhardt in
Jacksonville, Florida

Here is a crop from the point of focus



I can't see any shake there - softness yes

Here is a crop hopefully showing what I meant by "glow"



It is the way bright edges seem to "bleed" into the surrounding parts of the image, almost as if they are lit up.

Since the effect - if there is one - is a function of the old lens design and the f1.4 aperture I can't see that you could easily produce this with a modern, well corrected, lens. I'm happy to be proved wrong of course

Thanks for your comments,

Nick

preferences vary but good creamy bokeh is preferred by many. The effect you are looking for here, draws attention to itself, so I wouldn't call it "good" bokeh. I would consider it an effect.

Search for shot taken with the Canon 85 f1.2 on a FF, you can see how creamy the background can be.

This glow and near focus effect would probably be better done in PP, shoot it in focus and then select the background to blur and add special effects on it. It would be easier.

In this case, there is nothing substantial that can be considered in focus, maybe the tip of one leaf in the middle? I don't know.

Crop from just below centre



The lens is rather soft wide open so even "sharp" is relative

I was just playing around with the lens shooting these and it wasn't until I got back home that I looked at it and thought it almost looked like an impressionist painting - YMMV of course

Here's a crop from one of the flower stalks to show what I mean



Yes, it is just meant as a sort of abstract image, I rather liked the effect and thought I'd share since the forum has been rather bogged down with speculation and "my camera's better than yours" threads recently.

Thanks for replying,

Nick

We posted simultaneously so see my reply below for some other comments and crops

The fact that the background shows these odd effects is why I posted the image - it reminded me of impressionist paintings.

The lens normally gives lovely out of focus areas, I believe it was one of the highest regarded 50mm lenses, but due to the lighting or something else I got this odd bokeh.

Thanks for replying,

Nick

nick_webster said:

Here is a crop from the point of focus

Click to expand...

nick_webster said:

It is the way bright edges seem to "bleed" into the surrounding parts of the image, almost as if they are lit up.

Since the effect - if there is one - is a function of the old lens design and the f1.4 aperture I can't see that you could easily produce this with a modern, well corrected, lens. I'm happy to be proved wrong of course

Click to expand...

nick_webster said:

Nick

Click to expand...

I really don't think you can say that the "effect" that you show here is somewhat unique and can only be created by older generation of lenses. To the very least, you should compare them side by side to be fair. I agree with others that the bokeh in these images are not that great, and can be described as busy since you can still see the outlines in the out of focus area. Good bokeh is more like water color painting, not the impressionistic ones. Being sharp and rendering good bokeh are two qualities that are hard to blend into one lens so most lenses are better with one but not the others. Sigma has recently made several lenses that are widely praised for the quality of bokeh, 50/1.4 and 30/1.4. The best way to see this is go to Flickr and search for these two lenses or just "bokeh." You cay try to guess which lens gives a particular kind of bokeh ...

While all lenses produce images that are softer when they are shot wide open, when you shoot these at such close distance, any slight movement of the camera or the flower will slightly blur the images to make them look "soft." I thus still think that something moved when you took these pictures as I expect a Zeiss lens to do better. Did you use a tripod and was there breeze?

What your photo shows are light areas which are rendered quite nicely into "blobs" which help the foreground stand out - nice shot by the way. What I was trying to show is better demonstrated in this crop :



I hope you can see what I meant by "glow"

Modern lenses are generally too good to allow this sort of smearing between areas of high contrast even wide open. I think the effect may be replicable with software but I try and avoid PP where possible

Thanks for your reply,

Nick

I don't think I ever claimed the bokeh was great - only that it had created what I felt was an impressionist painting like quality. I'm not saying it is good or bad, just that I liked the effect it had in this particular photo. Good bokeh, like most things, is in the eye of the beholder ( Obviously mirror lens bokeh is horrible under all circumstances )

I'll take your word that a modern lens design would produce something similar under similar circumstances - I don't have one to compare.

If you want razor sharp and good bokeh then look at the Tokina 90mm f2.5. It wasn't called the "bokina" for nothing. Failing that the Tamron 90mm f2.5 is remarkably close if not the Tokina's equal ( design copy ? ) In fact most macros of this sort of focal length tend to do very well - DPR have just tested Canon's 100 and found it to be very good.

If you look at the crop you'll see that the "glow" extends pretty uniformly around each flower bud. If you can explain to me how I managed to jiggle the camera in a uniform circle in the space of 1/1000s I'll accept that there was camera shake

The lens is soft wide open but performs better as you stop down. I think this is in line with most of the 50mm f1.4s from the film era. Take a look at the Canon 50 which traces its design back to the early '70s - http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_50_1p4_c16/page4.asp .

Nick

G1Houston said:

I really don't think you can say that the "effect" that you show here is somewhat unique and can only be created by older generation of lenses. To the very least, you should compare them side by side to be fair. I agree with others that the bokeh in these images are not that great, and can be described as busy since you can still see the outlines in the out of focus area. Good bokeh is more like water color painting, not the impressionistic ones.

Click to expand...

Actually, I think what he's pointing out is completely valid and real. The 20mm f/1.7 is a great example of an approach to optics very different than say, the Voigtlander 40mm f/1.4. Panasonic clearly wanted to make a lens most people would regard as "high quality" - that means it has to be sharp, have good contrast, good bokeh, good control of coma, etc. All four of the qualities I listed have been achieved quite well by Panasonic, whereas my Voigtlander 40mm f/1.4, wide-open displays problems in all four areas - just as the OP's lens does. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? It depends on what you're going for, but the fact is that the older MF glass available has a much broader ranges of "looks" available than the MFT glass being produced. Look at people using C Mount glass if you want to see some real wild stuff.

Panasonic would never produce a lens that had the kind of "interesting" bokeh that people seem to like in these lenses, and that's just fine for most people. But for the rest of us who like a bit of funk every once and a while, they do offer a nice opportunity to break out of the "tack sharp" mindset. I love my 20mm f/1.7, but I also love having the Voigtlander 40mm f/1.4 for times that I tire of the 20mm's unrelenting sharpness. LOL

--
Sam Bennett - http://www.swiftbennett.com

IMHO this is just caused by the known "blur" effect many legacy lenses show on MFT cameras at large apertures.

If you like it then great, no problem. If you do not, various solution are proposed but on the end all resort to some form of reduction of the luminosity of the lens that you can as well obtain by shooting at an higher diaphragm.

That sometimes a deficiency of the lens can produce an effect that gives you an option not available with more modern designs - though G1Houston is certain that I am wrong

Whether or not you like it is of course completely subjective Normally I'd prefer less aberrations in a lens but for some reason I quite liked the effect with these flowers.

Thanks for your reply,

Nick

Leica "glow" is legendary on some of their top lenses eg 80mm F1.4. This is one of the qualities many seek out ... and which gives these paticular legacy lenses their cult following.

--
Regards,
Rich Simpson

Do you mean something just like this? If yes, then, some Zeiss lens can give you the bokeh like this. the one that I have was Pentacon 50mm F1.8. I think Zuiko 50mm F1.4 did that too.

Those are nice images, but it's not the same kind of glow the OP is demonstrating, imo. It's not just the extreme shallow DoF some fast primes can produce when used very close to their subjects, it's the sort of thing you get when coma isn't corrected for effectively, combined with a lack of aspherical correction, etc.

ruy said:

Do you mean something just like this? If yes, then, some Zeiss lens can give you the bokeh like this. the one that I have was Pentacon 50mm F1.8. I think Zuiko 50mm F1.4 did that too.

Click to expand...

--
Sam Bennett - http://www.swiftbennett.com

Hi Sam,

I confused a bit. do you mean something like this? lack of aspherical correction?

Nick out of curiosity, whose manufacturer's adapter are you using?

kww

nick_webster said:

Out and about today with a G1 and Contax (Zeiss) 50mm f1.4. Just walking to town I saw these flowers ( no idea what they are ). Took a couple of photos and when I got home and looked at them I noticed they had a wonderful "glow" almost as if they were paintings.

Since the subjects of bokeh and usefulness of legacy lenses have been on here recently I thought I'd post this to show what can be achieved. Obviously it isn't stunningly sharp, but I think it has an lovely look that I don't think you would get with a more modern lens.

For the gear heads - or anyone interested - taken at ISO 100, f1.4 1/1000s. Developed using defaults in Silkypix then resized.

Let me know what you think, good or bad

Nick

Click to expand...

--
Lumix GF1
Lumix f1.7/20mm

I like the general effect but I must say that the DOF is exaggerately thin in this picture - to enjoy bokeh I need a clearly focused subject that stands out, and the tip of a leaf is not enough in a flower picture - at least for my taste.

The variety of results you get with different lenses is just amazing - at least for a newbie like me! - and these fast primes are very appealing.

--
Diana & GF1
http://www.floraveronese.net
http://www.flickr.com/sinophilia/