Have you ever had the experience where you shot wide open, and the combination of the falloff of your lens and bokeh with limited dof produced an amazing photograph. I ask, as I've been thinking about doing a handheld "wide open" study of subject matter in this manner. I'm also talking outside of doing portraits. Anyways, I hope that I am explaining this correctly. If you get the idea, I'd love to see examples or hear your story if anyone has any to get me motivated.
Wayne,
I don't have examples to e-mail you but shots taken with a 8", 10" or 12" f/2.9 Pentac wide open are breathtaking. 8" Pentacs appear on Ebay fairly regularly but the larger ones are very rare. I know that Jeff at Lens & Repro has a 10" Pentac for sale. An 8" Pentac and a 4x5 Graflex SLR may be the ticket!
This is a good question...I will look forward to hearing other responses.
J. P. Mose
Excuse my poor English! "An" instead of "a" should be in front of 8" and 10". I need more coffee!
Check out some Sally Mann books.
Nothing is better (when you get it right...) Why have all of these camera movements if you can't show them off once in a while! Anyone with a digicam can get everything in focus ;-)
http://www.duskart.com
Depending on the lens, the wide-open look can be quite effective with some subjects. The older, soft-focus portrait lenses seem particularly adept at this. Whether hand-holding is a good idea is a separate question, of course, and highly camera/photographer dependent. ;-)
I have regularly used a 150mm f/2.8 Xenotar, 8" f/2.9 Pentac (which JP mentions), and 11" and 22" Dallmeyer Petzval lenses open wide for "alternative process" portraiture. The Dallmeyers (and all Petzvals) and the Pentac produce very beautiful and very idiosyncratic bokeh. The Xenotar wide open produces images which are noticeably sharper , but a bit "clinical" and maybe even boring IMHO.
I have a few sample images, but I am not sure how to post them on this forum.
I've had the experience. Whether or not the photograph is amazing is up to the viewer. This example of some dogwood blossoms is from a Fujinon 240A at f/11.
The background is an ugly red clay bank with sparse grass on it. It was only a few feet away, but in the print it looks like a beautifully mottled and rumpled dark gray backdrop. DOF has its uses, absolutely.
Bruce Watson
I often shoot wide open handheld with the 135/3.5 Planar on my Tech V. I'm not sure if I have one of those conveniently scanned, but here's a handheld stage shot with the 150/4.5 Xenar wide open--
Schneider Xenar 300/4.5 at f:4.5, full swings on Technika III 5x7".
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