Lens designs with swirliest bokeh?

[Jonathan Brewer]

Where ya been Triblett?

[Bob Salomon]

The Imagon can do a similar effect given the right lighting and shooting at 5.8, especially without a disk.

[tribby]

i'm still here jonny...

just lurking is all...

me

[Mark Sawyer]

Chris- Hmmm... never associated that effect with a tessar, but then, I've never shot a barely-covering tessar *or* a wide open tessar.

Ernest- I have several dozen old lenses I've accumulated over several decades (before Jim Galli drove the prices up... grrrr!) These include petzvals, wide rectelinears, rapid rectilinears, aplanats, anastigmats, symetricals, rapid symmetricals, variable soft focus velostigmats, etc. I'm just wondering if any might be more prone to that "swirly" effect?

Steve- thanks for steering me to that thread on APUG! Don't know quite how i've always missed it in the past...

I've had an on-again-off-again theory that the swirly effect comes from using a long-barreled lens wide open, which allows for a more pointed/eliptical (lemon-shaped) aperture at the edges, getting very extreme just before losing illumination. The orientation of the ellipse follows the edge of the lens, so it would allow for a circular "swirl" going around the entire image. This is all due to the overlapping of the front and rear ends of the barrel openings, and would explain why Petzvals and Veritos are known for this effect, (both have relatively long barrels). And that led me to wonder whether the long-barreled rapid rectilinears would have the same effect wide open.

But the again, the short-barreled Imagon has some of that swirly effect too, so maybe the barrel-length theory doesn't hold up. I'm still not entirely sure of the optics behind it; I've read posts attributing it to coma, barrel distortion, various abberations, etc. Hmmmm...

[Christopher Perez]

Chris- Hmmm... never associated that effect with a tessar, but then, I've never shot a barely-covering tessar *or* a wide open tessar.

I hadn't either, until recently. That's when I found my 210mm Xenar f6.1 to be stunningly sharp wide open and had similar off-axis effects to Kerik's fine image. I'm looking forward to putting the Xenar on the 8x10 after following this discussion. :-)

[darter]

Are you sure that's bokeh in the sample photo? I always associated bokeh with areas outside of the sharp plane of focus, whereas what the image has is lens distortion within and outside the plane of focus. I get a similar effect with a verito which is only sharp in the center area, even when stopped down.

[Philip_5765]

Old projection lenses from magic lanterns.

[David Richhart]

Have you tried Vaseline smeared around the edge of a filter??? Perhaps it is not exactly what you are looking for, but it can create a similar effect.

[Mark Woods]

At the risk of sounding risque, Vaseline is opaque and does not give a very good result. IMHO. OTOH, KY jelly is optically clear and will give much better results in terms of making a swirling pattern around the subject. One of the R&D guys at Panavision told me about this, and it's true. I no longer carry Vaseline, but I do carry KY -- and it works! (Along with Fogal stockings, YSL stockings ....)

Cheers,
MW

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

Phil, I would consider it bokeh. If it is as has been described, the quality of the out of focus part, anything out of the depth of field would fall into the bokeh zone. It would all be bokeh no matter what the cause of the particular effect is. I think the quantification of bokeh is strictly subjective. I think Kerics use of the particular bokeh characteristics in the image make it good bokeh. The same setup in architecture might not get you the check you were expecting.