How do I achieve Minolta Autocord image quality with a view camera?

[Patrick13]

The gross elements I see that are responsible for making an image "pop" like this great motorcycle shot don't involve gear, though specific gear like lenses and format choice would make the effect much easier to achieve. To deconstruct what I see:

- The entire boundary edge is in sharp focus, the silhouette is tight and has a definite cutoff. Too shallow a DOF and you lose the complete edge.
- The background is almost uniformly defocused and airy (i.e. lower contrast and in a different lighting key, high or low, than the subject)

Break either of those two conditions and the pop disappears.

So onto the original question of getting Autocord quality out of a view camera...

For a given framing the larger the format the shallower your DOF will be, you will have to compensate by using a smaller aperture on the view camera. Unless I completely misinterpret what I've read, always a possibility. Without that compensation you'll lose having the silhouette in sharp focus.

Secondly, with view camera movements you'll want to help the background into uniformity and not accent the depth and out of focus areas, which sounds counter-intuitive. I think that if that works you'll actually get better results than from an Autocord.

I'm going to try this this Christmas week with my crown graphic, not a lot of movements there but I can blow through a few sheets for fun experimentation.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

That's an excellent observation Patrick and I very much agree, the entire boundary edge of the subject must be in sharp focus and the separation of subject to background is very important too.

[Adez]

My humble opinion- Smooth Trans Focus is a part of 3D effect in 2D images.
We must understand first how the brain create 3D effect in 3D world.
I suppose the brain create 3D in the same way electromagnetic triangulation work .

The eyes do this trough the approximation of distances and I think this approximation have something to do with focusing objects.
Jeffrey Goggin wonder how to have this effect in large format photography and I believe the secret could be in the lens in the same way in the real world the secret is in the eye.

This isn't only a stereoscopic effect because the effect is here even if we see with only one eye.

Best regards!

[Ian Greenhalgh]

No, human vision interprets 3D through comparing two different viewpoints - we have two eyes!

[Patrick13]

I'm going to stick with my story that it's the silhouette against the uniformity of a background and not any particular quality of the bokeh in that uniformity. It's just as easy for a nice STF lens image to not pop as it is for a regular lens to pop right out. This effect has nothing to do with actual 3D interpretation.

Here's an example of a failed image, nicely done and the background is beautiful... but the hard silhouette is broken and the portrait just sits there and doesn't pop.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobnl/4700094610/

While here's an example of a successful image that breaks all the STF rules with a cluttered and sharp bokeh background but... but the background is uniform and the fully sharp silhouette helps pull the portrait out of the scene and it pops.

http://static.photo.net/attachments/...-418641584.jpg

[Adez]

""""No, human vision interprets 3D through comparing two different viewpoints - we have two eyes! """""

:-)

Try to see with only one eye - 3D effect is here anyway.
Focusing is one way telling the brain about distances .... but maybe not the only way.
I prefer to say """I'm not sure""" so my mind will remai open .

[Adez]

As everything involving science the human mind ignore the "oberver".
“What we observe is not Nature herself, but Nature revealed to our method of questioning ” Werner Heisenberg
I thing this sentence can be apllied to every process of knowing.
It is the oberver who make the rules and than if he can't explain something than he will brake the rules.

For Patrick13 -
So everything is about the focus finally :-)

I want to thanks to everybody posting in this forum, with all opinions which I agree and with all opinions which I don't agree I was able to understand more.
I think here are more things we don't know that the things we know.
“…there is not a single concept of which I am certain it will stand the test of time. And I am not certain that I am even on the right track.” Einstein
I suppose this sentence is valid for every time we are saing: "this is so".

[Adez]

Now I have a Minolta Autocord but ..... I found impossible to focus with it (maybe this ebay item which I bought has a problem).
So here is the finish of my journey on Jeffrey Goggin road.

But looking for more information on the internet I found Goethe .
This man was talking about theory of relativity 100 years before Einstein.
Try to understand Goethe theory of light if you dare :-)

Somebody else here who have Autocord ?
How to focus with it easier ?

[BenJT]

The focus lever doesn't move does it? What happens is the lubricant in the focus helical hardens over the years causing it to freeze up. You can fix it yourself, I did one last year, do a Google search for autocord focus stuck, you will find plenty of information, its not complicated or difficult. Or just send it out for a cla.

[Will Frostmill]

This thread has been resurrected once before, so what's a little more?
Anyway, thank you Patrick13, here I finally see an explanation for why I really like certain portraits I've done with a Tesar formula lens with a medium format TLR.

I'm going to stick with my story that it's the silhouette against the uniformity of a background and not any particular quality of the bokeh in that uniformity. It's just as easy for a nice STF lens image to not pop as it is for a regular lens to pop right out. This effect has nothing to do with actual 3D interpretation.

Here's an example of a failed image, nicely done and the background is beautiful... but the hard silhouette is broken and the portrait just sits there and doesn't pop.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobnl/4700094610/

While here's an example of a successful image that breaks all the STF rules with a cluttered and sharp bokeh background but... but the background is uniform and the fully sharp silhouette helps pull the portrait out of the scene and it pops.

http://static.photo.net/attachments/...-418641584.jpg

I do think there's a little more to it - maybe having to do with SA outside the sharp center when used wide open helping not just to blur the background, but keep the contrast in the background low as well. (I could make a case that people make their lives difficult when they ramp up the acutance or overdo sharpening when they are chasing pretty bokeh.) But those are quibbles, albeit ones that make me wonder if anyone ever made an autofocus lens that had a Tessar formula.