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Thread: Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

  1. #1

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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    Okay, okay, I've been spending too much time on the Leica forum on photo.net ...

    Which of the modern day lenses, like the Sironars, Super Symmar XLs, etc. have the awe inspiring bokeh that creates the same excitement as certain Summicron and Elmarit glass ?

    Or are LF lenses stopped down too much to have meaningful out-of-focus areas ?

  2. #2

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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    'Bokeh' is Japanese for bull$hit, just thought you might like to know ;-)

    cp goerz

  3. #3
    the Docter is in Arne Croell's Avatar
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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    Some examples of LF lens bokeh can be found in Merklingers online article on the topic: <a href="http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml">http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml<a/>

  4. #4
    Whatever David A. Goldfarb's Avatar
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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh





    How modern is "modern"? I find this Schneider 210-370/5.6-12 Symmar convertible to be surprisingly smooth, and it's a nice portrait length for 4x5". That might or might not transfer to the more recent Symmars, which are better corrected.

  5. #5

    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    The new Cooke Portrait is supposed to have "awe inspiring bokeh". However, the examples on their website aren't very encouraging.

    and by the way, "Bokeru" is Japanese for senility.

  6. #6
    おせわに なります! Andrew O'Neill's Avatar
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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    My Japanese wife calls me this all the time. Boke means mentally weak, faint, fade. Now you know how boke can apply to a photograph according to the Japanese......but not my wife. It only applies to me. (She's pissed at me for all that 8x10 film and 16x20 paper I purchased).

  7. #7

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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    The saying "One man's trash is another's treasure" comes to mind. Liking the "look" of a particular lens in a particular application is a very personal thing. Too many factors come into play to nail down a "best" lens...

  8. #8
    Yes, but why? David R Munson's Avatar
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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    I've been very pleased with my 210mm Nikkor-W in this respect. "Bokeh" has come into play a fair amount with this lens in both portrait applications and in situations where I'm specifically defocusing/swinging and tilting the "wrong" way for very selective focus.

  9. #9
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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    Ron -

    I wrote one of the articles in the now-(in)famous bokeh special feature in Photo Techniques magazine a few years back.

    I'm a big fan of the Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-N and -S series. Under optimal conditions and with appropriate subjects, I think their rendering is absolutely sublime, nicer even than that of Mandler's marvelous 35 Summicron, one of my favorite lenses in 35mm. Also among recent plasmat designs, to my eye Schneider Apo-Symmar bokeh is not bad at all; on the other hand, I dislike Nikkor bokeh and intensely dislike Fujinon bokeh.

    Thanks to David Goldfarb for posting that example. To pick up on his final point, an Apo-Symmar would indeed render this picture differently. I prefer the way an Apo-Symmar renders backgrounds to what we see of the old convertible Symmar in this picture, though I can understand why some may find the older lens more flattering for portraits because it's not so intensely sharp or "clinical" in the way it renders objects at the plane of focus.

    But this just underlines the most important point: you shouldn't rely on the judgment of someone else who doesn't know you and your tastes very well. If you follow the messages here over time it will be obvious that different people have very different tastes in image character, and some don't much care about it at all. There's no "best" in any absolute sense - the only way to really know what's right for you is to test different lenses for yourself on subjects typical of what you like to photograph, and see a) whether there are any differences that matter to you and b) if so, which you like best.

    Cheers...

  10. #10

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    Modern Lenses with great Bokeh

    Doesn't the shape of the aperture opening play a role? The Copals and most other LF shutters use fewer blades than the Leica lenses, so wide open I often get hexagon shaped flare and out of focus highlights, whereas with Leicas and my old Nikkor 85/1.4 I got round shapes.

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