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richardman
16-Dec-2014, 03:12
I am starting to do a series on "Old Buildings that have not been Torn Down Yet" (*may be slightly tongue in cheek*) Anyway, I am considering whether to use one of those old style fuzzy-lens to get certain effect and feelings across. Attached are 2 pics from the fuzzy-lens and 2 from normal 4x5 lens. The Stanford Theater shows up on both set so can serve as nice comparison.

What are you opinions? Which "style" speak to you more? I know the "correct answer" is which one *I* prefer, but like to hear others' opinions. Thanks.

SHARP!

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141205-Scanned-645.jpg

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141215-Scanned-654.jpg

FUZZY

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141215-Scanned-652.jpg


http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141215-Scanned-653.jpg

Tobias Key
16-Dec-2014, 03:35
I by far prefer the sharp lens images. I don see the point of shooting 4x5 for architecture photos and the obliterating all the resolution. May as well just shoot digital and use post production.

MDR
16-Dec-2014, 04:52
Both you have a double film holder. Some buildings will be better suited to the "memory" type of photo (soft focus) and some need sharpness. I would take one sharp photo and one fuzzy photo and in the end choose which suits the building and what I want to achieve better. The Stanford theater 2 is a bit too fuzzy stop down one more stop and it would probably look good. The Fuzzy Borders looks nice and would make a decent book cover. I dislike the cars standing in the way more than the fuzziness or sharpness

Jim Becia
16-Dec-2014, 05:15
Personally, I prefer the sharper images, also I like the tonality of these images.

djdister
16-Dec-2014, 06:11
Sharp, definitely sharp lens.

Richard Wasserman
16-Dec-2014, 08:06
Add me to the sharp lens camp. The other comes across as an affectation/flavor of the month look...

This is the kind of project that increases in value as time passes and more and more buildings disappear. I would definitely go with a timeless presentation and render as much detail as possible. People in the future will thank you.

DrTang
16-Dec-2014, 08:39
sharp, B&W, sans cars

Richard Wasserman
16-Dec-2014, 08:57
Why not cars? People 50 years from now when all the buildings are gone, will look at these photos and marvel at the quaint, obsolete old cars.


sharp, B&W, sans cars

jp
16-Dec-2014, 08:59
I'm a big fan of soft focus, but would prefer sharp for this purpose.

Soft+architecture is for showing shapes/composition/light at the expense of detail. e.g. Do a google image search for Frederick Evans. Your soft focus photos don't do that because they are color and that's not what you're trying to do.

If you're going to do color+sharp, find some more lighting like the first photo, and maybe shoot it early Sunday morning when cars aren't around.

hoffner
16-Dec-2014, 09:06
sans cars

+1

Toyon
16-Dec-2014, 10:13
The sharp pictures are very good. They do make me wonder what a polarizer would have done to reduce window reflectivity? But that might have other unintended consequences. In my opinion, good soft-focus pictures are extremely challenging. My better results have been achieved in using soft focus for things that we don't see very sharply to begin with. The Pictorialist masters of soft-focus were best with distant perspectives, trees and leaves, rocks, distant views, water bodies, glancing, specular light and faces. These are things that we are used to seeing in masses or without great sharpness. Buildings are all about hard angles and deep focus, so they do not lend themselves to soft-focus. I think we have been led to believe that soft-focus brings a kind of mythical quality to things. I don't think that is true, instead it helps us see complicated things, such as dappled light in a forest or moving water, in greater clarity by simplifying the complexity of a scene and bringing to the foreground the impression of light and shadow.

Bill_1856
16-Dec-2014, 10:18
Definitely prefer sharp.
Cars are all right, (maybe even a good thing), but you need to shoot from much higher viewpoint so the cars don't overpower the picture to the determent of the buildings.

Vaughn
16-Dec-2014, 11:26
Do not like the effect of the fuzzy lens in your examples. Looks more out of focus than soft focus. Obnoxious.

8x10 user
16-Dec-2014, 11:46
When I use soft focus lenses, I like to set the focus point further infront of the subject as I find the areas at the end of the band of focus to be most appealing. Also, with soft focus lenses, the out of focus areas behind a subject generally have better bokeh then in front of the subject.

DrTang
16-Dec-2014, 12:02
Why not cars? People 50 years from now when all the buildings are gone, will look at these photos and marvel at the quaint, obsolete old cars.

agree..infact I keep all the pix with old cars if I buy a lot of pix or negs - (planes, trains, autos and people with dead animals...boats too though)

but... IDK.. I think just the buildings in this case..and then maybe another project of parked cars

might be wrong though.. it just kinda bugged me that there was one car..or a couple empty spots

for me..I'd like to see no cars..or all filled up spaces

that's me though

but....sharp anyway

Richard Wasserman
16-Dec-2014, 12:57
I like the idea of the cars, but I think Richard could utilize them a bit more effectively. They need to be a useful part of the composition and not just random objects. For myself I feel that the photos would be stronger if taken with a wider lens (I'm assuming moving farther back is impossible) so there is more context and the autos are less dominant.


agree..infact I keep all the pix with old cars if I buy a lot of pix or negs - (planes, trains, autos and people with dead animals...boats too though)

but... IDK.. I think just the buildings in this case..and then maybe another project of parked cars

might be wrong though.. it just kinda bugged me that there was one car..or a couple empty spots

for me..I'd like to see no cars..or all filled up spaces

that's me though

but....sharp anyway

richardman
16-Dec-2014, 13:44
Thanks all for the comments. Some very good points there. I will play around and see...

One thing I have decided is to do this in color vs, B&W. Everything else in in flux. Christmas may be the only time the street is empty, or at night. We will see.

Thanks again.

Adamphotoman
16-Dec-2014, 14:20
I too like the sharper images. Although I appreciate the tonality of the images I find that there is an odd colour cast. Is this intended?

richardman
16-Dec-2014, 14:35
I too like the sharper images. Although I appreciate the tonality of the images I find that there is an odd colour cast. Is this intended?

I need to tone down the blue channel.

Jac@stafford.net
16-Dec-2014, 14:40
Sharp images for historical evidence.

Soft images are like listening to oral history from a guy with a mouth full of marbles.

8x10 user
16-Dec-2014, 14:58
The second fussy image is out of focus (the focus point set too far away). Both fussy images show chromatic aberration near the edges. The lens might work better with black and white.

---------- From American Photography Aug 1921 "Soft Focus Lenses" "As a general rule it will be found best to rack the lens forward till the image is all out of focus and then rack slowly back until the most pleasing effect is secured. (pg 426)"

richardman
16-Dec-2014, 15:26
The second fussy image is out of focus (the focus point set too far away). Both fussy images show chromatic aberration near the edges. The lens might work better with black and white.

---------- From American Photography Aug 1921 "Soft Focus Lenses" "As a general rule it will be found best to rack the lens forward till the image is all out of focus and then rack slowly back until the most pleasing effect is secured. (pg 426)"\

Thanks, very possible that the Stanford Theater "Soft focus" is indeed out of focus. I had no place to stand except right in front of a parking space and the woman needed to get out and then the light was disappearing so I was a bit hurried. Will try again.

And yes, this is the Gundlach Manhattan Achromatic Portraits 7 1/2" that I am testing. May be I should try the Cooke 7 1/2" soft focus, which does a good job with color.

djdister
16-Dec-2014, 16:03
Just to amplify my previous vote for using a sharp lens - a soft focus lens would typically be used for a) portraiture or b) the pictorial effect. Neither of these would seem to be the focus (pun intended) of your historical architecture documentation effort. Used for these subjects, the soft focus effect just doesn't add anything, and in fact de-emphasizes the very critical aspects of architecture that you are trying to record.

Steven Tribe
16-Dec-2014, 16:09
Historical archive = Sharp and Colour from all angles.

Interesting Phototgraphs = Black and white/Architectual details (which are lost in medium/wide shots)/at an angle to the facades plane/lighting with obvious shadows or relief/ and pictorial composition(including lenses).

The inner court looks like a fine challenge and easier to get to than Alhambra!

richardman
16-Dec-2014, 16:26
It's not meant as an archive record project, but a personal "fine art" project, whatever THAT means :-)

My Brother in Law might have nailed it why I am testing the soft focus effect. He commented "I have to go with fuzzy. Razor-sharp detail actually detracts from a mood piece, if you need to use your imagination to fill in details, that image is yours and yours alone."

I guess I am going after the "Romantic" feel, again, whatever THAT means LoL. I will play with it some more...

djdister
16-Dec-2014, 16:33
It's not meant as an archive record project, but a personal "fine art" project, whatever THAT means :-)

My Brother in Law might have nailed it why I am testing the soft focus effect. He commented "I have to go with fuzzy. Razor-sharp detail actually detracts from a mood piece, if you need to use your imagination to fill in details, that image is yours and yours alone."

I guess I am going after the "Romantic" feel, again, whatever THAT means LoL. I will pay with it some more...

Well, the soft focus effect isn't looking "romantic" or "fine art" at all in your tests. In fact, your soft focus shots are out of focus as well. Even soft focus shots have aspects of sharpness, which yours do not.

As a counterpoint, here's an example where the soft focus effect may work...

126748
The Flatiron, 1904. Edward J. Steichen
Gum bichromate over platinum print

richardman
16-Dec-2014, 16:50
Yes Dan, I agree, the Stanford Theater soft focus is out of focus, as I mentioned above. I agree that THESE particular soft focus shots are not what I want ultimately. I will play with different lens and report back.

Thanks

Teodor Oprean
16-Dec-2014, 22:56
The purposely fuzzy images look poorly done, as if the tripod was affected by unwanted vibration during the exposure. Also, the compositions are not as good in the fuzzy images. The sharp images are much better in every sense, plus they have the look of large format.

8x10 user
17-Dec-2014, 00:15
It just takes time to get use to the characteristics of a soft focus lens and each one is different. Who was it that said took 50 images to learn the personality of each soft focus lens (Coburn?)? Achromatic lenses have the longest learning curve but can be very rewarding.

I do like the inside of the building in the first soft focus image with the gate around it. To me it is the best part of the image.

Soft focus lenses love contrast, especially light subjects with dark backgrounds. I had some good results in shooting the capital here in Madison with my Dallmeyer Bergheim at night. The same lens also seemed to like the Thai Pavilion at Olbrich Gardens, when shot in the evening. Which is when the sun shins directly on the building and the reflections are the strongest.

jp
17-Dec-2014, 07:22
It's not meant as an archive record project, but a personal "fine art" project, whatever THAT means :-)

My Brother in Law might have nailed it why I am testing the soft focus effect. He commented "I have to go with fuzzy. Razor-sharp detail actually detracts from a mood piece, if you need to use your imagination to fill in details, that image is yours and yours alone."

I guess I am going after the "Romantic" feel, again, whatever THAT means LoL. I will play with it some more...

Soft focus is very capable of showing mood, like the flatiron photo does, like Coburn and Struss's bridge photos do. It doesn't make mood; it shows mood that the photographer feels/sees and chooses to show. You're going to have to define Romantic a little better before proceeding that way.

For pictorial composition, go read a book on notan composition, then go shooting. It's what the original American practitioners likely did.

8x10 user said 50 photos to learn a lens. I've heard that, and also 100 photos, either of which are believable. If you're going to shoot more with them, try some different apertures and compositions.

MDR
17-Dec-2014, 09:11
As a sidenote the advice to read a book on notan is a good one Alvin Langdon Coburn for instance studied under Dow who brought the concept of Notan to the US. Dow's book on composition can be downloaded from Archive.org and is well worth the read: https://archive.org/details/compositionaser00dowgoog
to download go to the Https link and choose the file Format.

goamules
17-Dec-2014, 09:44
Extreme soft focus, in the pictorial sense, is used to focus on composition, not the subject. A tree or building silhouette, the edge highlight of a face. You are doing documentary work, so need to realize the main purpose is not "art." Trying to get artistic soft shots out of a bunch of old buildings would take a lot more planning, time, care, and artistic vision.

Use a sharp lens.

Bernice Loui
17-Dec-2014, 10:19
Another option.

Selective sharp focus at the point of interest and allow the rest of the image to go out of focus while working these out of focus elements into the overall composition. This is very common is film and video production and could be an alternative to all sharp-all soft-fuzzy.

If this is done at night with a lens that has nice round Bokeh, the points of light appear as round disc which can be very effective composition elements for the finished image.


Bernice



It's not meant as an archive record project, but a personal "fine art" project, whatever THAT means :-)

My Brother in Law might have nailed it why I am testing the soft focus effect. He commented "I have to go with fuzzy. Razor-sharp detail actually detracts from a mood piece, if you need to use your imagination to fill in details, that image is yours and yours alone."

I guess I am going after the "Romantic" feel, again, whatever THAT means LoL. I will play with it some more...

John Kasaian
17-Dec-2014, 10:50
Sharp. Unless you want to give the viewer the experience of seeing through cataracts.

Drew Wiley
17-Dec-2014, 10:57
I would tend to do them sharp, but admit I'm not a soft-focus aficionado. Sometimes I like older lenses which are adept at selective focus, meaning sharp in the
in-focus areas, but gentle in somewhat out-of-focus parts (not necessarily conspicuous "bokeh", but perhaps a subtly nuanced version of it). But you gotta experiment a bit to develop a personal style.

Old-N-Feeble
17-Dec-2014, 10:57
Why not do both? Since you're already there and set up just swap lenses and move the camera a few feet to compensate for the slightly different focal length.

djdister
17-Dec-2014, 12:33
I would tend to do them sharp, but admit I'm not a soft-focus aficionado. Sometimes I like older lenses which are adept at selective focus, meaning sharp in the
in-focus areas, but gentle in somewhat out-of-focus parts (not necessarily conspicuous "bokeh", but perhaps a subtly nuanced version of it). But you gotta experiment a bit to develop a personal style.

An interesting suggestion -- perhaps a sharp but older lens design (Tessar, Xenar) might lend itself well to this project.

jnantz
17-Dec-2014, 13:26
Yes Dan, I agree, the Stanford Theater soft focus is out of focus, as I mentioned above. I agree that THESE particular soft focus shots are not what I want ultimately. I will play with different lens and report back.

Thanks


it might help if you stop your lens down a little bit to focus.
i've instructions for an older portrait lens and they
suggest to do just that ...
also, you can use a "fuzzy lens" stopped down a little bit to make your photographs
just because you have a soft focus.portrait/landscape lens doesn't mean it has to be shot
wide open all the time ... you might like the out of focus / nostalgic effect too

good luck with your project ..

john borrelli
17-Dec-2014, 16:46
I also agree with the sharp lens and no car sentiment.

Peter Yeti
18-Dec-2014, 18:43
Saint Ansel said "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." I think there is: a fuzzy image of a fuzzy concept. Once you have a clear, well thought through concept, there shouldn't be a question left which kind of equipment to use. Whether this is soft focus or sharp, I doubt anybody can tell yet.

Peter

Liquid Artist
20-Dec-2014, 01:02
Christmas may be the only time the street is empty, or at night. We will see.


I'd be tempted to try a long exposure and hopefully have the cars move enough to disappear but not have their motion lines disappear.
It would be a tough capture, but if you pull it off it could help make the photo.

mdarnton
20-Dec-2014, 07:08
I'm having a hard time accepting the legitimacy of a romantic vision of a subject that isn't romantic. Soft focus adds that to portraits because it's trying to accentuate a certain feeling that's already there--or that the subject wishes were there--and I don't see that as an existing trait of the buildings you've used. Maybe if you were doing castles or something, it would work, but for this it just looks. . .. wrong.

I think that if you wanted to do something, black and white would be much more appropriate. Maybe even ortho black and white. Another possibility would be to get a time-appropriate box camera and use that, getting the "right" kind of diffusion for the time and place.

John Kasaian
20-Dec-2014, 09:18
I'm having a hard time accepting the legitimacy of a romantic vision of a subject that isn't romantic. Soft focus adds that to portraits because it's trying to accentuate a certain feeling that's already there--or that the subject wishes were there--and I don't see that as an existing trait of the buildings you've used. Maybe if you were doing castles or something, it would work, but for this it just looks. . .. wrong.

I think that if you wanted to do something, black and white would be much more appropriate. Maybe even ortho black and white. Another possibility would be to get a time-appropriate box camera and use that, getting the "right" kind of diffusion for the time and place.
I think a building can be romantic, but it takes certain elements which I didn't see in these examples which I do find to be genuinely interesting, hence I want to know what they look like "for reals" rather than in a more sentimental fuzz.

Old-N-Feeble
20-Dec-2014, 11:50
I'd think not so much 'romantic' but more 'nostalgic'. SF can work with either but the problem with making images SF is you can't print sharp if you decide to later. Conversely, if you take sharp images there are ways to mimic SF in PS and, if done properly, are very convincing.

8x10 user
20-Dec-2014, 15:38
To each his own.

I use to shoot with the sharpest LF kit money can buy (150SSXL, 210HM, 300 APO-W/S, 360 Apo-S, 480 Apo-N, 600 Apo-Ronar)... Now my tastes have moved to softer glass. Manipulating in post is not the same as shooting with a soft focus lens.

Andrew Plume
20-Dec-2014, 16:08
Richard, Hi

'sharp' definitely

btw, your take on a 'HABS project'.......?

good luck and regards

andrew

richardman
20-Dec-2014, 16:22
...

btw, your take on a 'HABS project'.......?

good luck and regards

andrew

Thanks Andrew. I googled "HABS projecT" and found a few possible links, which one do you mean? As for my "visions" for the project - possibly as an excuse for a roadtrip and photograph "Buildings have not been torn down yet but probably will be soon." Definitely will not be historical documentation per se, more fine arts. Whatever that means. As much as I like George Tice, not that look. Heck, if I learn to do wetplate, I will do wetplate.

Thanks all for the comments.

Old-N-Feeble
20-Dec-2014, 17:48
To each his own.

I use to shoot with the sharpest LF kit money can buy (150SSXL, 210HM, 300 APO-W/S, 360 Apo-S, 480 Apo-N, 600 Apo-Ronar)... Now my tastes have moved to softer glass. Manipulating in post is not the same as shooting with a soft focus lens.

No, it's not... but you might be surprised how convincing digital "deception" can be.;)

Andrew Plume
21-Dec-2014, 02:42
Thanks Andrew. I googled "HABS projecT" and found a few possible links, which one do you mean? As for my "visions" for the project - possibly as an excuse for a roadtrip and photograph "Buildings have not been torn down yet but probably will be soon." Definitely will not be historical documentation per se, more fine arts. Whatever that means. As much as I like George Tice, not that look. Heck, if I learn to do wetplate, I will do wetplate.

Thanks all for the comments.

thanks Richard

it was just a 'general kind of HABS thought'

I agree with what you said re George's work, terrific in it's own right, almost imo a straight kind of documentary work and at small apertures

good luck with this

regards
andrew

EdSawyer
21-Dec-2014, 09:38
Sharp, no cars, agreed.

mdarnton
21-Dec-2014, 11:14
Your project just reminded me of something I have buried on one of my Flickr sites.
I don't think modern architecture is impossible in soft focus--I just think you can't
take a straight "record" shot and make it fuzzy, hoping it works.

I sort of think this one works--

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3206/2936194051_95200be74e_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/5tsLcn)

State Street, Chicago Public Library (https://flic.kr/p/5tsLcn)
by Michael Darnton (https://www.flickr.com/people/28529931@N00/), on Flickr

richardman
25-Dec-2014, 00:33
OK, I think this is the type of look I want, a Cooke Series II 7 1/2. Thank you all for the comments! Happy Holidays!

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141224-Scanned-658.jpg

graywolf
25-Dec-2014, 11:43
The Guild Theater shot certainly works better.

I wonder what would happen if you composed it so the curb ran up the right edge of the photo? In fact that my be a way to shoot the whole series, eliminating the modern cars making the photos more timeless, and giving a unifying theme to the series.

Jim Andrada
25-Dec-2014, 12:05
Definitely much better. I have an old Protar set that I like because it's quite sharp at the plane of focus but fades off smoothly into the "less focused" areas. Not really "soft focus" but more "smoothly degrading" focus.

One thing I do is to use a variable ND filter to control exposure and aperture to control softness.

By the way, I don't like the cars in this one. The first car looks fuzzy, but the suggestions of perspective would have me thinking that it's at the same distance as the marquee, so it should be sharp. Sort of confusing. The curb and cars are so close to the vertical optical center line of the image (which has to be between the curb and the trees) that there are minimal perspective clues about distance.

If you crop off everything to the right of the curb the composition works much better for me.

Jim Andrada
25-Dec-2014, 13:24
I played around with it for a while - just a thought.

127165

Reasoning (such as it is)

1) "White" space at the top right pulls the eye away from the subject.

2) Eliminate the front car which (IMHO) confuses the eye as mentioned above

3) Stronger focus on the building itself - maybe a little more dramatic

4) Balance the masses of the sign and the show window bottom left. "Notan" as was mentioned above.

5) B&W. I think color in this case is somewhat distracting. B&W seems "calmer".

6) Straighten up the verticals.

7) More importance to the trees

Anyhow, this is all really personal preference and I don't claim that my interpretation is any more "right" than the original, just wanted to share what I thought about when looking at the image and figured a picture was worth ten thousand words..

richardman
25-Dec-2014, 14:11
Thanks all, and Jim, I will take your suggestions into consideration. Just to give a slight different perspective, I also took a photo of the Guild from across the street. This is a 6 lane local road - the famous El Camino that once connected San Francisco (and beyond?) to all the way down to Southern California - so I waited for 4-5 signal changes and thought I had enough time to squeeze in a one second exposure, but you still see the car trail :-/ so this is an example of does not work. Anyway, I had to use extreme shift and swing so that I could be at the left side of the building but still had the word "Guild" visible and used both front and back swing to keep the planes parallel again. Really love the way view camera movements allow me to do this even though the photo didn't come out.

I am going out shortly to see if I can grab some photos of these places without cars, for once :-)

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/20141224-Scanned-659.jpg

speedfreak
26-Dec-2014, 11:55
I actually like that the car came through the frame. It forces the eye to the static building that's in focus. It also seems to convey the theme of time passing the old, out dated theater by. Maybe it's too obvious a concept for the "fine art" aspect, but it does seem to have that effect on me. The lack of any other static cars, the detritus in the street and the inability to read clearly the movie title in the posters hinting at coming attractions that may never come, all work in favor of the shot. I like it in color, but think B+W might be nice as well. Nice use of movements!

Leszek Vogt
26-Dec-2014, 12:40
Like the arrow pointing...call me easily amused ;). Agree, the car smudge don't work IMO.

Les