Anybody like circular images?

[linhofbiker]

While I am concentrating on 5x7 and 4x10 I do have an interesting lens in a Compur 0 shutter. The lens came from a Mamiya Press and I remounted it in the Compur. The lens is the 50mm f/6.3 that is purported to be of the Biogon design. It was designed to cover 6x9cm. I haven't tried it yet but it should make a nice circular image on a sheet of 5x7 film. Didn't the original 100 shot Kodak box camera create circular images? Why aren't circular images more popular, after all when I look up from typing this on my Macbook Pro I see a wide expanse that is kind of circular and is certainly not a rectangle!

[Oren Grad]

I've moved this to "On Photography" as it's really a question about esthetics, not about lenses.

You might be interested in Sam Wang's work with circular pictures. Here are two links, but there's plenty more in some of his other portfolios as well, so have a look around his website:

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/landscapes

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/why-round/cover

[Bob Salomon]

While I am concentrating on 5x7 and 4x10 I do have an interesting lens in a Compur 0 shutter. The lens came from a Mamiya Press and I remounted it in the Compur. The lens is the 50mm f/6.3 that is purported to be of the Biogon design. It was designed to cover 6x9cm. I haven't tried it yet but it should make a nice circular image on a sheet of 5x7 film. Didn't the original 100 shot Kodak box camera create circular images? Why aren't circular images more popular, after all when I look up from typing this on my Macbook Pro I see a wide expanse that is kind of circular and is certainly not a rectangle!

Have you tried making round frames, cutting round glass, cutting round holes in mount boards?

[MAubrey]

Here's the design:

The lens nearly covers the Fuji FP-100c frame on a Mamiya Universal.

194688

[Eric Woodbury]

Ted Orland did a series many years ago now, of photographs without sharp corners. Some were rectangles with rounded corners and some were ovals. He did it only to buck the trend of rectangles, not as a way to use the image circle.

[linhofbiker]

Have you tried making round frames, cutting round glass, cutting round holes in mount boards?

Oval frames used to be popular. I could just just cut down the 5x7 contact print with scissors. Or, on the other hand just mount the print in a 5x7 frame. Were there is a will there is a way. A circular glass cutter is possible, I think I've seen one, the same with a circular matt cutter.

[linhofbiker]

Here's the design:

The lens nearly covers the Fuji FP-100c frame on a Mamiya Universal.

194688

Looks like a Biogon to me, or even the 43mm lens for the Mamiya 7

[Bob Salomon]

Oval frames used to be popular. I could just just cut down the 5x7 contact print with scissors. Or, on the other hand just mount the print in a 5x7 frame. Were there is a will there is a way. A circular glass cutter is possible, I think I've seen one, the same with a circular matt cutter.

If you cut it down or put it in a 57 frame it won’t be a circle,

[linhofbiker]

I've moved this to "On Photography" as it's really a question about esthetics, not about lenses.

You might be interested in Sam Wang's work with circular pictures. Here are two links, but there's plenty more in some of his other portfolios as well, so have a look around his website:

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/landscapes

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/why-round/cover

Wow, they look great. Now I am enthused to do something similar. If only I had some 5x7 Fuji Provia and then could backlight them on a picture frame!

[Jac@stafford.net]

Some lenses have a mechanical barrier which abruptly vignettes rather than gently falling off. Big difference.

A photographer who printed oval shapes via masks was Henry Bosse (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Wagon_Bridge_Winona_Minnesota_1892.JPG). I've even stood in his tripod position twice - a hundred years removed.

[Oren Grad]

Kerik Kouklis also went through a phase of working within a circular frame:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030207060358/http://kerik.com/newcirc.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20030207071552/http://kerik.com/portf_o.htm

[MAubrey]

Some lenses have a mechanical barrier which abruptly vignettes rather than gently falling off. Big difference.

A photographer who printed oval shapes via masks was Henry Bosse (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Wagon_Bridge_Winona_Minnesota_1892.JPG). I've even stood in his tripod position twice - a hundred years removed.

The Mamiya has a hard stop. See Sam Wang's work above. He's using a Mamiya 50mm f/6.3, among others.

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/custom-cameras/5x7-round-image-camera

[linhofbiker]

Some lenses have a mechanical barrier which abruptly vignettes rather than gently falling off. Big difference.

A photographer who printed oval shapes via masks was Henry Bosse (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Wagon_Bridge_Winona_Minnesota_1892.JPG). I've even stood in his tripod position twice - a hundred years removed.

The 50mm f/6.3 when mounted in a compur 0 does not have this problem, i.e. no mechanical barrier.

[linhofbiker]

The Mamiya has a hard stop. See Sam Wang's work above. He's using a Mamiya 50mm f/6.3, among others.

http://www.samwang.us/portfolio/custom-cameras/5x7-round-image-camera

He is using the lens in its original Mamiya mount. I took the cells out and put them in a Compur 0.

[linhofbiker]

If you cut it down or put it in a 57 frame it won’t be a circle,

Well I haven't tried it yet. I assumed the image circle will dramatically drop of due to the Biogon design and that the circle will be less than 5 inches and fit nicely on the film. Bob, have you tried this yourself?

[Bob Salomon]

Well I haven't tried it yet. I assumed the image circle will dramatically drop of due to the Biogon design and that the circle will be less than 5 inches and fit nicely on the film. Bob, have you tried this yourself?

I used to do kidnapping and one of the tricks was to shoot the kid with a 50mm lens with one arm crossed in front of him. That resulted in foreshortening with that arm looking like a football linesman arm. You then showed the parent two prints. One a full frame 11x14 and the other a vignetted oval that cut out that big arm. The decision had to made before I left and the vignetted picture was $1.00 extra which the photographer kept.

The vignette was done in printing and you could easily make ovals and circles.

So no, I have not done it your way but I have printed them and I have also used a fish eye lenses that gave circular results.

Have also used filters from Heliopan that gave circular vignettes on film. They worked best with longer focal length lenses on any format camera.

[reddesert]

In painting the round form is frequently called a tondo. It was somewhat commonly used in Renaissance art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tondo_(art) With that in mind, one can search for examples.

Here are two tondo paintings, separated by a few years:
Holy Family / Doni Tondo, Michelangelo, 1507, https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/holy-family-known-as-the-doni-tondo
Bombardment, Philip Guston, 1937, https://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/305249.html

The round format encourages certain types of tight compositions.

[Jody_S]

I do like circular images, and used to print them in the darkroom many years ago. But any time I've tried it in LF with a lens that vignettes on the format, I have been disappointed. No lens I've ever tried has a pleasant fall-off. I've always had to crop the image to considerably smaller than even the circular image projected by the too-short lens, which defeats the purpose and wastes more than half the film area. Better to simply vignette in-camera, in the darkroom, or photoshop.

[leighmarrin]

Emmet Gowin made some interesting round photos. I recall reading an article about him in View Camera magazine, and he said he used a 90mm Angulon on a 8x10 view camera.

https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/emmet-gowin-edith-danville-virginia-1971-web1.jpg

https://www.metalocus.es/sites/default/files/files/ml_02_gowin_1024.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3PFag7vFR44/UZzW9ZxED4I/AAAAAAAAFNU/6kIqLBI4o9g/s1600/gown+jackson.jpg

[Tin Can]

I like round just fine.

What I don't like is hard edges.

Prefer fades, OOF with hand torn deckle.

Which resembles my actual human FOV vision.

I also don't like glass or plastic of any kind over my prints. Even high end 'museum' grade.

[Oren Grad]

Emmet Gowin made some interesting round photos. I recall reading an article about him in View Camera magazine, and he said he used a 90mm Angulon on a 8x10 view camera.

IIRC, Bob Herbst used an 8x10 Hobo with 90mm Angulon for the round photos on this page:

http://www.bobherbst.com/structural_elements.html

[Oren Grad]

I do like circular images, and used to print them in the darkroom many years ago. But any time I've tried it in LF with a lens that vignettes on the format, I have been disappointed. No lens I've ever tried has a pleasant fall-off. I've always had to crop the image to considerably smaller than even the circular image projected by the too-short lens, which defeats the purpose and wastes more than half the film area. Better to simply vignette in-camera, in the darkroom, or photoshop.

Kerik Kouklis describes how he controlled the image boundary:

Kouklis had turned to the Korona to break out of a creative rut and loves the sweep of his images in the long, narrow format. But he is a highly charged photographer, always on the lookout for new ways of seeing and he wanted to try something that was as far from panoramic as possible. "The circle was an obvious choice," he says, "so I began making circular images with my 8x10" view camera, using a 135mm Nikkor lens that is not intended to cover the 8x10" format. It threw an image circle a bit larger than I needed so I added an old aluminum lens shade to the rear element to vignette the image to the size I wanted."

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/kerik-kouklisbra-different-way-seeing

As Jac posted above:


Some lenses have a mechanical barrier which abruptly vignettes rather than gently falling off. Big difference.

If your lens doesn't have such a barrier, and you want a sharper cutoff, add one!

[Myriophyllum]

Hi,

I like circular images.
Some of my microscope cameras are made for roundish images only.
Like the 1930s Zeiss Miflex, a 6.5/9cm plate camera used here:

194769

194770

Or using a 1980s camera with optics selected for circular images. An undocumented feature of the Zeiss MC63 camera. ;-)

194771

More images and info here, if you like:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/136145166@N02/albums/72157686135321996

Best
Jens

[Jim Noel]

After following this thread it has me interested in making some circular images on 8x10. I can think of several methods using equipment I have on hand. Now all I Have to do is find an appropriate subject. My favorite model moved all the way to the East coast,so I will have to think of other types of appropriate subject matter.

[Grandpa Ron]

To me it is the photograph. How it is presented is immaterial.

Some photos can be enhance by an unusual presentation.