What lens to get for most shallow depth of field on 4x5?

[Bernice Loui]

Long focal length lens with large aperture for a given format. Large aperture alone is part of what results in shallow depth of field, depth of focus. Keep in mind the physical size and difficulty in achieving good optical corrections for each incremental increase in full aperture results in much greater difficult to correct the optical aberrations. In the case of 4x5 trying using a 480mm f4.5 Xenar at full aperture..

The lens is only a beginning, achieving accurate point of focus demands serious precision from the camera and equally serious film flatness with the entire system very precisely set up. Trying this on a flimsy camera with wavy film in the film holder is not gonna work.... at all.

Notable was the 50mm f0.7 Zeiss Planar used by Stanley Kubrick. The camera and technical challenges in using this lens for creative image-making were far more difficult and involved than most would ever know. Today there are a number of sub f1.0 lenses available for video and digital and small film formats. Their capability is aided by the inherent flatness of a solid state image sensor which does not have the same image plane flatness problems of film. Regardless, the same problems and advantages of very limited depth of field-depth of focus applies.

Keep in mind lens focuses light aka image to a single point, all else is sort-of-focus.


Bernice

[Dan Fromm]

Bernice, don't forget magnification.

[jnantz]

If you can find an Ilex Seminat its a fast lens ( around 3.5? ), and its OOF area is really sweet. I've shot a lot of
old tessars and funky stuff (fast) from the 18to early/mid 1900s and haven't found anything like it.

[Bernice Loui]

Absolutely, at 1 to 1 or "life size" what is in focus at the point of focus is quite different than at true infinity.

Consider why f0.7 or larger lenses can be used effectively for cosmos images while trying to achieve some degree of depth of focus-depth of view in an image with magnifications greater 1 to 1 or life size without making layered images is not gonna happen.


Bernice

Bernice, don't forget magnification.

[Dan Fromm]

Bernice, you missed my point completely. You wrote:

Long focal length lens with large aperture for a given format.

For the same magnification, long and short lenses shot at the same magnification and aperture will give the same DoF. Your suggestion, like earlier suggestions to use a telephoto lens, is misguided.

[dubiduck]

But do you guys at least get the point?
These images
https://www.flickr.com/photos/artwed...in/pool-8by10/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/artwed...in/pool-8by10/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluemo...in/pool-8by10/

show what I mean. This beautiful subject isolation

[William Whitaker]

Factors that affect depth of field are focal length (as you know), aperture, and lens-to-subject distance. The first photo below was taken on 4x5 using a 210 f/5.6 Nikkor-W lens. I don't recall the f/stop used, but it was close to wide open, possibly stopped down as far as f/8. I wish I could tell you exactly, but I'm not a good note-taker. Camera position was chosen not only for composition, but to achieve the loss of focus on the background figures which, although still key elements of the composition, don't need explicit detail. Only their suggestion is required in order to tell the story. As you can tell, the camera was almost in the face of the foreground figure. But it wasn't so close as to cause distortion. f/5.6 is not f/3.2, but the combination of focal length and camera position did the job in this case.


Sculpture Detail,
Student Body by Julia Balk,
photo: 1993

Also consider a soft-focus lens. While the soft-focus effect applies equally to the entire image, the out-of-focus areas seem to "dissolve" a bit more quickly as they fade into the background. Again, while the whole image is affected by the soft-focus quality of the lens, at moderate apertures the "in-focus" image appears relatively quite sharp compared to the image beyond the focus plane. YMMV, of course. In the following image, note how the vase (which is not far behind the plane of focus) is almost a mere suggestion of an actual vase. The stems of the sunflowers are also defocused a bit and they're even part of the subject itself. Note that even the bloom on the left has begun to show the effect of defocusing and it would be considered to be in the same plane as the main subject. This is why (to my eye) that the soft focus lens (in this example an 8 3/4" Verito) seems to lose focus very quickly as the subject moves away from the plane of best focus. But again, please let me stress that this is my perception. As noted before, YMMV. This image was shot at an effective f/stop of approximately f/6 which, to me, is where the Verito sings.


Three Vanities, 2004

Good luck in your search. I'm sure you will find a way to express your photographic ideas if you keep searching and keep an open mind.
BTW, 8x10 won't necessarily give you a shallower depth of field due only to the format. It's because that the standard lenses for 8x10 have a longer focal length than for smaller formats that the depth of field seems shallower.
A 14" lens will give you the same depth of field on 4x5 as on 8x10, all other variables (f/stop, camera distance) being equal.

Cheers

[Corran]

But do you guys at least get the point?
These images
https://www.flickr.com/photos/artwed...in/pool-8by10/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/artwed...in/pool-8by10/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluemo...in/pool-8by10/

show what I mean. This beautiful subject isolation

Note that the first two have a "3D" look, while the third has less of that "look."

The reason is, the first two have a soft but recognizable background that is out of focus with a very sharp delineation to what is in focus. I would not be surprised if those were shot at f/8 or f/11 for better sharpness that encompasses the entire subject(s). Meanwhile, the third shows only a sliver of his beard and hands in focus, with his face/body out of focus and the rest of the background just a wash of grey. To me this image is very flat looking.

The point is that shallow depth of field is only one component of the "look" to many images, and a cheap 150mm f/4.5 Tessar-type lens might work perfectly fine if you use it in the right situation. Note that the focal length is ~300mm, so not as wide as you seem to want.

[Bernice Loui]

Large aperture telephoto at significant magnification Dan.

200mm @ f4 APS-C sensor.

Or, high magnification with very short focal length aka 100x on a microscope.

200X Leica Ergolux, APS-C sensor


We are not connecting on this.


Bernice

Bernice, you missed my point completely. You wrote:



For the same magnification, long and short lenses shot at the same magnification and aperture will give the same DoF. Your suggestion, like earlier suggestions to use a telephoto lens, is misguided.

[Bob Salomon]

Factors that affect depth of field are focal length (as you know), aperture, and lens-to-subject distance. The first photo below was taken on 4x5 using a 210 f/5.6 Nikkor-W lens. I don't recall the f/stop used, but it was close to wide open, possibly stopped down as far as f/8. I wish I could tell you exactly, but I'm not a good note-taker. Camera position was chosen not only for composition, but to achieve the loss of focus on the background figures which, although still key elements of the composition, don't need explicit detail. Only their suggestion is required in order to tell the story. As you can tell, the camera was almost in the face of the foreground figure. But it wasn't so close as to cause distortion. f/5.6 is not f/3.2, but the combination of focal length and camera position did the job in this case.


Sculpture Detail,
Student Body by Julia Balk,
photo: 1993

Also consider a soft-focus lens. While the soft-focus effect applies equally to the entire image, the out-of-focus areas seem to "dissolve" a bit more quickly as they fade into the background. Again, while the whole image is affected by the soft-focus quality of the lens, at moderate apertures the "in-focus" image appears relatively quite sharp compared to the image beyond the focus plane. YMMV, of course. In the following image, note how the vase (which is not far behind the plane of focus) is almost a mere suggestion of an actual vase. The stems of the sunflowers are also defocused a bit and they're even part of the subject itself. Note that even the bloom on the left has begun to show the effect of defocusing and it would be considered to be in the same plane as the main subject. This is why (to my eye) that the soft focus lens (in this example an 8 3/4" Verito) seems to lose focus very quickly as the subject moves away from the plane of best focus. But again, please let me stress that this is my perception. As noted before, YMMV. This image was shot at an effective f/stop of approximately f/6 which, to me, is where the Verito sings.


Three Vanities, 2004

Good luck in your search. I'm sure you will find a way to express your photographic ideas if you keep searching and keep an open mind.
BTW, 8x10 won't necessarily give you a shallower depth of field due only to the format. It's because that the standard lenses for 8x10 have a longer focal length than for smaller formats that the depth of field seems shallower.
A 14" lens will give you the same depth of field on 4x5 as on 8x10, all other variables (f/stop, camera distance) being equal.

Cheers

Depth of field is also dependent on the size of the final print and the distance that that image will be viewed from.