Best bokeh I've ever seen..

[Huss]

Was when I was driving home last night, and peered over the top of my glasses. The way everything when out of focus was just spectacular, with just a smooth soft transition, with no onion ring or moon clipped highlights.

So it made me think, what lens would be closest to this? The OOF human eye gives a very modern look (amusing considering how long we have been kicking around as a species), with no artifacts (at least I think that's how I see things!) which makes me think the closest camera lens I have to this would be my Leica 50mm 1.4 Asph or Minolta 58 1.2

What lens do 'you' think comes closest to the human eye's bokeh rendering?

 

[Robert Lai]

I suffer from astigmatism, so I certainly don't want a lens with my optical defects.

 

[jsrockit]

Wouldn't each person's eyes be different?

 

[Bille]

Wouldn't each person's eyes be different?

Most likely, yes.

 

[Robert Lai]

We humans place our attention on the high resolution vision afforded by the foveon. Playing around with my M7 viewfinder, my foveal vision field seems to best fit the 90mm frame lines. The rest is just peripheral vision, to warn us if something dangerous is coming at us from the outside field.

So, to my way of thinking the lens that most closely matches the human eye would be the Macro Elmar M 90mm f/4. Your eyes can focus closer than 0.7m, and so can this lens.

 

[Ronald M]

SLR will always out see a RF. However it lacks other attributes.

 

[aizan]

my out of focus circles resemble lotus seed heads. i wonder if it can be recreated in a photo with a mask stuck on a filter.

 

[xayraa33]

The best bokeh that i ever seen came from a 19th century made Darlot of Paris Petzval lens of an undetermined focal length that had an image circle that barely covered a 4x5 negative.

 

[Huss]

my out of focus circles resemble lotus seed heads. i wonder if it can be recreated in a photo with a mask stuck on a filter.

That's what I mean. Mine just are smooth circular blurs that melt away.
The closest I have to that is the Minolta 58 1.2

This personal exercise, to me , is quite interesting as it really demonstrates that what we see is not what we get once photographed, no matter how much attention is paid to composition/exposure/film etc.
But as others have pointed out, what they see could be very different than what I see.

 

[besk]

I once read that a 35mm lens at F2.8 was closest to human vision. That was one professional photographer's opinion.

 

[Justin Smith]

The best bokeh that i ever seen came from a 19th century made Darlot of Paris Petzval lens of an undetermined focal length that had an image circle that barely covered a 4x5 negative.

I am assuming Waterhouse stops? Maybe a circular aperture is key to mimicking the human eye bokeh.

 

[BLKRCAT]

My eye bokeh is harsh. I dont get bokeh balls but rather star flares. Distracting with halo effects.

 

[xayraa33]

I am assuming Waterhouse stops? Maybe a circular aperture is key to mimicking the human eye bokeh.

Yes, Waterhouse stops, plenty of the right field curvature, right background,and right light, subject, circumstance, plate or film coverage, type of glass used in lens, lens grinding accuracy and assembly fineness and formula used in its lens element computation, flare, type of emulsion on film, exposure time and of course luck.

 

[mpaniagua]

I suppose we are running out of photographic subjects 🙂

 

[mpaniagua]

By the way, the bokeh of my eyes seems kinda like the bokeh from Summitar. Weird, kinda spiral and beutiful in its own way 🙂

 

[Huss]

Yes, Waterhouse stops, plenty of the right field curvature, right background,and right light, subject, circumstance, plate or film coverage, type of glass used in lens, lens grinding accuracy and assembly fineness and formula used in its lens element computation, flare, type of emulsion on film, exposure time and of course luck.

I took this with a 58mm 1.9 Petval using Waterhouse stops

Love it but my eye's bokeh looks nothing like that.

 

[xayraa33]

I took this with a 58mm 1.9 Petval using Waterhouse stops

Love it but my eye's bokeh looks nothing like that.

Very nice photo !

I would love to see the world like that sometimes. 😀

 

[Richard G]

Is there a surgeon, probably in the US, who could operate to give me vision that I could then boast is a bokeh-king, better than your vision? What about a high ISO retina. I'm unhappy with the banding and noise I get in complete darkness with my current eyes. And that's colour noise too mind you. What level of human eye noise are you comfortable with? At what ISO does it still show up in human prints? The other thing that bugs me is distortion. I just do no have flat retinae. And I can't get good focus without spectacles which put a different distortion over the spherical distortion of my lens and the the curved retinae. I know that God or somebody wrote self-correcting software to adjust for all this, even with multifocals, but mine was Made in England and I would really rather have a Made in Germany version but I just don't know if it's compatible with the rest of me. How would I tell it isn't just some Russian copy? Early versions like mine don't seem to have serial numbers which I guess would make authentication difficult.

 

[DanskDynamit]

mine it would be some pre-war russian front focus shifted lens.

 

[grouchos_tash]

My eyes can't focus to infinity. The bokeh has stars and I've also noticed that I get a double image from bright light sources. When I wear my glasses, they improve focus but sharpness, flare and contrast becomes poor.

Eyes must be the human equivalent of FSU optics, some great, some not so good.