The Bokeh King

I may be quieter about it, but Magus will buy an M8 long before I will. Therefore, I volunteer for any Magus post purchase duties. :D
 
Agree with earlier posts that these are examples of extremely bad bokeh. Not a huge surprise as fast 50mm lenses are not famous for good bokeh anyway. aspherical surphases are to ba avoided often too. All to do with the illumination of the circles of confusion. In the example shots the circles are brighter at the edges leading to that look of bright rings in the distant hedge and bush, very distracting. Some have referred to the look as "rolled up condoms". An evenly illuminated circle of confusion will give neautral to bad bokeh as the eye will preceive the edge as being brighter. In the second example it is interesting to note the much smoother look of the out of focus areas in front of focal plane. This is normal - the circles of confusion here will be brighter in the middle and getting dimmer towards the edge.

A lens where the circles of confusion, behind the focal plane, are unevenly illuminated but are brighter in the middle than the edge will give a more pleasing blur there. In front of the focal plane the reverse will be true. Mike Johnson writes informatively on the subject.

C
 
First of all, it's a very irritating bokeh.

If you like its bokeh quality, then you should know that on a cropped M8 sensor, the bokeh is cropped and you loose its quality at the edges.
 
CJP6008 said:
Agree with earlier posts that these are examples of extremely bad bokeh. Not a huge surprise as fast 50mm lenses are not famous for good bokeh anyway.
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True, for smooth Bokeh use long lenses. To stay with vintage Leica:
Telyt-V 280/4.8 wide open on a similar subject. But specular highlights still produce rings.

hellev0016.jpg
 
telenous said:
There is one occasion where I would use the lens for bokeh, and that would be if I wanted to take a photo of a drunken person and I wanted to convey the sense of nausea that visited him after the intoxication.
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You are so right! :)

colin
 
jaapv said:
True, for smooth Bokeh use long lenses.
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Bokeh expert seem to agree that the Summicron 35 4th is the Bokeh King, that said I have one and I still prefer the 75 lux, but I am not a Bokeh expert so what do I know...
The Nokton 1.5 is not really bad either, whille the Nokton 1.4 has definitely got the rolled up condom look.
 
Forgive me for going off at a tangent, but as far as I can discern 35mm is far behind medium or large format if beautiful bokeh is your goal. This whole bokeh thing with leica lenses is fine if you HAVE to use 35mm but if you have any decent MF gear, this will thrash a 35mm camera, the sharp bits are sharper, the oof areas are smoother and focal lengths are longer. All you have to do is save up for the chiropractor or employ a couple of sturdy sherpas.
 
^ And use a tripod at night because you can't get anything faster than 2.8 in most MF focal lengths without paying even more than you would for Leica glass...
 
telenous said:
My favourite flickr photographer and very good flickr friend, Junku Newcleus, makes magic with the Summarit 50 f1.5.
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Having seen his work on flikr I tend to think that the summarit has little impact on the quality of his images, give the man an Holga and he'll be taking superb pictures anyway.
 
MadMan2k said:
^ And use a tripod at night because you can't get anything faster than 2.8 in most MF focal lengths without paying even more than you would for Leica glass...
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If that ain't the truth! I had a 250mm Xenotar 2.8 in my sights, and unfortunately somebody blew a fuse (literally) five minutes before the auction ended. At $500+, it was still about $1000 cheaper than the cheapest price I've seen since for a similar lens for Large Format, 4x5 coverage.
 
fgianni said:
Having seen his work on flikr I tend to think that the summarit has little impact on the quality of his images, give the man an Holga and he'll be taking superb pictures anyway.
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Ian,

I believe you are wrong. Junku photographs a lot indoors. What good would a Holga be in his case? Do you even imagine him using it with a flash? How different his photography would had been...Now, if you were to say that he is so good that he could have used some other rangefinder (for instance a ZI), then I would had agreed with you.

That rangefinders (and Leicas in particular) are important for his work is something that Junku does not shy away from - either in his comments under his photos or in our private communication where he explicitly said so.
 
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