What is the Softness of the Lens ?

(Photo above is a sample of  “Lens Vibration” with Tamron 70~300mm lens)

A man who was amazed of me pursuing the softness of the image,

asked me what’s such a fuss all about ? —– I asked him what lens

has he been using ?  

He said, such as 24~70, 70~200 both F4, and used to have 10~20mm as

well.  And his understanding of the softness was “degrading halation”

of the lens, hence when he need such effect, he use vaseline on a filter

(to degrade the sharp image). (= Obviously He had no chance to learn

the Softness by himself.)   

Then, I asked, has he ever heard the softness of the Zeiss 85mm F1.4

lens.  —– He said that he had heard about it but never used that

lens or seen the image consciously.

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Not only this guy but many people misunderstood that the Bokeh is

just  a halation — which was utterly wrong.—– So, I promised him

to show the sample photo of the Zeiss 85mm F1.4 lens and its typical

soft image.   Sound funny though, a lots of people heard the legend of

that 85mm lens but very few of them actually seen the demonstration

photo of its softness.

—– Why bother with soft images ?  = Zoologist Desmond Morris (famous with his book “Naked Ape”  “Man watching” ) pointed out the matter in his book  “Woman watching” that when we adore the thing or the person, our eye’s pupil wide open = making the image fuzzy.    May be that is the image what we most wanted.  And that was why Artistic Images are often fuzzy, like the oil paintings or even abstract. = Clear sharp image is for practical / prosaic use.

This phenomenon must explain the crucial point in what is the Art.  —– With an idiosyncratic view, you may think that the fuzzy image is poorer as an information media.  But it is too superficial. = fuzzy image may seemed to have less amount of the information “Bit” though when it projected into our brain, it stimulates and induces far more information.   Because fuzzy image is not as specific and precise, it would overlap and related to many more images or bague memories.  In another word, fuzzy image is far more rich.

This sample image here was taken by the very Zeiss 85mm Planar F1.4  lens

and its part-enlargement.

This rather prominent Bokeh is the legendary softness of the lens.

(Without this, I didn’t buy this lens and changed camera from Nikon 

to Contax and it was a start of my 30 odd years long affair with

soft image.) 

And this is a sample image of Zeiss 55mm F1.4.  The Bokeh is slightly

less still, the image has the same characteristic of the Zeiss lens.

(Sharp still Soft)    🙂

If you think that all the 85mm lens has more or less the same character,

as the size of the minimum circle of confusion is the same, hence

theoretical depth-of-field is the same, then have a look this

AF Nikkor 85mm F1.8.  — This lens shows very little Bokeh of the 

Spherical Aberration, still showed  slight Chromatic Aberration. 

(faint blue lines on the edge)

How about the latest designed lens, Canon EFS 18~55mm IS-II.

(this photo, at 55mm) Image quality is good but it has a Chromatic

aberration — blue lines on the edge.

And this was done by 10 times more expensive lens, EF 24~70mm F2.8

(at 70mm)  It’s got to be very sharp = and no softness at all

= prosaically dry image !  

In contrast, this 100-year-old Anastigmat 75 mm F5.4 lens shows

not-sharp at all image, yet “somewhat” common with Zeiss lens

 = wet, but not necessary soft, just too much halation of fungi.

If you think that the softness could be just added by the digital

manipulation ?   Well, those samples were made by so-called “Soft

focus effect” of the Picasa 3.

(This one has the sharp center right of the flower) = as digital effect

doesn’t know 3D depth of the subject, its Bokeh doesn’t follow the

distance but gave a halo in gradually intensifying circle = looks

too unnatural and messy.

And this one was made without the center = everywhere is evenly

fuzzy = looks no different from a low resolution security-camera.

Soft image is not the same to low resolution fuzzy image nor just out

of focus Bokeh = it needs to have a sharp core image together with

slightly dispositioned (not sharply converging) light which creates wet

softness. (Good soft image looks as if it is a mesmerizing moistened

skin = wet !)   Look the afore sample photos again.  Why Zeiss lenses

has Bokeh while Nikon 85mm (even though it was F1.8 not F1.4) has

not at all.  That was why the Carl Zeiss 85mm F1.4 lens keeps its 

legendary reputation.

(and I’ve been working hard to simulate its softness by different means.)

—– Convinced ?  

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Soft Image by Lens Vibration

After seeing the results of Somerset House shooting, I realized that the

“Focus-Shifting Technique” may not suite for that kind

of subject. —–> Then, I should try the 

Camera  Shake or Lens Vibration.

 There was a  good sample in my past

 experiment.    (Though, to replicate the

 same, perfect effect was not very easy.)

So that, in this time, in order to give a good shake to the camera, I devised a

vibrating element (small motor with ex-centric rotor) mounted on the lens. First, I tried it with Sigma Zoom 28~200mm while mounting the motor parallel

to the lens’ axis.(Photo above left)   But together with an effect of the gravity,

lens vibrated simple up and down.  Therefore, I changed to mount the motor 

perpendicular to the lens axis. (Photo center, Canon EFS 18~55 mm Zoom.  

And the Photo right, Tamron Zoom 70~300 mm)  

= As a result, the lens vibrates much more complexed way

= making a blur every direction.  — Still, there was much more decisive factor

here = the Sigma’s Zoom was quite hefty size and the weight, in comparison to

the almost weightless Canon EFS ZOOM 18~55mm which optical unit must be

lot easier to be shaken. —– (Position of the motor or its direction, such as on top

of the lens or 4:o’clock, 10:o’clock position and the camera’s direction etc are

also crucial)  It was the matter of the balance between the vibrating force and the

inertia of the optical unit or the camera body = hell lot of complicated dynamics.

On the end, a simple rule was, that if it wasn’t good, change the position of

the motor and try again. 🙂

This is the same flower as before, but here by the Lens Vibration on the

Tamron Zoom 70~300 mm at 130 mm . —– check the photo clicked and

enlarged to see its original sharp details and the added soft blur.  

Then to have a comparison with previous photo by the Focus Shift.

I know, I’m doing a very destructive aggressive approach to the photography,

somewhat akin to a musician smashing his own instrument though, I’m not

doing this for the sake of Conceptual Blah Blah but simply to create 

aesthetically nice soft image. —- It’s a paradox Sir.  

And, I’m having a fun— a lots.   😀  

( I need to go back to the Somerset House again and a field shooting to prove

that those exercises are not for wasting the time.   Ha ha ha. )  

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Focus Shift (C) at Somerset House

——- (this photo above was made accidentally = overlapped with wrong image.)

This was almost the first field test of the Focus-shift photography ( while driving

lens’ AF motor automatically) —– There were several attempt to do the same by

manually rotating the focus before.    But, manual operation creates too much

blur and the success rate was rather low. (So, this is a long standing project.)

Thanks to the lens I used, Canon EFS 18~55mm, I could use the lens from 24mm

to 55mm.   Though, the wider the lens, the image-size changes more, and creating

funny image. (= I’m not happy at all = to counter this problem, I did the Focus shift

together with adjusting the zoom ring to keep image position the same.) 

So that, unless I found the remedy, this technique is not matured enough.

And the subject this time was not suite for the technique. — it seems that

“Two Element Homemade Lens” does better job.  🙂

(—– on the point of creating painterly, impressionistic image.)  

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Zeiss Talon Lens

It was the same odds and ends box of the camera shop, City Camera Exchange

in the Strand, London, where I found Carl Zeiss projection lens for £2.

(in fact, together with some lens caps, hood etc = lens alone could be £1 ?  😀 ) 

I guess, this lens must be as old as 50 odd years, and the slide-projector

which takes this lens must be long gone and impossible to find even

coming through all the junk shops in London.

Therefore a chance for this lens to meet THE rightful user who got the

Zeiss projector and looking for the replacement lens is virtually nil,

hence it was sold £1. —- instead, the lens encounter the NOT-right at all

kind of user. (= And I guess, it was also a very rare occurrence to encounter   

a person who could utilize the lens like what I did.  😀 ) 

(Projector has a problem to find the specifically designed projection lamp

= therefore most of the owner has found an obsolete situation and gave-up.

—– in fact, I was asked several times to modify the projector to use the

common 2pin halogen bulb.)

Test the lens by mounting it on my Homemade Tilting Bellows, this lens

showed very reasonable (rather good) quality.    Lens seems to have three

lenses (Tesser type ?) and naturally no Iris (it’s mean full open F2.8 – 85mm

= very much like a 6×6 Spring Camera or Twin- lens Reflex Camera lens.)

Top photo showed general distance and the photo above left showed very

nice Bokeh on its close-up shot.    And the photo center was x1.5 close-up.

Photo right was the shot of tilted lens = Pan-focus and Shallow-focus effects.

= I should say, pretty good “Zeiss Lens” for £1 was too good to be true.   🙂

(But, this lens was too decent = out-of-focus Bokeh was very soft though,

no fancy spherical aberration to make fuzzy softness. — shame !)  🙂

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Focus Shift (B)

This is THE pretty girly picture.  But, you may not able to guess what sort 

of the lens I used. —– Well, this was done by the Sigma 28~200mm Zoom,

at 200mm F5.6 with Focus-Shift.

Here, the photo left was a normal shot and the right one was with focus-shift.

(Click and enlarge the photo to see the details = sharp details still there

together with out-of-focus bokeh.)

The photo left was the Canon EFS 18~55mm —– the red and white wires

were connected to its AF Motor.  And the center was the Sigma 18~200mm lens.  

Photo right , the Yellow arrow pointing its AF Motor, and its right on the photo, 

white gears is controlling the size of Iris. (Gear was driven by a stepping motor)

= but by rotating this gear with a finger, the Iris = F-aperture could be changed.

Though, it’s not easy to know what exact the value of  “F” then, since it’s fully 

open value changes from 3.8 at 28mm to 5.6 at 200mm, hard to know what is

somewhere between.  Just trust your camera’s auto exposure.  🙂  

Even with smaller F-aperture, out-of-focus Bokeh is always there.

= and this Bokeh is making the photo looks soft. Though, Bokeh mean

scattered light.  Hence, it reduces the contrast of the photo = may need 

to tinker it by making the photo darker and then brighten the highlight

to increase the contrast. — if it was necessary) 

—– Now I got box-full of broken / malfunctioned lenses = a lots of fun

is waiting to be discovered.  Ha ha ha  😀 

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Focus Shift (A)

Focus shift is a kind of the holy grail to me in the soft image photography

together with the camera vibration.   Since the images of both techniques

were affected by the three dimension or the depth of the subject, it wouldn’t

be replicated by a digital graphical manipulation or a soft filter.

(effect of filter appears everywhere flat, same as a graphical effect —

otherwise it needs to give days of manipulation, pixel by pixel.)

So that, I’ve been working for this quite a while, hence such as the lens

 in the photo appeared here long ago. (Lens was Canon FD 50mm F1.8)

A device I made was not so complicated electronic controller which takes

the signal of the shutter-open from the Flash-hot-shoe then to start the   

AF motor in the lens, hence focus-shift (from the pre-focused point.)

= in the effect, the resulting image has both focused sharp image and

 an off-focused, fuzzy halo around.   The beauty of this technique is,  

it is not rely on the lens’ aberration but the out of focus Bokeh, therefore 

it can be done with any focal length. (as long as I got such modified lens) 

(For another lens = “softness made by the vibration of the lens” = which

can be done with ANY = non modified lens, would become ideal.)

(Click and see enlarged photo — the sharp detail is still there. )

(The field report would be coming soon.)  🙂 

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Magnifier glass on test

A guy who’ve read my blog about the experiment on the fuzzy junk lenses,

teased me “Why not those reading glasses ?” —– Indeed, why not test.

So that a Magnifier / Reading Glass was stucked on a bellows and tested.

(This lens has about 135 mm focal length.)

— as it is (Fully open), or with improvised Iris. (Photo above Center)

—– and later, I tested Flat-lens (Plastic Fresnel Lens) as well.(Photo Right)

Photo above Left = magnifier fully open.  

And the Center = With Iris (about F11) — halation was reduced though, utterly

poor image quality.  

On the photo Right = (part enlarged center), as the flair / halation was removed, 

the chromatic aberration (=red and blue on the edge) clearly prevailed.

And this is the image made by a plastic fresnel lens. (Looks like an image

of a Pin-hole camera, made by a 0.7 mm big pin-hole. )

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of this kind of crap image.

But I still say, crap image is still an impressionistic photo image. 🙂 )

(And the photos above are the reference = taken by the Canon EF 70~200 mm

F2.8 at 135mm setting on F8)

In addition, this photo was by the 50 years old Pentax 135mm F3.5 Lens 

on F8.  (Not too bad from the £10 secondhand lens with fungi.)

We may need to know what is the descent standard — at least.  😀

Crap image is not same to the soft image I’m after

(= soft image still need to have its sharp core in the center.)

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Cherry on Antic Lens

This is the last cherry photo on this season (I think.  🙂 )

They were shot by the 100 year old German Anastigmat lens on Canon 5D.

This photo above was shot while Iris was fully open.

And this one was with (about) F11. —– See the deeper depth of field.

This photo was with the fully open Iris (F5.4) 

And this one was with F-11. —– 100 year old. No coating. But with lots of fungi !

Still works quite well = amazing.   🙂

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Sweetest Cherry Photo (so far)

Those photos were taken by a lens came from a Tokina Wide-converter and

its converging part of the lens has about 160 mm focal length, I call it Tele-soft.

In fact this lens can have a quite sharp image when an Iris was placed and the

spread of the light was centered — otherwise, its F4 equivalent of optics

produces beautiful soft Bokeh.     As the lens was mounted on a bellows, it is

quite awkward to use still, it can easily make a good close-up image as well.

I hope you appreciated to see them.   

(Honest ?)  🙂

PS : I didn’t use any filter or PS digital manipulation at all

—– only clopped and the brightness was tinkered on Picasa free program.

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Graffities in Peckham

Those photos were a part of the test shot of the 100 year old lens. = Generally,

the lens works pretty well — considering to its fungi infested aged state.

(Under large magnification, we can see the halation is eating away each detail.

The halation around the bright spot must be caused by the scattered light on the

fungi.  And the images near the corner is much softer = the lens’ aberration.)  

But otherwise, this lens doesn’t seemed to be worse than those phone-cameras.

To enlarge the shiny metal part, the halation is quite visible.

But the question is, who notice it and who care such details ?

— Some professional photographers may need to have the image part enlarged

for an editorial reason though, otherwise most of the camera user is using their

photo smaller than a tablet size. = so, this 100 year old lens is good enough.  😀

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