• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

B&W images with light fall-off (vignetting)

Nick Masson

New member
Hey all,
I was recently going through some of the online images on Michael Kenna's webpage, and I really enjoyed the vignetting effect on images with water-scapes. eg. http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery2.php?id=11

I was wondering if someone could explain to me whether this is a darkroom rendered effect (burning the edges), or if this is from fall-off with lenses. If it is purely from fall-off (or so one thinks), what can be done to enhance it? (from a technical perspective; i.e. f/stop, exposure time, lens type, etc...).
Thanks!
-NICK
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Since those are online images, I suppose vignette is added by software. The software I use to process my pictures has a command to add vignette to any picture... I can choose size and density.

Now, if the question is "can you add this on analog pictures?", the answer is yes. If you want to add vignette at the time of taking the picture, you use a cache on the lens. If you want to add it at the time of enlarging, you use a cache on the enlarger.

Since you ask about f-stop: basically, fast lenses vignette more when used wide open.
 

Nick Masson

New member
Thanks for the reply; I suppose adding it digitally or at the time of printing is also most useful, that way as to not limit the outcome of the negative itself...
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Thanks for the reply; I suppose adding it digitally or at the time of printing is also most useful, that way as to not limit the outcome of the negative itself...

Large aperture lenses and lenses with small rear focus distances also vignette consdiderably more on digital than on film, hence the difficulty in building a digital rangefinder (with short back focus lenses the norm).

Mike
 
Top