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Sunny but frosty Morning

Dr Klaus Schmitt

Well-known member
Sunny but frosty early morning as seen through a Zeiss Jena Visionar 1.6/100mm + Speedbooster...

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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Klaus,

The narrow depth of focus works well. It is also your signature style.

Still, I wonder how this would be with a sharper b.g.

Asher
 

Dr Klaus Schmitt

Well-known member
Found another one, nearly exactly the same, one open, one stopped down more...

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vs

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I prefer my "signature style" as you may have guessed :) Reason is, that I intend to guide the viewer's eye to what I think is important to see (and to avoid letting the eyes wander around...)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Found another one, nearly exactly the same, one open, one stopped down more...

31297637786_d8431a808d_o.jpg

vs

30511338864_8ec2b0b427_o.jpg


I prefer my "signature style" as you may have guessed :) Reason is, that I intend to guide the viewer's eye to what I think is important to see (and to avoid letting the eyes wander around...)

Well, Klaus, it's also a much more sane workflow than I use. I have to rank elements after the fact by modulating contrast, brightness, shading, sharpness and that for every part of the picture. Not at all efficient!

It makes more sense to decide what's important in the first place!

Asher
 

Dr Klaus Schmitt

Well-known member
See, I make it much easier for people like you, by taking away what distracts and enhancing what's important (to me, that is) :LOL:
 
Found another one, nearly exactly the same, one open, one stopped down more...

31297637786_d8431a808d_o.jpg

vs

30511338864_8ec2b0b427_o.jpg


I prefer my "signature style" as you may have guessed :) Reason is, that I intend to guide the viewer's eye to what I think is important to see (and to avoid letting the eyes wander around...)

Didn't view these images until recently because of a busy Xmas & New Year period. They certainly grabbed my attention but also made me think, which is good, too. The thinking was about two approaches to macro work: (1) bokeh to divert attention from unwanted content; (2) framing or cropping to exclude unwanted content from the image. Bokeh in these images is impressive but degrades about 85% of the content. That's hard to reconcile with my personal preference for in-focus images but I my need to rethink my perspective. Cheers, Mike
 

Dr Klaus Schmitt

Well-known member
Dear Michael,
when I was younger, all I wanted is max sharpness in my images, crystal clear I wanted all. Getting older I was drifting more and more towards being much more selective, hence also my work with projection lenses w/o even having a built in aperture. This also leading to a need for a much more thoughtful and careful composing at shooting time (as I do not crop any of my works afterwards) and especially setting the razor thin DOF exactly to what is the most important for me in an image, hence directing also the later viewers eye to(wards) that. The need for a very pleasant front and rear bokeh accompanied that and hence why I am still experimenting with a variety of such, rather exotic lenses.

I do hope that explains it a little... ;-)
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Klaus,

Dear Michael,
when I was younger, all I wanted is max sharpness in my images, crystal clear I wanted all. Getting older I was drifting more and more towards being much more selective, hence also my work with projection lenses w/o even having a built in aperture. This also leading to a need for a much more thoughtful and careful composing at shooting time (as I do not crop any of my works afterwards) and especially setting the razor thin DOF exactly to what is the most important for me in an image, hence directing also the later viewers eye to(wards) that. The need for a very pleasant front and rear bokeh accompanied that and hence why I am still experimenting with a variety of such, rather exotic lenses.

I do hope that explains it a little... ;-)

Thank you for that very valuable discussion.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The Return of Angel's Dust!

Dear Michael,
when I was younger, all I wanted is max sharpness in my images, crystal clear I wanted all. Getting older I was drifting more and more towards being much more selective, hence also my work with projection lenses w/o even having a built in aperture. This also leading to a need for a much more thoughtful and careful composing at shooting time (as I do not crop any of my works afterwards) and especially setting the razor thin DOF exactly to what is the most important for me in an image, hence directing also the later viewers eye to(wards) that. The need for a very pleasant front and rear bokeh accompanied that and hence why I am still experimenting with a variety of such, rather exotic lenses.

I do hope that explains it a little... ;-)

In fact this is what happened at the dawn of photography, the images became studiously detailed. Then portraitists realized that they had to work to blur the periphery to get attention to the subject.

All sorts of stratagems were invented including a whirling iris to creat a blur. But the development of the "Visual Quality" Pinkham and Smith lens was amongst the most brilliant. This lens focused the subject perfectly and then brought light from the lens periphery just defocused enough to create an barely perceptible OOF glow as well as a soft Bokeh. When used with a larger than usual "plate", (glass, not yet film), there was light fall off too. Film stars of the early 20th Century loved it.

But my father-in-law still used a cardboard wand-on-a-stick to darken the periphery and corners of his portraits with his 11x14 lens, that was made too clinically perfect and had little to no light fall off!

Unfortunately, sites like dpreview.com attracted thousands of fanboys photographing cats whiskers who obsessed about even illumination to the edge of the frame, zero distortion and ultra perfect focus. The camera manufacturers and lens review "experts" and gurus followed in stride. So lenses went back to the turn of the 19th to 20th Century being far too clean and sterile, just giving amazing scientific and uniform detail.

(They did give us larger apertures and brilliant anti flair coatings in compact lenses, to their credit, I admit).


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So, back to your work, Klaus. I love that you make "Visual Quality" portraits of leaves and flowers. They are the fine work of the greatest and most prolific artist, "Mother Nature". So each chosen and featured leaf and flower deserves your selective focussed imagery, painted, as they are, with the brush dipped in Angels' dust!

?

Asher
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Asher,

Doug,

No, but that would work too! It was done under the enlarger, but it works the same!

Well, in that case, you seem to have it upside down. A "dodging wand" makes the affected parts of the print lighter, not darker.

Of course the wand could have been used to make "all of the print except the periphery" lighter. Maybe that was the technique.

It's sort of the same way a sculptor makes a statue of an elephant.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Dr Klaus Schmitt

Well-known member
Thanks guys,

Asher, indeed I'm very aware of these historic developments and am still hunting for an affordable P&S lens, or even a Kalosat. These so called "soft focus" lenses deliberately introduce some spherical abberration which gives that wanted glow effect, from white into the dark (only such lenses can do that, vaseline, stocking, filters all such have dark penetrating the light, very different IMHO).

I like lenses which to some extend have such effect and are very fast, giving the wanted thin DOF. Great for portraits also, but this is a field I'm only started to gradually gravitating into...
 
Dear Michael,
when I was younger, all I wanted is max sharpness in my images, crystal clear I wanted all. Getting older I was drifting more and more towards being much more selective, hence also my work with projection lenses w/o even having a built in aperture. This also leading to a need for a much more thoughtful and careful composing at shooting time (as I do not crop any of my works afterwards) and especially setting the razor thin DOF exactly to what is the most important for me in an image, hence directing also the later viewers eye to(wards) that. The need for a very pleasant front and rear bokeh accompanied that and hence why I am still experimenting with a variety of such, rather exotic lenses.

I do hope that explains it a little... ;-)

Many thanks for this explanation, Klaus. It's exciting to hear about the continued development of your photographic expertise in later like. I gained useful knowledge and also from the helpful discussion by Doug and Asher. Cheers, Mike
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Thanks guys,

Asher, indeed I'm very aware of these historic developments and am still hunting for an affordable P&S lens, or even a Kalosat. These so called "soft focus" lenses deliberately introduce some spherical abberration which gives that wanted glow effect, from white into the dark (only such lenses can do that, vaseline, stocking, filters all such have dark penetrating the light, very different IMHO).

I like lenses which to some extend have such effect and are very fast, giving the wanted thin DOF. Great for portraits also, but this is a field I'm only started to gradually gravitating into...

Klaus,

I am fortunate enough to have both a Visual Quality Pinkham and Smith as well as a PS945, by Cooke.

Asher
 
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