Tessar bokeh

I fiddled around with medium format cameras while taking photo

classes, but never quite found one that spoke to me, so I stuck with

35mm for years. A couple of months ago the desire for a waist-level

finder, a square format, better tonality and blurrier backgrounds

overcame me, so I bought a Minolta Autocord I.

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I love using it, and the pictures are very sharp, but one thing bugs

the hell out of me: it has the worst rendering of background

highlights I've ever seen, excepting perhaps a Sigma zoom lens that

had line-doubling. Unfortunately I don't have any scans to upload, so

you'll have to take my word for it that the Autocord shows a perfect

example of what <a

href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.htm">Ken Rockwell</a>

calls "poor bokeh." An out-of-focus point source will be rendered as

a circle with most of the light concentrated around the rim. To make

things just a little bit worse, the bokeh doesn't look the same over

the frame. There's a "smearing" of the highlights into a circular

pattern around the center of the image.

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The Autocord's Rokkor is 4-element Tessar clone, and I've seen

similar effects in pictures from Rolleiflexes, so I assume it's a

Tessar characteristic. The Autocord has a nearly circular aperture,

so I don't think there's a lack of aperture blades.

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So here's my question: Which lenses for square-format cameras have

better bokeh? I've seem some shots from Planar Rolleis that seem to

have better, but perhaps not quite neutral, bokeh. Anyone have any

examples of good background rendering to show?

It's why I don't like the Tessar overmuch. Same with the Novar. I believe it possible to design that lens with less overcorrected spherical (from what I hear, that's the trouble wide open) but I don't know. I see it in all my Tessars, from my little Zeiss folder to my Mamiya Universal. (the 5" lens is worse than the 150mm lens)

 

All of 'em.

 

The only thing to do is stop down, or make sure that the background is dark.

 

The Novar was SO bad that I got rid of it- but it was quite similar. Target Bokeh. Yuck. The nice bit is that after f-5.6 the Tessar background looks nice.

Hi Peter. I like very much the bokeh from the Tessar 75mm f/3.5 on my Rolleiflex-T. Please see:

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http://www.photo.net/photo/2180551

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Although Zeiss lenses produce a different bokeh than, for example, Leica-M lenses, I still like them a lot.

I own a Minolta Autocord and haven't recognised particularly poor Bokeh. Maybe one or two of your backgrounds have suffered due to presence of many highlight areas, or is it a very common issue?

 

From experience, I don't think the 3.5 Planar is much better/worse and Dante Stella seems to like the Autocord's Bokeh.

 

(http://www.dantestella.com/technical/autocord.html)

 

Many others also seem to prefer the Tessar over the Planar for Bokeh. Maybe others who use, for e.g., Hasselbalds might have some suggestions.

 

I sometimes think that the bokeh issue is overstated in importance, although I do understand that many justifiably differ in this opinion. The Tessar formular is though, surely one of the classic optical configurations of all time.

 

A lot of Leica enthusiasts claim that Nikkor lenses have poor bokeh, on the other hand, The Leica Summicron does have nice bokeh. I only know that a great image is a great image and is unlikey to be ruined by bokeh issues.

Your comments are what I get with a Tessar or Xenar used below f8 in need of some adjustment. It is the background a Triotar design will always give. If you visit my web site there is a mix of Xenotar, Planar and Xenar images. www.artisticimagingphoto.com

 

email me and we can walk through with lens made which image. (If you are interested.)

Luis, that's a nice picture, and it actually supports what I'm saying, since it shows "good" foreground bokeh. If a lens has "bad" background bokeh, it has "good" foreground bokeh. I'd rather have a lens with "good" background bokeh, and damn the foreground.

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<a href = "http://www.photo.net/photo/1760138"> Another of your pictures</a> shows the "bad" bokeh, but it's a matter of taste whether it's displeasing, of course.

This thread comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I had recently been looking for a

Rolleiflex with Tessar lens. I had always thought the Tessar family rendered bokeh

well, as Luis indicates. In fact, i might illustrate the point with another of his pictures:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1332158

 

The Zeiss Contaflex has a Tessar lens, doesn't it, Luis?

 

I've read somewhere online that Irving Penn's Rolleiflex was a Tessar. Although he

didn't really shoot a lot with tremendously wide apertures, i've not seen anything

'unseemly' in any of his work. In my opinion, though, the bokeh king of 6x6 was

Avedon. In an American Photo profile issue a few years back, it was disclosed that

Avedon shoots with a closet full of 2.8F Planars. However, as a great deal of his

'street'/location work was done prior to the 1960's release of the 2.8F, i don't know

which Rolleiflex version he may have been using for the early work.

 

Personally, i think Planars always have 'classic' bokeh. I don't really like what i've seen

from Schneiders, although they're supposed to be the 'sharper' lenses. Tessars, in

their various forms and incarnations, though, i've always tended to like. You could

very easily 'research' this by looking at the various images posted on

www.photosig.com. If you go to the PHOTOS tab at the top of the page, you can then

choose to see pictures made BY CAMERA or BY LENS. Looking through a large volume

of pix with particular concentration on those in B+W showing shallow DOF will give

you a decent idea how the various glass renders out of focus imagery. It's tedious,

but if this is important to you, you may find a bit of confidence in your eventual

camera choice.

 

The other thing, though, is that bokeh is not a given constant, no matter what the

lens. Even the best lenses perform not so admirably at certain apertures, or with

certain types of background content. For instance, i love the way the Pentax 67's

105/2.4 lens does bokeh, EXCEPT with backlit foliage.... Or, the lens known as the

"bokeh king," the fourth version Leica 35mm Summicron, is now said to only be

stellar at certain midrange apertures.... Maybe your bad sample is just bad because of

the particular circumstances?

 

I don't know much about the Autocord. I've never heard, though, that it was

particularly renowned for bokeh. A Mamiya C(330?), though, is really quite wonderful

here, if you're not interested in the Rolleiflexes.

 

And, the number of aperture blades isn't really the key. The 2.8F Planar has only 5.

Again, this is a variable. I've seen the most amazing, fluid bokeh from it at certain

apertures, and then sometimes there may be pentagonal-shaped specular highlights

in other pix. Some people may not like that, as it's not 'organic,' but i don't find them

objectionable. It's all a matter of taste, i suppose, although i don't know anyone who

likes that cross-eyed, "line doubling" (nissen) result you described.

Say - check this site, just posted in another thread:

 

www.n-gised.com

 

Almost makes me want to buy a YashicaMat*

 

 

*I know, i know - "it's not the camera."

I like the bokeh that I get from Mamiya TLR lenses. All pictures in my folder that have selective focus are taken either with 80/2.8 or 105/3.5DS (I believe both lenses have 5 aperture blades)). I actually use selective focus a lot with this camera because I like the bokeh. Matter of taste, of course.

Peter you wrote:

"Another of your pictures shows the "bad" bokeh, but it's a matter of taste whether it's displeasing, of course."

 

What was the problem with the bokeh? I am not sure I am understand your concern.

I gotta admit, for a bokeh freak with my 35mm gear, I don't worry much about it with medium format.

 

Bokeh on my Yashica 635 and Rolleiflex 2.8C are about the same (tho' the Rollei lens is generally sharper at the corners and edges). IOW, nothing special. Neither offensive, distracting or particularly appealing.

 

The Rollei in particular proves that diaphragm shape has almost nothing to do with bokeh. Its diaphragm is almost perfectly circular. Sure, out of focus highlights are nearly perfectly round. But there's much more to good bokeh than that.

Dale asked:

>What was the problem with the bokeh? I am not sure I am understand your concern.

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Look at the foliage seen through the window in the <a href = "http://www.photo.net/photo/1760138">picture</a>. It shows very sharp circles of highlights. It's not necessarily very intrusive in that picture, since the area is small and the lens is stopped down, but imagine the same effect over a larger area, with larger circles because the lens is opened up.

Derek suggested:

>You could very easily 'research' this by looking at the various images posted on www.photosig.com. If you go to the PHOTOS tab at the top of the page, you can then choose to see pictures made BY CAMERA or BY LENS. Looking through a large volume of pix with particular concentration on those in B+W showing shallow DOF will give you a decent idea how the various glass renders out of focus imagery. It's tedious, but if this is important to you, you may find a bit of confidence in your eventual camera choice.

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It seems like a nice site, and I was able to browse by lens, something I've always wanted to do on photo.net, but I can't see the enlarged images because I don't have a membership, and the "Limited membership passcode" is invalid!

Derek suggested > Say - check this site, just posted in another thread: www.n-gised.com

 

Strange - the Yashicamat certainly seems better than my Autocord.

Hi Peter,

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>>>

Look at the foliage seen through the window in the picture. It shows very sharp circles of highlights. It's not necessarily very intrusive in that picture, since the area is small and the lens is stopped down, but imagine the same effect over a larger area, with larger circles because the lens is opened up.

>>>

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Here is a trick that is not clearly apparent. First, the background bokeh is not real, because there was a window behind the bread in the picture. Moreover, I remember the glass from the window had not a very good quality and finally, there was some leaves from a tree outside the building. In my experience, leaves produce the most horrible bokeh in any lens.

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Hi Derek,

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>>>

This thread comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I had recently been looking for a Rolleiflex with Tessar lens. I had always thought the Tessar family rendered bokeh well, as Luis indicates. In fact, i might illustrate the point with another of his pictures:

</p>

http://www.photo.net/photo/1332158

</p>

The Zeiss Contaflex has a Tessar lens, doesn't it, Luis?

>>>

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Absolutely. Not only that, both the Tessar 45mm f/2.8 and the Tessar 75mm f/3.5 in my Rolleiflex render a very similar Bokeh, something like having really similar character. On the other hand, the Planar 75mm f/3.5 on my Rolleiflex E is different, but then, it has a similar character as the Planar 45mm f/2 on my Contax G1. Maybe it?s me, but I love the Tessar bokeh. Go for the Tessar, Derek. You?re going to love that lens!. Cheers, Luis

It's a matter of taste, of course, but I don't agree with the definition of "poor bokeh" as being "an out-of-focus point source .... rendered as a circle with most of the light concentrated around the rim".

It can give a magic touch when the point are nearly perfect circular.

For example I like the bokeh of the following.

Lens was the Nikkor 50mm f/2 AI. Aperture setting..I don't know because I was the one in fron of the camera!

ohoops, not anymore attachment, here the url: <p>

http://www.photo.net/shared/portrait.tcl?user_id=443621

I haven't owned a MF Planar so I can't really say that much about them, but I'm generally pleased with the bokeh of my CZ Opton Tessar 3.5 on my Rolleiflex. It "smears" a bit, but the rendition of larger objects against mroe or less uniform fields of colour (ie. not some small points of light) is very nice. My LF Symmar does have a very pleasing blur, a bit like a very smooth gaussian blur that gets stronger by distance. In contrast, the 50/1.4's I've tried in 35 mm were Planars and had horrible bokeh - a price apparently paid due to large maximum apertures.

 

Granted, these things are a matter of taste. I seem to recall that the placement of the aperture does effect the bokeh. The Tessar is actually a newer design than Planar, since the Planar requires a bit too many elements when using uncoated optics. The Tessar gets away with four elements and has very high center sharpness (a thing which I can testify to.)

Luigi,

That looks more like "neutral" bokeh, as Rockwell defines it. The light from each point of light looks evenly distributed over a circle, or in this case, a hexagon formed by the six-bladed aperture. I wouldn't have a problem with that. In "poor" bokeh, the light is concentrated around the rim of the circle, sort of like the effect of a mirror lens, but not quite as extreme.

<img src="http://www.apug.org/site/main/album_pic.php?pic_id=2031"><P>

 

I think there's some variation among Tessar-types in this and other regards. I have two Nikkor-Q Tessar-types for Bronica (105/3.5 LS and 135/3.5) and they are both really sharp lenses and nice for portraits but can be a little harsh sometimes. The image posted is from a Voigtlander 80/3.5 Color-Skopar (Perkeo II), which is a coated Tessar-type, at f:11, and I quite like that one.

While I'd agree that the 50/2 Nikkor has nice bokeh wide open or nearly so, but it becomes harsher stopped down, a characteristic common to many Nikkors. (<a href=http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/society/nikkor/n02_e.htm><u>This</u></a> link includes a discussion by a Nikon engineer about the bokeh and other characteristics of the 50/2 Nikkor)<p>

 

Some Zuikos have excellent bokeh, tho' I don't know whether this comes at the cost of ultimate resolution. My 28/2.8 and 75-150/4 Zuikos have very good bokeh; the 50/3.5 macro is just okay.<p>

 

For whatever reason the lens designs of certain Hasselblads, Bronicas, Mamiyas and other medium format SLRs seem to have better bokeh. Maybe it's just a factor of the elements in the out-of-focus areas I've seen in photos taken with these particular lenses.

I just don't like the "target" look- I don't care about light distribution in the blur circle, but the Tessars I've seen, with light through the trees and wide open, all put a circle around the center of the image if the background is noisy. Smooth background, dark background, or stopped down to f-8, the Tessar is beautiful and about as perfect as you can get.