Found a vintage Nikon bokeh meter, but need manual.

[Kent Shafer]

<p>Beautifully done, Matt—what a great way to start the day!</p>

[robertbanks]

Love it ;)

[steve m smith]

<p>Excellent. It measured seven hundred and sixty five milli-Fonzies on my coolometer.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>I have a manual for that. Seriously, right here in front of me.</p>

<p>I'd be glad to send it to you for...</p>

<p>...one MILLION dollars...</p>

[thomas_k.]

<p>Matt,<br /> Could you test for us reverse mounted lens on the aparatus? I belive it could measure the degree of fuzziness of photographer behind the lens.<br /> Have a good day sir!</p>

[John Crowe]

<p>Okay, how long did it take you to build this thing? </p>

<p>More importantly, can you mass produce it in time for the next Photokina?</p>

[peter_j2]

<p>Here is a <em>real</em> <strong>boke-meter</strong>:</p>

<p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>BTW, does anyone happen to have an extra can or two of relative bearing oil laying around? My manual compass and dividers are practically bone dry. </p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>I wonder how accurate Matt's device would be on reverse bokeh, e.g.,

<p>Tom M</p>

[john_morris4]

For the next Photokina, he probably just needs one, under glass.

 

The reason the innards are hard to discern is that they must be even more shoothly blurred than the best lenses they are

intended to measure.

[wogears]

<p>Matt, I think you may have gotten a bad copy. You need to focus inaccurately on a brick wall, with the meter/lens combination handheld.</p>

[CvhKaar]

Matt,

 

Was it hard to remove your lens from this meter again ? There seems to be no lens release button ....

[paul_b.1]

<p>Matt..., just in case you have some of that ham left, I find the right tool for you :</p><div></div>

[peter_j2]

<p>Paul B., that literally cracks me and that Nikkor lens up!</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Nicely played. Well done, sir.</p>

[dirtlawyer]

<p>there is a distinct possibility that this is the Japanese version of the German Ebenbilddruckmesser, the major difference being that the Japanese version uses vacuum tubes. If your unit is the vacuum tube version is the one, simply obtain a 12 pin falopian tube and insert it in the unit and try it. Let us know what happens.<em> </em></p>

[bms]

<blockquote>

<p><em>Ebenbilddruckmesser</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p><strong><em>Kleinbildkameraobjektiventschärfungsgradmeßgerät</em></strong> is the term your are looking for, I think.</p>

<p>Nice one, Matt :)</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Ok, I confess. This depiction of the famed Nikon Bokemeter is an artist's conception, based on Mike Johnston's early writings in <em>Bokeh: No, Really, You Need To Understand This.</em><br /><br />So just in case anyone is curious about how my images at the top of this thread came to be ... it was some table-top photography of a few real objects, and an hour or so of masking and pixel-tweeking in Corel PhotoPaint. No, I don't use Photoshop.<br /><br />The objects were set on a 28" roll of seamless charcoal paper, and lit from camera-right by an SB-800 in 24" Lastolite Ezybox, and from camera left (upstage) with an SB-900 through a Lastolite translucent tri-grip modifier. Those two speedlights were triggered by the pop-up on a D300, behind an SG-3IR. Exposure and strobe power was set manually, since all of those dark tones and glinty highlights were guaranteed to throw off the metering, and I wanted everything involved to share the same light and look, since I'd be compositing them together.<br /><br />The meter is a real meter - but it's an old General Electric milliamp meter (still works!). I shot an older Nikon film body, in the same position at the same angle so that I could grab the face of the F mount to bring in over the side of the meter's enclosure. I modified the mount's texture/color after the fact to make it a bit less shiny and still-new looking.</p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p>I then shot the same camera body in the same position, but with that Sigma lens mounted to it, so it would be at a natural angle when it was also layed into another version of the first composite. <br /><br />You'll also see, below, a better look at the meter's original faceplate. That took a little work. I borrowed the older-style "Nikon" font/logo from the face of a photonic meter housing on a venerable Nikon F. <br /><br />You'll also notice that I did a color swap on that enameled red stripe in the deco-looking bit of metal on the front of the old meter. That red color had to go! What was this, a <em>Canon</em> bokemeter? No! It had to be switched to Nikon yellow. <br /><br />Thanks for indulging me, folks. Next year I'm going to ... do something else!</p><div></div>

[leighb]

<p>Very well done, Matt.</p>

<p>How did you do the meter face?</p>

<p>on edit:<br>

OK. We doubled. But how did you get the Bokemeter name on top of the meter scale?<br /> - Leigh</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Leigh: I cloned out the GE text/labeling, and then used a text-to-path tool to arc a serifed font into position. I then used a couple of artistic brushed to "age" the the next text, and set its opacity a bit low so that the fogginess of the meter's glass appeared consistent. I also had to copy a bit of the meter's needle so that I could paste it into a new layer above the word "Nikon," so that it maintained its original look.<br /><br />I did all of that on the straight-ahead view of the meter, and then clipped a copy of that for use in the angular view, and used some keystoning/perspective distortion to make the newly created meter face match the viewing angle and resulting perspective. It's not perfect, but it worked OK at these lower resolutions.</p>

[leighb]

<p>OK. Makes sense. I have extremely limited experience with computerized imaging.</p>

<p>Thanks for the info. Very nicely done.</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

 

[jefflipsman]

<p>Stupendous! I award you six Internets for this ingenious April Fool's spoof, plus three Internets for the effort, for an unprecedented nine Internets! Congratulations.</p>

[leighb]

<p>NINE I'nets? WOW! Is that a record?</p>

<p>Plus one for attention to detail. That makes 10!</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

 

[dan_brown4]

<p>Matt: I'll give you $10,000 to have a genuine Nikon Bokemeter in my collection.</p>