Okay Dokay Bokeh

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mtuell
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Okay Dokay Bokeh

Post by mtuell »

As discussed in the thread here http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=32027, I got an old (~50 years old) Soviet era lens, the Helios 44, the original version with 13 iris blades. I've also been taking black and white film. I read about the amazing Bokeh that these lenses have, so I took a couple shots with that in mind. Here is the first one I processed.

Image

It indeed does interesting things in the background with the lens wide open. I guess the 44-2 has some sort of manufacturing defect that causes "swirly" bokeh. I'm not sure what kind of defect would cause that, but this lens doesn't seem to have that "problem", which is highly sought out.

It has taken some effort, but I'm starting to get better behind the shutter and in the darkroom - when everything is manual. :D

Mike

NicoVB
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Post by NicoVB »

Oh nice, but i do wonder of the bokeh would appear on a m4/3 sensor...
Watched some reviews, but it's not very clear.
When you make the most fantastic discovery, a lot of people want a piece of it...

rjlittlefield
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Re: Okay Dokay Bokeh

Post by rjlittlefield »

mtuell wrote:I guess the 44-2 has some sort of manufacturing defect that causes "swirly" bokeh. I'm not sure what kind of defect would cause that
It's mostly caused by a lens design in which the entrance pupil becomes strongly non-circular away from image center. This happens when peripheral light rays get blocked by the edges of various lens mounts in addition to (or completely instead of) the normal limiting iris.

See the illustrations at http://digital-photography-school.com/c ... 44-2-lens/ , in particular this image:
Image

Note that away from image center, every bright spot in the background is expanded into a sort of elliptical shape.

It appears the lens also has quite a bit of residual spherical aberration, which results in OOF blurs having light concentrated at their edges, leaving a darker section in the middle. See http://luminous-landscape.com/bokeh/ , Figure 6 and the associated discussion.

--Rik

NicoVB
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Post by NicoVB »

I think, if you go this way, you need to go all the way and modify the Helion.
So modify to anamorphic or square aperture and add some color on the inside.
Howto: https://vimeo.com/48339439
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3OEBmrBdVU

Those come very cheap, so you can get wild on it.
When you make the most fantastic discovery, a lot of people want a piece of it...

mtuell
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Post by mtuell »

I did see on eBay that you can get ones modified with fixed apertures as you are describing. I wouldn't want to tear into the one I've got, though!

It would also be lovely to get a Helios 40, which is 85 mm f/1.5, which is also supposed to have great bokeh... a bit pricier, though.

Mike

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