Fewer elements - lesser Bokeh?

wrote:

I've been experimenting with antique cameras for some time and I've come
to a somewhat controversial conclusion, which is based on experience
alone. I believe that the fewer elements you have the less "blitzed
out" your bokeh is,

I think it's that many of the 3 element lenses are just have crappy QC and
aren't sharp till they are stopped down so they don't give a "3D look. Many
multi element lenses have horrible bokeh so that doesn't promise anything.
I have a couple of modern cooke triplets that have wonderful bokeh so I
don't think this "number of elements" has much to do with it.

--

Stacey

I've been experimenting with antique cameras for some time and I've come
to a somewhat controversial conclusion, which is based on experience
alone. I believe that the fewer elements you have the less "blitzed
out" your bokeh is, that is to say the less your main subject stands out
from the background. Has anyone else noticed this?
Thanks

wrote in message
...
I've been experimenting with antique cameras for some time and I've come
to a somewhat controversial conclusion, which is based on experience
alone. I believe that the fewer elements you have the less "blitzed
out" your bokeh is, that is to say the less your main subject stands out
from the background. Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes. The fewer elements, the more you have to stop down to get adequate
sharpness in the plane of focus. This results in less blitzed out
backgrounds in actual use. This applies to 3 element lenses vs. Tessars vs.
Planars.

But I suspect that the number of blades in the iris makes more of a
difference than lens design.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...

But I suspect that the number of blades in the iris makes more of a
difference than lens design.

But background blurring's most striking at the widest aperture, when the
number of aperture blades doesn't matter.

nicholas wrote:

David J. Littleboy wrote:

But I suspect that the number of blades in the iris makes more of a
difference than lens design.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


I have to disagree on this point, not that I know the exact difference
number of blades have to do with bo-keh...
Having used Rolleis for awhile now, the OOF parts of a Xenotar-type lens
print is worse than the Tessar-type (Xenar) lens--from my observations.
Regardless of aperture (obviously the further stopped down the more in
focus :-). But yeah, a Xenotar lens type has worse OOF rendering.
Perhaps, worse than most six element lenses I would wager...

And I have two different 80mm 6 element lenses for my Kiev, one has nice
smooth bokeh and the other doesn't and both have the same number of blades
in the iris. I have a tessar clone 300mm LF lens that has nasty "clumpy"
bokeh and the diaphram has what looks like 50 blades! My 3 element 210mm
geronar has nice bokeh and 1/4 the number of blades and 1 less element. The
300mm heliar has nice bokeh again with like 50 blades so I know in this
case it's the lens design not the number of elements or number of blades.

I don't think the # of blades is a big deal unless it has a really low
number of them, like 5 or less. Even then it's more likely to just show up
as "diaphram flare" rather than effect the bokeh. My old olympus XA only
has 2 blades and it works pretty good! :-)

Almost any of the older folder lenses will have a bunch of blades so I doubt
that is the cause for the OP's -problem-. More likely it's that the "low
number of elements" lenses are on low end models and used crappy glass/poor
designs/low QC etc.
--

Stacey

"KM" wrote in message
...

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...

But I suspect that the number of blades in the iris makes more of a
difference than lens design.

But background blurring's most striking at the widest aperture, when the
number of aperture blades doesn't matter.

True, but you can't use a 3 or 4 element lens wide open if you care about
sharpness. And even the best of modern lenses improve a bit by stopping
down.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

wrote:

I've been experimenting with antique cameras for some time and I've come
to a somewhat controversial conclusion, which is based on experience
alone. I believe that the fewer elements you have the less "blitzed
out" your bokeh is, that is to say the less your main subject stands out
from the background. Has anyone else noticed this?
Thanks

I have several folders, and I do notice an overall smoothness to the
backgrounds. However, I think it might be the lack of contrast, and overall
softness of rendition. Stopping down helps, or push processing the film to
bump the contrast up. Sometimes filters can help a bit as well.

Another guess is that there is more spherical aberration in a triplet lens
design. The flaws in ancient designs might actually help some aspects of
the images. Some of these designs work nicely for portraits.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
Alliance Graphique Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com

David J. Littleboy wrote:

But I suspect that the number of blades in the iris makes more of a
difference than lens design.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


I have to disagree on this point, not that I know the exact difference
number of blades have to do with bo-keh...
Having used Rolleis for awhile now, the OOF parts of a Xenotar-type lens
print is worse than the Tessar-type (Xenar) lens--from my observations.
Regardless of aperture (obviously the further stopped down the more in
focus :-). But yeah, a Xenotar lens type has worse OOF rendering.
Perhaps, worse than most six element lenses I would wager...

"Stacey" wrote:

I don't think the # of blades is a big deal unless it has a really low
number of them, like 5 or less. Even then it's more likely to just show up
as "diaphram flare" rather than effect the bokeh.

That's what I was talking about: my Fuji GS645S has a 5-bladed diaphragm,
and OOF areas with bright spots in them are really gross. Sigh.

Almost any of the older folder lenses will have a bunch of blades so I
doubt
that is the cause for the OP's -problem-. More likely it's that the "low
number of elements" lenses are on low end models and used crappy
glass/poor
designs/low QC etc.

Could be. I'm quite pleased with bokeh on all the Mamiya 645 lenses I've
got, so other than the Fuji, it's not a problem here.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

David J. Littleboy wrote:


Could be. I'm quite pleased with bokeh on all the Mamiya 645 lenses I've
got, so other than the Fuji, it's not a problem here.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


The thing I remember reading was that 'the less aberration a lens has
the better the bo-keh'... But the interesting thing that I've noticed is
that most of the Xenotar-type lens designs have this, quite bad, OOF
rendering, interesting because it obviously (to anyone who's used one
IMO) has better correction to any Tessar-type design. Even a macro lens
with floating elements with a Xenotar-type lens design has a similar
type of bad OOF IMO (difficult to describe, but similar to a mirror lens
doughnut but less severe at the 5.6 apertures)--the macro lens I'm
talking about is a 50mm 3.5 Zuiko. A 3.5 55mm Nikkor is of the same
design and according to one other (that I can name) has the same type of
OOF rendering. So, my conclusion is that all Xenotar-type lens designs
have this particular rendering... Stacey, however, has a different
opinion (I think, sophisticated) to this and, perhaps, the matter seems
unresolved (probably forever).