gdanmitchell wrote:
A well-regarded and successful photographer I know suggests that it isn’t so much a “telling a story” (a term that can be misinterpreted) as it is suggesting or evoking an emotional response.
Yes, they are synonymous in my usage in this instance.
JohnDizzo15 wrote:
This was all OP asked, and it somehow solicited the unsolicited diatribes of many over the last 15 years. Some great insight amongst some of the replies about how to achieve the perceived effect, but it doesn't change the fact that OP never asked about anything other than the lenses.
For those dogmatic and insistent fellas here that not only have not answered the OP's questions, but also persistently proselytized to the rest of us about how we shouldn't be concerned about the role of the lens in OP's question, I have a few questions for you.
1. Do you believe the effect exists?
2. Do you believe different lenses play any amount of a role at all (no matter how small) in aiding in the production of this effect?
3. If yes to Q1, which ones?
The purely broken down logic of some here in a nutshell:
OP - what version of A is best for helping me get to B?
Response - worrying about A is silly. You should be more concerned about C, D, E, and F.
or even worse
Variant response - B is a figment of your imagination and doesn't exist.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again as a mild attempt at getting us back to answering OP. Voigt 40/1.2, GM 24, and Sigma 35/1.2 for me. No, I haven’t compared all of those particular Zeiss 50s. But I have had the Makro Planar 50/2 and Sonnar 50/1.5 which were both pretty solid with regard to yielding some of the effect. I also still have the Zeiss Contax N 50/1.4 which I think doesn’t produce the effect at all.
Also, I don't see the effect in most of the posts that have shared recent images with longer lenses. Isolation is not the same as 3D IMO....Show more →
The fundamental flaw in this dreadful thread lies in its title, which couldn't have been chosen more foolishly, unless it was intended as a provocation from the outset. If the thread had simply asked everyone who wanted to could post photos, specifying the lens they used, that they believed showed some kind of three-dimensionality, then everyone could had decided for himselves whether a particular lens stood out. Anything else is utter nonsense, because it leads to nothing but arguments and know-it-all posturing.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
The fundamental flaw in this dreadful thread lies in its title, which couldn't have been chosen more foolishly, unless it was intended as a provocation from the outset. If the thread had simply asked everyone who wanted to could post photos, specifying the lens they used, that they believed showed some kind of three-dimensionality, then everyone could had decided for himselves whether a particular lens stood out. Anything else is utter nonsense, because it leads to nothing but arguments and know-it-all posturing.
But isn’t that how this thread began, people describing what lenses they thought exhibited the 3d quality…until a bunch of nay sayers came on board the get the thread going in it’s current direction…not naming names here.
chez wrote:
But isn’t that how this thread began, people describing what lenses they thought exhibited the 3d quality…until a bunch of nay sayers came on board the get the thread going in it’s current direction…not naming names here.
Don't you understand that describing your own perception is the exact opposite of showing photos without rambling?
chez wrote:
Ummm…last count you have over 120 posts in this thread. Now tell me who is rambling without showing anything.
I'm sorry, I really thought for a brief moment that it was possible to have a serious conversation with you. My mistake. Apparently, you lack reading comprehension.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
I'm sorry, I really thought for a brief moment that it was possible to have a serious conversation with you. My mistake. Apparently, you lack reading comprehension.
121 and counting. Can you break 150…all in a thread which you seem to have no real interest on the subject…at least viewing your constant put down of people describing their views on 3d. Apparently you just want to shit disturb.
I went back to the first page of the thread and the person who first replied mentioned about the Canon 85/1.2 L II. I totally agree. Fall is also the best time to show some 3D pop
chez wrote:
121 and counting. Can you break 150…all in a thread which you seem to have no real interest on the subject…at least viewing your constant put down of people describing their views on 3d. Apparently you just want to shit disturb.
Like I said, you just don't get it. I wrote that a thread with this title is bound to go this way. And I explained how it should have started so that it would go differently. This thread went off the rails practically with the first post, and only a fool could believe, after 15 years, 364,000 views, and 2,300 posts, that anything can be changed about it. Why bother? What's the point of making any effort in an endless thread full of nonsense? It would be completely pointless. As your example shows, even the content of the shortest and simplest posts isn't understood. That's probably also why you regularly applaud the rambling posts of the Chinabokeh guy.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
Like I said, you just don't get it. I wrote that a thread with this title is bound to go this way. And I explained how it should have started so that it would go differently. This thread went off the rails practically with the first post, and only a fool could believe, after 15 years, 364,000 views, and 2,300 posts, that anything can be changed about it. Why bother? What's the point of making any effort in an endless thread full of nonsense? It would be completely pointless. As your example shows, even the content of the shortest and simplest posts isn't understood. That's probably also why you regularly applaud the rambling posts of the Chinabokeh guy....Show more →
And yet to this pointless thread you happen to post over 120 times. Now look in the mirror before calling some other members posts as pointless.
chez wrote:
And yet to this pointless thread you happen to post over 120 times. Now look in the mirror before calling some other members posts as pointless.
Walks away shaking his head.
Of course I'm doing that, because this thread is good for nothing else. The difference between me and, for example, you, is that I don't take this thread or my contributions to it seriously. I see this thread as pure amusement. Only the posts from Chinabokehmann usually make me stop laughing and instead feel mildly to moderately nauseous.😉
In the 3D world, We photographers have to better understand bokeh. Even though it is a huge and intriguing subject, most of us are familiar with and/or use fast lenses, although all lenses produce this little understood and even less discussed optical phenomenon, one that occupies around 75% of many images. I'll break up what I have to say into small, bite-sized chunks. Amazingly, the establishment seems to not care about bokeh quality:
‘Our predominant purpose in designing fast lenses is to give photographers the ability to achieve distinctive compositional effects with the aid of a shallow depth of field.’
‘..there is no need to stop down in order to increase the imaging quality: our lenses are essentially designed to offer maximum performance at fully open aperture.’
‘..the bokeh is not an inherent aspect of the optical correction procedure, but rather a welcome by-product of our design approach.’
‘The ZEISS Otus ML series is characterized by an extraordinary shallow depth of field that directs the viewer's gaze precisely to what matters.’
These quotes, from two of the most respected and long-established optical firms, are included here to indicate the extent to which they perceive bokeh as being defined as ‘other’, shaped purely by its relationship to in-focus image content in designer-induced shallow depth of field lenses that, in a supreme irony, maximise the portion of the image that is given over to out-of-focus content, bokeh.
It is very different in the more sophisticated cine world:
‘We use the word ‘bokeh’ to describe the out-of-focus part of the image, and it’s just as important to design that look as it is to design the look at the point of focus, because the background sets the stage for everything that happens in front of it.’ (Art Adams, ARRI product specialist)
We see that, in the minds of influential players, the term excludes the *value of bokeh as a pictorial element*, instead they see it purely as a function of optics, or at best as a 'byproduct' that 'does not matter'. OK, we know where they are coming from. They genuinely believe they are doing us a favor.
Noted Philip. In my case, I don't try to overthink it. All of my lenses can deliver the 'pop'. Of course the 3D part depends on the composition, bokeh and lighting and etc. Like I mentioned before my classification of 3D is like the subject is about to leap from my monitor towards me. It's akin to watching a 3D movie and let say a fighter plane is coming towards me that I have to duck in my seat. I also believe that someone people don't feel the same way....so to each their own.
I'm so glad I came across this thread. It makes me grateful for what I already have. It also makes me re-think----does a 3D effect requires a silky smooth bokeh/background separation or can the bokeh be nervous?
Nifty Fifty wrote:
Of course I'm doing that, because this thread is good for nothing else. The difference between me and, for example, you, is that I don't take this thread or my contributions to it seriously. I see this thread as pure amusement. Only the posts from Chinabokehmann usually make me stop laughing and instead feel mildly to moderately nauseous.😉
Glad you cleared things up. So we should just take your posts as a big joke, something you do just to amuse yourself. I actually figured this out from reading a few of your posts.
Two from Sony's 55/1.8, at f3.2 and f2. I can't imagine liking either image if the background was a washed out abstraction. This early lens lacks ED glass but it uses five asph surfaces in a 7/5 design. It's a favorite of the 3D school. Carl Zeiss was thought to be involved in this one, which resembles the 3D we see in the great Contax lenses that were still popular at the time.
sweeping the courtyard at 20 below freezing, at 5000m
Piggybacking on the above... It seems still photographers and cinematographers have wildly different interpretations of what "3D" in a lens can mean. For a lot of people in the cinema world a lens with "3D" isn't the shallow depth of field that you get from any fast/long lens, where the subject (especially with extremely sharp lenses) just looks like a flat paper doll pasted on to a blurry background. 3D pop in the cinema world often means a lens that *even stopped down* renders images with a tactile weight/three dimensionality--this is especially important in the digital era where any kind of weight/texture you can give to the image is crucial, especially when you go past 1080 into 4K, where additional resolution seems to "flatten" things somewhat. The legendary Zeiss Super Speeds and Standard Speeds are famous for this 3D effect, for example, as well as their largely similar Contax Zeiss cousins, which are still hugely popular with video shooters for that reason. Here's some shots with the 50 1.4 that I think beautifully show the classic "Zeiss 3D" look:
Once you've used enough of them you can pretty reliably tell which Zeiss lenses have the authentic secret sauce or not (of the modern lines, the Milvuses and Loxias are all true Zeiss lenses that have the "pop", the Batis ones definitely do not, and the new Otus ML's suspiciously render more like a Voigtlander lens...)
Of course even then none of this really matters because modern viewers don't care and most things look terrible now anyway But there's a good reason the Loxias were just used for parts of big Hollywood movies like F1, and it's not just because they're tiny and can fit in small spaces.
But there's a good reason the Loxias were just used for parts of big Hollywood movies like F1, and it's not just because they're tiny and can fit in small spaces.