I live for bokeh

Well, I was on Friday, kind of. I remembered that my passport was ready to be picked up from Polish consulate a year ago so I said to myself “what the hell, let’s pick it up on Friday”. I said it an hour and a half until the place was closing so being in the hurry I grabbed my camera bag and stormed outside. The weather was amazing, very sunny and beautiful and it wasn’t until in the subway I realized that I only had Kodak Portra 400, Fuji NPH 800 and Fuji Neopan1600 with me, just the film I needed to be shooting outside on a sunny day with Noctilux, great :-) Most of you don’t know that, but I shoot only wide open and I don’t close my lens for anything…………………….I live for bokeh after all, don’t I ? :-) So that sucked, photographically speaking. I got few shots in the subway, looking carefully around for cops and MTA workers so I wouldn’t get my day ruined by being mistaken for a terrorist :-)

My visit to Polish consulate was amazing, as always……………….first you get sized up by the security guard that is just waiting for you to fuck up so he can shoot you, at least in his mind judging by the look in his eyes - good thing they didn’t give him a gun :-) Then you get to a room full of Polish people, and let me tell you, what a sight :-) For the next 45 minutes I felt like in my old country ten years ago, everything so blissfully disorganized, nobody gives a shit and the lady in the window being the most important person in the building, god-like creature really :-) Well, being second in line I waited for 45 minutes cause some idiot came with his five children, missing half of required documentation and he decided to apply for all the passports in the “passport pickup” window. The lady in the window kept disappearing somewhere every five minutes and after 30 minutes of listening to the guy missing his documentation apologizing for missing his documentation my blood was boiling. Anyone complaining about the speed and treatment at the US DMV please come and apply for anything at Polish consulate, I promise it will change your perspective :-) Anyway, I got my passport and I won’t have to see thees people anytime soon………………..great :-)

Coming back to pictures, having only fast film I decided to shoot the Portra @ ISO200 and having one roll I decided to take only short walk, 36 exposures long actually back to my most favourite place in whole of NYC, Union Square. Nothing was actually happening there so I didn’t even finish the roll……………………here is my walk down the 5th Ave as partially documented :-)

PS. I would like to thank the people who still visit my blog, I haven’t been shooting anything for some time now but it’s changing slowly so I hope more and more stuff will appear here soon…………………cya :-)

 I checked my wordpress stats recently and to my surprise I discovered that every day people actually come here. I was a little ashamed of the emptiness of my internet home, guests are here and nothing is being served, shame. Just when I was ready to upload something NEW I realized that the last time when I was actually out and shooting was six months ago (I’m not counting testing of Leica 35mm lens that resulted in bunch of crappy shots) and there is nothing to show. So, for the ones who still visit, here are some of my NEW/OLD/LATEST stuff, NYC, summer of ‘07 (ok, that and Konrad was bitching today that he’s wasting perfectly good link on his blog to send people here so it’s also for him as well) :-)

Enjoy………………

Long time ago I had a discussion with an older photographer about 50mm lenses. He was arguing that fairly modern, “normal” lenses produce the same results no matter what brand they are. I was arguing that based on common sense and logic they have to be different and create different images, right? The truth is, I didn’t have a clue and since then I was wondering if he was right or not.

Well, guess what……………………time has come to find out :-) I’m retiring my beloved Bessa R3A with 40mm f1.4 Nokton as my girlfriend cannot use a rangefinder and since we need to share a camera, I’m in the market for a film SLR now. Since 50mm is my favorite focal length - wide enough for street and long enough for portraits - I set myself to test some of the best 50mm available for the purpose of choosing one ultimate 50mm for my own use, and to see if the old guy was right :-)

This is by no means a scientific test, there will be no pixel peeping, no resolution charts, brick walls or measuring tapes photographed. I’m looking at the wide open performance only as this is how I shoot and bokeh is the only thing that interests me in this test :-) If you are able to come to any other conclusions based on the following images…………………..good for you :-)

The lenses tested were:

1. Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L
2. Olympus OM 50mm f1.2
3. Pentax SMC 50mm f1.2
4. Nikon AI 50mm f1.2
5. Canon EF 50mm f1.4
6. Nikon D 50mm f1.4
7. Zeiss C/Y 50mm f1.4
8. Leica M 50mm f1.0 Noctilux

All the images were shot on Kodak Portra 160VC using Canon EOS and Zeiss Ikon with corresponding adapters from the same position, mounted on the tripod, measured with hand held meter, scanned on Nikon 9000 and slightly processed. Some images are slightly out of focus as my girlfriend Beata was sick and it was cold outside so we were rushing. You’ll have to forgive me……………..bokeh looks just the same :-)

Series were shot as follows:

1. 0.5 meter focusing distance - picture from Leica is missing as minimum focusing distance for Noctilux is 1 meter. Pictures were converted to grayscale, contrast was bumped up slightly. The same settings were applied to all the pictures within the series.
2. 1 meter focusing distance - contrast bumped up slightly. The same settings were applied to all the pictures.
3. 2 meters focusing distance - straight from the scanner
4. 3.5 meters focusing distance - straight from the scanner
5. night exposure - pictures were converted to grayscale, contrast was bumped up slightly. The same settings were applied to all the pictures within the series.

So, let’s see the pictures already :-)

Please click this link –> LINK 

Gallery will open in separate window………………….below every picture in the gallery you’ll find the name of the lens for each shot.  

The contenders, group picture (Canon EF f1.2 L is missing from the group picture cause I had it only for very short period of time and I had no chance to include it in. let me just say that size-wise was much larger than any of the other 50mm shown, more like 85mm really ) :

Yes, if you see no difference between the images your eyesight is actually very good, no need to adjust your screen :-) The old photographer was right, with the exception of Leica Noctilux which shows amazing “character” the rest of the bunch are pretty much the same when it comes to wide open performance; the differences are very subtle and could be corrected with Photoshop very easily in order to make all the pictures looks EXACTLY the same. It puts the whole search for the holy grail of 50’s in perspective :-)

So what am I going to do now, knowing what I know? Well, I would love to be able to keep the Noctilux as it is the only lens that stands out from the crowd with its character and leaving its own unique signature on every picture, but it’s also horribly expensive and I simply won’t be able to afford it. Older manual lenses are more compact and built way better than AF offerings from Nikon and Canon, even better than L series but I would rather go with the option of autofocus and better metering over the quality of the build. Canon L series is huge and overpriced and I can’t see any image quality benefits over 1.4 version, plus f1.2 is known for focusing problems which I can see in these pictures as well. That leaves me with Canon EF f1.4 and Nikon D f1.4, both cheaply built, both around $300 new. My final decision will depend on another test that it’s coming soon……………the 85’s, so stay tuned :-)

Here is the link to the gallery with some random shots taken with the 50’s, all done on Fuji Across pushed one stop, straight from the scanner. Eight pictures from every lens, see descriptions below every picture. If you’re allergic to cute baby pictures be warned, most of the pictures are of my son Alan :-) —> LINK

Thank you for visiting my fellow gear heads, ciao :-)

So I got new toy, ultimate bokeh camera called Flexbody………………………….one Saturday the weather happend to be nice so I packed my tripod and all kinds of crap, phoned Mr.K and we went on a city stroll. The camera turned out to be a real breeze to use, it goes something like this:

cock the lens –> put the viewfinder on  –> compose –> set the focus  –> set the angle of bend  –> substitute viewfinder with film magazine  –> trip the shooter –> wind the film –> cock the lens –> we got a picture!

Anyway, here are the results (Konrad on some of them doing his thing):

So

Well, I’ve gotta start somehow……………………let me just say that I’m a wildly uninteresting individual and I usually have nothing to say, so you as an accidental or not so accidental visitor will loose absolutely nothing if I do not talk about myself here.

 This place will be reserved only for showcasing pictures; all kinds of pictures featuring lots of bokeh…………………’cause that’s what I do, I live for bokeh. 

 welcome