A good bokeh

[baco]

What is a good bokeh, what should it be like? What affects it (lens, focus screen, camera settings, aperture of course).

"Lens manufacturers including Nikon, Canon, and Minolta make lenses designed with specific controls to change the rendering of the out-of-focus areas."

says wiki, and continues:

"The shape of the aperture has a great influence on the subjective quality of bokeh. When a lens is stopped down to something other than its maximum aperture size (minimum f-number), out-of-focus points are blurred into the polygonal shape of the aperture rather than perfect circles."

How about adapters? Which one's bokeh is the best? It is obvious that bokeh is not just a blur... My guess is, the focus screen is the key element to a good bokeh...

Adapter owners, could you post some images with a shallow DOF to let us compare?

Also, I'd like to see same adapter/different lens combinations. Could we build a reference topic? What do you say?

- baco

[baco]

So no one knows anything about this huh.... oki doki...

[alx]

it depends on the lense over the focus screen - horses for courses when it comes to bookah!

[ejectorset]

i think the actual 35mm lens used is going to have a big impact on the look of the bokeh as well. unless you use a mirror filter or something, which will impact things too. we all have the same prime with the stock lens in the hv. the focus screen is just to capture the image of the 35 lens used.

couldn't you watch some DOF adapter footage on vimeo and on any that list both what adapter and what lenses were used start getting an idea there.

"good looking" bokeh is going to be very subjective to your own personal likes and taste.

i think the line:
"Lens manufacturers including Nikon, Canon, and Minolta make lenses designed with specific controls to change the rendering of the out-of-focus areas."

isn't very well written. i would think the author is either describing being able to control the aperture on a lens, or talking about speciality filters, but since its on wiki, its more generalized than it should be.

[Dr. Benway]

Bokeh is just blur to which different set-ups can make a difference. In my opinion comparing them would be unscientific; subjective, fraught and retarded via the 'net.

Combinations matter; lens model, GG type and your set-up. What matters is degree of functionality so that you can alter your dof to your heart's content. Extreme shallow dof is lovely but can be tricky with moving subjects.

High-quality lens, matched to the right GG and set-up right and you'll be a happy camper.

[baco]

This site is interesting:

http://bokehtests.com/

[tkmslee]

It has to do with the screen. Study the bokeh of the M2, Letus, and Brevis. M2, SGPro, and Letus are better than the Brevis but then look at the bokeh in photos and actual movies. it's different. it has large circles and things don't just have a guassian blur, they blur differently by creating large circles. Look at this footage here made with the up and coming RNG35 screen:

http://rng35.com/videos/sewing_st.mov

It's a very close match to actual film bokeh. i can show you more if you want.

[tkmslee]

Here is another one:

http://rng35.com/videos/porch_01.mov

[baco]

Here is another one:

http://rng35.com/videos/porch_01.mov

Quality is great, but there is noticable amount of grain and pulldown is not removed I think... However, great adapter quality...

[tkmslee]

Quality is great, but there is noticable amount of grain and pulldown is not removed I think... However, great adapter quality...

There was no pulldown to remove, it's actually the high shutter speed that gave it that effect. Either way, I just wanted to show you "bokeh" quality here. Oh and the grain is actually from the camera becasue the shutter speeds make the camera kick in the gain.

[baco]

It could be off-topic but HV30 videos have noticable amount of "noise" (grain?). No matter you lock the gain, it's always there...

[steve]

There are also some great examples here:

http://downloads.letusdirect.com/video/

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=10580

http://www.bj35adapters.com/

Check out the mini. A bit pricey but it gets the idea across.
I think the RNG35 looks as good as the letus.

I've been looking at these myself.

[baco]

I'm sorry but I didn't like letus mini's bokeh. It's so blurred and non-cinematic... I don't know do you like it?

[steve]

As a matter of fact I do like the letus! Compared to the JAG35, BJ35, RNG35, (and these are very good adapters according to the demo footage I've seen) but for the price and class of camera we're talking about here, I thinks it's an excellent adapter. You're not going to get panavision depth with any of these adapters.

But in context I think the letus mini, for the type of cam we're talking about, is the best choice if you have the frog pelts (money) to spend on it.

[bluegrass]

baco bokahs biggest backers believe bubble bokahs look the best. i like the bubble bokahs my letus produces but a lot of bokah backers believe basically bokahs being better belongs as their own bokah opinion.

[baco]

[steve]

[baco]

"What CAN definitely be said is that certain properties of lenses cause bokeh to be rendered differently by different lenses. When we refer to a “the bokeh of a lens” what we really mean is that particular lenses ability to affect the bokeh of an image for the better or worse. This is an important distinction. "

"Bokeh of an IMAGE is highly dependent on the lighting of a scene, distance between lens, subject and background, how much contrast is in a background scene, how much the background contributes to an image (maybe you WANT the background to be partially visible), how busy the background is, as well as lens factors, as well. " (from bokehtests.com)

So basically

1. Lenses create bokeh not adapters
2. Focus screen of the adapter may diffuse the light and blur the bokeh OR it keeps the bokeh sharp
3. You may like your bokeh blurred a bit or you may like it served straight (like sharper intersected circles)
4. Since testing every adapter, with same lenses, same scenes, same camera is not possible, there is no way to tell which adapter's (or which adapter/lens combination) bokeh is better...
5. We really need a testing lab for all these stuff Different images posted using different setups mean nothing...

[Ian-T]

1. Lenses create bokeh not adapters
..

Wouldn't the shape of the bokeh be determined by the blades of the len's aperture?

But the blur of the ground glass itself might be undesireable. Me, I don't like most of the blur I see in folks videos. It looks...um...like badly grounded glass. The production...everything might look good...but the blur throws me off. IMO.

[baco]

Yes that's exactly what I'm trying to "investigate". A gaussian blur stlye bokeh looks very artificial.

[tkmslee]

Ian, what do you think of the bokeh of the G35? Personally I think it renders it perfectly. Nice large circles.

[Ian-T]

Ian, what do you think of the bokeh of the G35? Personally I think it renders it perfectly. Nice large circles.

Are you talking about the Cinemek G35? That adapter is nice especially for it being a static adapter. I remember watching a few shorts shot on that adapter a few years ago. One in particular (i can't remember the name)...was set somewhere in the future where a woman who I think lost her husband and had a robot replacement etc. I swore back then it was film...but I think it was an HVX an the G35. Anyways...if this is the adapter you are talking about then it is expensive.

Edit: Here's the link. THIS is the video I was talking about. Looks lioke a very professional shoot. I still can't get over how good this looks. Still not sure if this is an HVX or not.

Warning: A little bit of extra skin shown...FYI

[tkmslee]

Yes tht's the one. They have all that test footage done by MacGregor on their demo section. Yes the adapter is around $1300 for the total package.

[baco]

I thought cinemek has no solution for 43 mm, has it?

Edit: Ok it's DVX100...

[Ian-T]

I'm not sure. I believe it's a 72mm lens adapter ...but there is always the idea of using step up rings.