A recent set of images back from the lab struck me with regards to bokeh. I was (and am) shooting a Fujifilm GA645; a camera with an f/4 lens. Not a lens one would expect much bokeh from. I thought I was giving up this aspect of my images when I started with this camera. However, as I found recently, not the case. This got me interested in other medium format lenses and the bokeh they produce. 35mm lenses get all the 'glory' over this so perhaps a thread devoted to medium format would be suitable.

Here's bokeh from my 60mm f/4 lens.

Great idea!

Here are 2 from my Seagull 4b-1 (75mm 3.5 wide open).
Sorry for the bad quality, I "scanned" the prints with my Nex
darn sharp even wide open.

That second shot is quite nice, both the bokeh and the color. What film did you use?

I used 2010 expired Kodak Portra 160NC.

Here's one taken with the mighty Distagon 50/2.8 for the Hasselblad-2000-series:


birch - shot wide open if memory serves - sorry for my underdeveloped scanning-skills

I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think this was taken with the Distagon 50/4 - Rolleiflex SL66 tilted a bit:


swedish fence - Rolleiflex SL66

Hasselblad 80/2.8 wide open...


5551 by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr


Pentax 67 75/4.5 wide open...


Suburbs by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr


And a bunch of shots with Pentax 67 105/2.4 wide open...


The lonely hour by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr



Obsolete by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr



The end by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr



Toyotas in line by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr


And one at f/4...


El Camino view by Martin Hertsius, on Flickr

you get more blur in MF because of subject magnification.

anyway, some shots, rollei and mamiya are wide open, forgot about the bronica one:

Rolleiflex f2.8 planar


Untitled by nothtat, on Flickr

Mamiya 7 80mm


Untitled by nothtat, on Flickr

Bronica 80mm f2.8 (the earlier one)


Untitled by nothtat, on Flickr

Nice shots Martin, I may get myself a P67 for Christmas. The only thing that stopped me from getting one was when I held the late 55/4... it was so big it scared me off ordering the camera. May just have to tripod mount it.

Glad to see so much medium format bokeh!

Cross-post from the film thread-
501CM with a 50 FLE, wide open

redisburning wrote:
Nice shots Martin, I may get myself a P67 for Christmas. The only thing that stopped me from getting one was when I held the late 55/4... it was so big it scared me off ordering the camera. May just have to tripod mount it.

The late 55/4 is smaller than the former one, which I own. And you definitely don't have to use a tripod. I've shot 99% handheld and only like once got visible blur from camera shake, at 1/30 second with 55 mm.

Some more bokeh with the (smallish) 90/2.8 on P67II, wide open...

I am waiting for the FE 110/2 shots...

There is just no way to get this look from 24x36.

That is still one of the reasons of existence of medium format digital backs. Too many amateur photographers believe digital backs are here for megapixels, bit depth or whatever, but the image rendering in an image circle that covers 6X6 or 6X7 is very much different from (35mm) full frame. Just like the 35 mm renders different from APS-C and smaller.

BTW, some good samples that show that DOF and bokeh are not the same. I particularly like the Pentax 67 shots. THX for sharing!

Poison thread! I only have a handful of Mamiya 80/1.9 samples, but will dig them up tomorrow. It's the hardest bokeh I've ever seen, but kind of interesting non the less.

The long FLs are always going to bring focus fade and OOF into play fast, so MF designers attended to it rather well, all of them. It's so good to see more MF film, there is just nothing like it.

Red, the doggo in #1 looks like his mood was rather magnified that day.

RM, the young lady might like to see these in 20 years time. Actually I recall a guy saying how much he thought the GA645 bokeh was really poor. I have one for landscape, and seldom see bokeh as the thing works great even at f16-f19, the 60/4 is one of the sharpest lenses I ever saw, and it runs away and hides its small self when you turn off the camera, lol. As much as people like the newer Fuji lenses, their old MF/LF are terrific.

A shot with the Hassy 80/2.8


Toast Box by alkanphel, on Flickr

philip_pj wrote:
The long FLs are always going to bring focus fade and OOF into play fast, so MF designers attended to it rather well, all of them. It's so good to see more MF film, there is just nothing like it.

Red, the doggo in #1 looks like his mood was rather magnified that day.

RM, the young lady might like to see these in 20 years time. Actually I recall a guy saying how much he thought the GA645 bokeh was really poor. I have one for landscape, and seldom see bokeh as the thing works great even at f16-f19, the 60/4 is one of the sharpest lenses I ever saw, and it runs away and hides its small self when you turn off the camera, lol. As much as people like the newer Fuji lenses, their old MF/LF are terrific.

That lady is my daughter, so she will see them in 20 years.

I'm fairly shocked at how well the GA645 produces good bokeh. The one issue I have is that autofocus is not so accurate at close range so I try not to shoot much under 1 meter. If it were 100% spot on at 0.7 meters, then the bokeh would be even more intense.

It's a great camera, although I am constantly lured by 6 x 7 or 6 x 9 cameras.

I wonder if Fuji could make a digital GA645?

So these are my hard-*rsed Mamiya 80/1.9 shots. I've only put a couple of rolls through it sadly, but hope to return it to action next year.

I'd take shots like that first one all the time if I had a lens like that. Very nice!

A few with the Zeiss 110/2 on an S2.

A few with the 80/1.9 on an S2.