Re: Original Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 (Prominent 1951-1960)
Thanks for the discussion. Your observation is absolutely right - the lens wide open produce extremely busy bokeh under strong light. Stopping down to f/2 doesn't smooth it out much, and it takes about f/2.8 to become very contrasty without glow and have clean/smooth bokeh. Most people probably won't appreciate the busy bokeh much, but there are a few including myself who dig this type of rendering - bubbly, wild, and painterly. One man's meat is another man's poison, I guess .
Back in those days, the optical designers probably had smooth bokeh as their goals. However, most vintage fast lenses have quite a lot of SA wide open, which causes highlight glow and busy bokeh. It was a compromise to offer fast aperture. I think they probably envisioned using the lens wide open only in low light situation as well. The other thing is that digital sensors tend to make the busy bokeh even busier than on film. So using these vintages on digital certainly deviates from designers' intention, but there are quite a bit of followers of this, maybe you can call it, cult :P
Jman13 wrote:
It certainly has a unique rendering, though in the busy shots from the fair, I think the bokeh is rather awful - you've got ringed highlights appearing on people's arms, for instance. It's extremely busy. That look can be interesting, but also quite rough in some circumstances. I think it looks a lot better a stop or two down. Remember also that these older lenses were never really inteded to be shot wide open that often. The ultra-shallow depth of field look is really a more modern aesthetic, and most of the time people would have stopped this lens down a fair bit, using the ultra wide aperture only when needed in lower light.
May 16, 2023 at 03:14 PM
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