50mm quandary for portraits?

[sblitz]

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Look at those old Karsh portraits. No soft focus but he captured the essence through lighting pose and he probably shot at around 4 or 5.6. Of that I am guessing from memory

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[edmond_terakopian]

Look at those old Karsh portraits. No soft focus but he captured the essence through lighting pose and he probably shot at around 4 or 5.6. Of that I am guessing from memory

 

My favourite portrait photographer of all time :-)

 

I'm guessing as he shot large format it wold probably be f8 or smaller (as depth of field is so much more minimal).

 

Thoroughly recommend anyone into portraits to check out Karsh's work:

 

Yousuf Karsh / Photographer

 

karsh - Google Search

 

Edmond

[tobey bilek]

The better the lens, the more flaws you see.

 

Would suggest a filter made from black tule net, fine. Buy the black and spray paint it flat black.

 

Works as placement on back of lens for short teles. This product was commercially made for Hassy and RB 20 years ago. My home made versions worked ok. A bit of rubber cement to tack it.

 

You can hunt up a 125 2.5 for viso. Use at 2.5 or 2.8 or 4.0.

 

You can hunt up a 125 Imagon for R cameras or any T mount. Full range of softening from very slight at 11 to soft wide open. I will never sell mine.

 

50 1.5 Summarit has a unique look 1.5 to 5.6. Hard to find a good one.

 

Much can be done with photoshop to achieve what you want. Probably the easiest solution. Christy Schulers site. Also retouch pros. Also photoshop mama on you tube.

 

If you print optically, do partial exposure thru black net tule stretched over an embroidery hoop for a partial exposure time. Vary the % for very soft to almost nothing. Start with 30%.

 

 

Softar filters can be nice, but they are pretty soft and aperture does not change it. They were made for larger negs that get less magnification.

 

Pay a king`s ransom for the 90 Thambar 2.2 soft focus from Leica. I forget the model, but it is collector lens and priced according. Summilux .com used to have samples posted.

It is not that great a lens and hard to learn to use. Be sure to get the shade and disk. Also a screw to M adapter.

 

I really recommend photoshop or the embroidery hoop solutions. In the end you will save a whole bunch of money and disappointment.

 

You can also copy a sharp neg or pos and do some softening with focus. You need a good copy stand.

 

The killer with most of this is the lens needs to be used near wide and that limits the focus debth.

 

Summitars are soft at 2.0 to 3.5 and probably the best solution that is affordable. Hope you can find a good one. They can not have fog inside.

 

90 4.0 Elmars are sharp, but not critically sharp at 4.0. By 5.6 the effect is gone. Svrew mount ones are cheap, but you need a shade and m adapter. It will be soft, but not as far as soft focus goes.

 

The real solution is larger format and softer lenses made for the purpose. 180 Imagon in RD 67 mount for example.

 

Still say photoshop or tule net under the enlarger lens are the easiest and best. I tried them all.

[Alberti]

The Summicron 50 is fine for portraits, wide open.

The sharpening can be totally turned off and still the image has punch.

Allows very good focussing.

 

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The effect of smaller plane of focus is larger with lenses with a larger opening, so you can get other expressions - but in my case my wallet didn't have such a large opening

 

I do love the images of e.g the saturated colors of the nocti's - quite a different argument we hear most of the bokeh.

albert