creating vintage look with modern lenses

[brickftl]

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somewhere I don't recall I read there is a technique (using a filter?) to create a vintage rendering with a new lens. I love my  Summilux 50/1.4 asph v1, but have in mind some artsy projects that would do well with that look. 

Any suggestions how to do that with this lens?

Edited March 9, 2024 by brickftl

[69xchange]

Diffusion filters or in post edit

Edited March 9, 2024 by 69xchange

[spydrxx]

Rubber band 1 layer of a a woman's silk stocking over the front of the lens.

[farnz]

2 hours ago, spydrxx said:

Rubber band 1 layer of a a woman's silk stocking over the front of the lens.

Or scratch-up 'to taste' an old, 46 mm UV filter and shoot through it.  If a low-contrast look is desired then borrow one of Mrs Brickftl's stockings and shoot through that too.

Another way is to acquire an Industar or Fed lens, that are available very cheaply through the online auction sites, and 'adjust' the coating with some sandpaper.

Pete.

 

[Rollei35]

4 hours ago, brickftl said:

somewhere I don't recall I read there is a technique (using a filter?) to create a vintage rendering with a new lens. I love my  Summilux 50/1.4 asph v1, but have in mind some artsy projects that would do well with that look. 

Any suggestions how to do that with this lens?

Get a fork to scratch the front glass of the lens. It's bit invasive but the result is guaranteed.

A less invasive way is to apply the lip balm on the front glass lightly. The result is less predictable though.

[sometimesmaybe]

12 hours ago, brickftl said:

somewhere I don't recall I read there is a technique (using a filter?) to create a vintage rendering with a new lens

you could also try using black mist or glimmer glass filters

TBH if you want a vintage look, just grab a vintage lens. you can get a L39 USSR Jupiter 8 50mm f2 (sonnar design) for under $100. i use it for street walks. but if you really want to splash out go for the Jupiter 3 50mm f1.5 (or the zeiss version).

sonnar glass tend to have a lot of glow wide open, and nice rendering (to my eyes)

 

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Edited March 10, 2024 by sometimesmaybe

[pgk]

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12 hours ago, brickftl said:

somewhere I don't recall I read there is a technique (using a filter?) to create a vintage rendering with a new lens. I love my  Summilux 50/1.4 asph v1, but have in mind some artsy projects that would do well with that look. 

Any suggestions how to do that with this lens?

I depends what you determine is a'vintage' look. There are a variety of causes of an old fashioned look and they overlap and interlink. So many old lenses will provide a sharp centre with gradually diminshing sharpness towards the corners - in other words performance drops away from the centre to the edges. Then there is coma which is often part of the softening and this shows up well with point source lights inthe corners. There is spheerical aberration which reduces the abruptness of changes from bright to dark areas and details. Highlight bleed from light to dark areas (coating damage and scratches)and there's vignetting and so on.

Filters will tend to soften an image and mimic spherial aberration but often evenly across the whole image.

As has been said it might be easier and not particularly expensive to buy an older lens with such characteristics, rather than try to produce them (although with filters and software it will be possible with some effort no doubt. An older, not immaculate, LTM Elmar might be a good starting point.

Edited March 10, 2024 by pgk

[Anbaric]

For a true vintage look, frame your photo so that it only contains vintage things. For example, when taking a portrait make sure that your subject is not wearing a Fitbit, using an iPhone, or sitting in an Airbus A350-900.

[spydrxx]

13 hours ago, spydrxx said:

Rubber band 1 layer of a a woman's silk stocking over the front of the lens.

Forgot to mention, when doing portraits, the trick is to take a lit cigarette and burn a small hole in the stocking and center the hole over the lens. You get a sharp center and diffuse edges.

[farnz]

1 hour ago, spydrxx said:

Forgot to mention, when doing portraits, the trick is to take a lit cigarette and burn a small hole in the stocking and center the hole over the lens. You get a sharp center and diffuse edges.

... and free 'haze' if chain-smoking. 😄

Pete.

[Al Brown]

In my article below I talked about adding CHARACTER to new, modern ASPH & APO lenses.
 

 

[Al Brown]

There are many types of diffusion for modern lenses and Tiffen seems to know most of them. They have an awesome triangular diagram of their filters used for a) contrast reduction, b) halation increase and c) resolution reduction. Study their filters and what they do. Test and try and you will find the right one. I realized that simply snapping a black promist or a stocking over the lens is not enough to add the character of 70s lenses I was after. Of course not all character can be reproduced -butterfly coma and astigmatism come to mind - but using the process I mention in my link in previous thread you will get close enough to taking the "edge" off modern lenses.

The attached photo was done with Summilux 35 ASPH FLE and Tiffen SOFT FX 2. No other post-processing but color grade. Other filters made by them I use are Promists, Glimmerglass, gold Soft FX, Satin and Smoque.

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Edited March 10, 2024 by Al Brown

[Pyrogallol]

Years ago we used to use an old UV filter with a smear of Vaseline round the edge. You can wash it off afterwards. Like this picture, M3 with 50mm Rigid Summicron.

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[pgk]

13 minutes ago, Pyrogallol said:

Years ago we used to use .....

Was that when we were trying to recreate the look of ultra-vintage lenses using vintage lenses?

[rpsawin]

3 hours ago, spydrxx said:

Forgot to mention, when doing portraits, the trick is to take a lit cigarette and burn a small hole in the stocking and center the hole over the lens. You get a sharp center and diffuse edges.

FWIW make certain the Mrs. has "vacated" the stocking first...

[RexGig0]

This is a reminder that I should try the center-spot filter, that was packaged with my Leica Thambar-M 90mm lens, on my APO Summicron-M 75mm ASPH and Summilux-M 50mm ASPH. The effect may well be a black hole in the center of the image, which would be undesirable, but, one cannot know, unless one tries.

https://leica-camera.com/en-US/photography/lenses/m/thambar-m-90mm-f2-2-black-painted

[fil-m]

19 minutes ago, RexGig0 said:

This is a reminder that I should try the center-spot filter, that was packaged with my Leica Thambar-M 90mm lens, on my APO Summicron-M 75mm ASPH and Summilux-M 50mm ASPH. The effect may well be a black hole in the center of the image, which would be undesirable, but, one cannot know, unless one tries.

https://leica-camera.com/en-US/photography/lenses/m/thambar-m-90mm-f2-2-black-painted

Tried that with my Lux 28. Black circle appears in the center starting f/2. So useable on the Lux 28 @ 1.4 and 1.7, makes the image softer. 

[RexGig0]

1 hour ago, fil-m said:

Tried that with my Lux 28. Black circle appears in the center starting f/2. So useable on the Lux 28 @ 1.4 and 1.7, makes the image softer. 

Thanks! As I understand it, the wider focal lengths are more susceptible than normal and telephoto focal lengths to the effect of anything on the outer element that is blocking the light transmission. So, the black circle starting to appear at f/2 makes sense. The Thambar is usable with the center spot filter at up to f/2.6, according to the instructions, though I have not actually shot a series of images closed-down farther than f/2.6, to see where an actual black circle starts manifesting itself in Thambar images. (I use 50mm and 35mm so much, that I tend to forget to use my other M lenses. Even though I starting bringing my Thambar with me, more often, it tends to stay inside the bag.)

Edited March 10, 2024 by RexGig0

[250swb]

22 hours ago, brickftl said:

somewhere I don't recall I read there is a technique (using a filter?) to create a vintage rendering with a new lens. I love my  Summilux 50/1.4 asph v1, but have in mind some artsy projects that would do well with that look. 

Any suggestions how to do that with this lens?

I think you need to classify in your own mind what the ‘vintage look’ you want is before asking a load of people for their interpretation. There’s the lens, the grain, the exposure, the developer, the printing, and everything in-between. Then it may be possible to nail down a solution, but supposing you are dealing with scanned negs I think getting Nik Suite for Silver Efex Pro would be a great starting point.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Al Brown]

9 minutes ago, 250swb said:

I think you need to classify in your own mind what the ‘vintage look’ you want is before asking a load of people for their interpretation. There’s the lens, the grain, the exposure, the developer, the printing, and everything in-between. Then it may be possible to nail down a solution, but supposing you are dealing with scanned negs I think getting Nik Suite for Silver Efex Pro would be a great starting point.

AFAIK he was referring to my post above from another thread where I wrote how to mechanically (optically, not in post) "vintage" modern ASPH lenses, which basically means adding flaws until the lenses' render looks as similar to the 70s classical period render as possible. I have pasted the article in post #11.