A Blog and discussion about that *$%%# elusive Swirly Bokeh!

[mark]

Are you looking to make the bokeh the subject? Curious.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Tried again after a bottle and a half of wine.

Nice picture...

 

[jimgalli]

Are you looking to make the bokeh the subject? Curious.

Not at all. I'm just teaching myself what is possible and predictable. A tool in my toolbox so to speak. I might then get that tool out once in a while and to a lesser degree as I feel appropriate, or perhaps not at all. I'm stimulated by discovery. This afternoon I'm working on 3 young subjects that will be sharp in the photos with much less swirl than the garden picture. Teaching myself what might work, or might not.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Jim, I'm surprised. I thought you were opposed to lens abuse.

Has Wm. Linne's puffery pf his abused lenses on eBay got to you? Are you going to give up, um, industrial archeology, start shooting naked fat ladies and making sepia-toned or just plain muddy prints?

What's next? Wet plates?

Cheers,

Dan

 

[scootermm]

I seem to be in the minority... I'm actually quite fascinated and drawn to the "swirly" garden image. I would love to eventually find a lens of this sort for my 12x20 and some night shooting... it gets me excited to think about.
any ideas jim?
I look forward to what you discover with more lenses Jim.

 

[Dave Wooten]

Tiny Bubbles, in the wine....

To get really sharp portraits with the swirly background you need the correct studio set up.

1. Get a large roulette wheel, they are available used here in Vegas.

2. Remove the roulette spindles

3. attach a panel with a contrasty scene or an abstract, (the beauty here is the scene can be changed to relate to the "mood" you want to portray, the panel need not be round.

4. Place model in front of the wheel and centered.

5. Focus sharply on the models face and position the wheel so it will be out of plane of focus.....stop down according to strobe exposure....flag the strobe so it will not illuminate the wheel.

6. Select a slow shutter speed

7. Give 'er a good healthy spin (the wheel, not the model)

8. Fire...

9. Sing the Swirly Bokeh theme song....same tune as "Tiny Bubbles"

Develope, print, and amaze your friends and naysayers...

This will work every time obtaining the swirly bokeh back ground...and one can use modern lenses etc. or no lens i.e. pinhole... Also you can swirl in either direction....a variation on this theme is a hanging panel that can be vibrated....like a thunder panel used in the theater...

I didn't read this in a book or anything.

 

[jimgalli]

Dan, I need you to buy a bus ticket to Tonopah so I can get you in front of my camera! I can soften you up buddy.

 

[Valerie]

"Has anyone else (other than Stephanie) heard of/experienced this?"

More times than I care to recall!! Although the particulars I do not seem to remember.........god, how I loved college!

The swirls are rather much for me as well....I could not look at the photo for more than a few seconds. But the portraits I find quite nice!

 

[Bandicoot]

From what (little) I've seen of swirly bokeh, it seems to happen most when a peripheral area of 'busy' high contrast (most often foliage or tree branches with backlighting) reacts with pronounced coma – which might explain why the garden shot had it and the portraits didn't.

This is my theory too: bokeh is all about what happens to the circles of confusion for out of focus points - whether they are round or some other shape, evenly lit or brighter at the edges or the centre, etc. In this case they are fairly evenly lit, but very heavily misshapen, with the shapes they assume suggesting coma as a principal cause.

In an area of even tone there is nothing to see: out of focus points are imaged as blobs that spread the tone of the point over another area of... the same tone. It's only when one tone gets 'smeared' across an area of different tone that we can see the bokeh effect at all, and in the example picture the bright spots of small white flowers reveal the 'swirlies' particularly clearly as the resulting smears are reproduced against the darker areas of foliage.

Every point in 'the swirl zone' is spread the same way, but we only see the bright points where they get spread across a mass of (equally spread out) dark ones.

Otherwise, I'm with Roger in that it reminded me of student parties when you had to hang onto the floor to stop falling off....

I had a friend at university who was adamant that you had to "drink on through the swirlies". She explained that this was a stage you reached early on in any (presumably reasonably good) party and you had to drink through them to emerge on the other side, with a clearer head and able to carry on (carry on drinking, that is). Her analogy was a runner pushing on through the pain barrier. And, it turned out, she was right!


Peter

 

[Roger Hicks]

I had a friend at university who was adamant that you had to "drink on through the swirlies". She explained that this was a stage you reached early on in any (presumably reasonably good) party and you had to drink through them to emerge on the other side, with a clearer head and able to carry on (carry on drinking, that is). Her analogy was a runner pushing on through the pain barrier. And, it turned out, she was right!

Dear Peter,

Either a woman of incredible constitution, or one who got slighty drunk very easily. If I drank 'through the swirlies' I'd pass out. This is over four decades speaking...

Mosr people can't even tell when I've had too much to drink, except that I become more garrulous. I've always admired the late Dr. Johnson: "A man who exposes himself while intoxicated hath not the art of getting drunk." By 'exposes himself' he did not mean, of course, 'exposes himself' in the modern sense but rather 'reveals the fact'.

Royal Navy definition of 'sober': 'able to get back on board without assistance'.

USMC definition (or so I was assured by Marines of my acquaintance in the 60s): 'able to lie on the floor without having to hold on'.

Yours soberly,

R.

 

[John Bartley]

Heck, why not go for the throat.

Well Jim,

As I used to tell my customers just after giving them the bad $$$ news ..."if you don't want the answer, don't ask the question"

I've followed your website postings here and there for some time and I like the portraits that you do best of all. Those two grizzly old lads look like lots of old boys I've known over the years. They look like the "no contracts, just handshakes" sort of fellow ...

I'll be reading to see how you make out with the "swirl" .

cheers eh?

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, that garden shot is great. Would look great printed with a light sepia tone, or perhaps printed on a warm tone paper.

Jon

 

[Bandicoot]

Dear Peter,

Either a woman of incredible constitution, or one who got slighty drunk very easily. If I drank 'through the swirlies' I'd pass out. This is over four decades speaking...

She was, the former that is - she could drink most men under the table. We were both rowing at the time, and though we seldom paired up because we both rowed stroke side, now and again we would go out in a coxless pair: she had no trouble at all keeping up, even if she rowed bow side to my usual/accustomed stroke.

I like your quotes too, all three of them


Peter

 

[Murray@uptowngallery]

Fun and interesting post. I like what Nicolai accomplished with his Diana or Holga (I forgot already) - kind of a werewolf kind of night scene mood. Also nice to have a reality check that that look doesn't work with everything.

And Roger...(can't resist), does red wine exaggerate the clouds, compared to a white?

Jim - you've accomplished the still photo equivalent of the stroboscopic video.

 

[Roger Hicks]

And Roger...(can't resist), does red wine exaggerate the clouds, compared to a white?

Hmmmm... Further research needed...

 

[lens_hacker]

The "Swirlies" are caused by astigmatism in the lens. In 35mm, it is usually found in fast optics. The Summarit and Luxon are two example lenses. The effect is most pronounced when the lens is used close-up and wide-open with a background that is close to infinity and that has lots of structure in it.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Dan, I need you to buy a bus ticket to Tonopah so I can get you in front of my camera! I can soften you up buddy.

Um, Jim, I'd been thinking of coming out to the eastern Sierras early next month but I fear that trip is off. One of my closer friends lives in Costa Rica and often summers in June Lake. He doesn't think he'll come up this year, alas. We haven't seen each other in a couple of years, so if he comes up I'll make the trip.

Anyway, I have in mind to find my way to Tonopah when I next go to June Lake. The big question is when. Bill's in his late 70s, I don't know how much longer he'll be around ...

Softening me up shouldn't be much of a problem. Stripping me and adding weight and, um, female attributes will take real camera magic, though.

Cheers,

Dan

p.s. Since you're moving backwards in time, you might find this site http://perso.orange.fr/apn/ interesting.

 

[IloveTLRs]

I have three old TLRs (hence the name): a Walzflex, a Ricohflex and a Primoflex, and all of them do that swirly bokeh thing when used at 5.6 or lower.
As has been stated before some people like it, some people don't. Personally I don't - I hate it actually, so I try to keep it at f8 or higher to avoid the effect.

I supposed you could try buying a 1950s Japanese TLR

 

[Dan Fullerton]

Jim, The flowers are too much for me, the example posted by jonw, the flowers on the chair are the most swirls without pulling my eye from the main subject. I like the portraits, I personally don't think swirls would add to them. Dan

 

[jimgalli]

This has been a fun exercise. I'm printing the portraits as we speak on Kentmere FB semi matte. Gorgeous. Perhaps my best although every time I print a new portrait I think it's my best. Thanks! FWIW the flowers seemed less swirly in a print instead of a scan.

 

[Ole]

Here's the opposite: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

That's gallopping coma, from a weird three-element cell in my old Thompson bros casket set. There are two (of five total) cells with the exact same focal length. All the others are "ordinary" Rapid Rectilinar cells, but this one has an extra lens element. I can only assume it's been done on purpose, and that it's intended as a "portrait cell".

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Making an assumption here, the portraits are focused closer than the flowers, so the cone of acceptable sharpness formed by the lens occupies a larger portion of the negative area. That's why you don't notice the swirlies as much with the portraits.

 

[light leak]

I think more swirl in the portraits may have obstructed the
neighbor's kick ass hat, and that would have been unfortunate.

 

[darinwc]

Hey Jim.. how do camera movements affect swirly bokeh?

 

[jss]

bokeh enlightenment

great thread, jim. i too would like to further undstand and control bokeh.

i recently got an old gundlach 5x8 triple convert lens and have been learning how it works. when i focus on a distance of about 15 feet, i can make out the image circle on 8x10. but when i bring the lens forward and focus to about 2-3 feet, i start getting some interesting bokeh in the fall-off around the edges. here is what i got (see attachment)--


one thing i have learned from this is that every lens has its own way of doing things and it there is a learning curve. it really does take some testing and practive to "get to know" a lens before you can really take advantage of it. in my newer lenses (nikkor 210, super angulon 90) i dont see any of this. they are very predictable.. i am learning slowly that old glass has more "soul" and personality.