Bokeh Dreams: Mamiya-Sekor C 80/1.9

revdocjim · Sep 27, 2011

I got this lens a while ago in very rough condition (scratch on the front element) for an irresistibly attractive price. Today I finally took it out for a walk. Recently in (there was a url link here which no longer exists) I read that the bokeh is not very good, and saw at least one example that was definitely nasty.

So today I shot everything in duplicate at f/1.9 and f/2.8, thinking a bit of stopping down might help. To my relief the results looked reasonably good at either aperture. The samples shown below were all f/1.9

On this last one something obviously went wrong in the developing process. Almost looks like something was stuck to the negative but I didn't notice anything. Can anyone help me figure out what happened?

werra · Sep 27, 2011

re: last image

I'd vote for film being crooked on the spiral and not getting developed. Fixer cleared the undeveloped part.

hnrh2 · Sep 27, 2011

If, fixer cleared the undevelopped part it would be dark since it is a negative. I would say some light did hit the negative in a very bizare way: from top or bottom of the roll.

fmajor · Sep 27, 2011

Looks like bokeh is *not* a problem w/your lenses! Good to see some dyxum Folks here too!

F/1.4 · Sep 27, 2011

I'd love to get that lens for my 645AF, but my eyesight is awful and I have a hard enough time with the 80 f/2.8 on it anyway. It blows my mind why medium format cameras like the Hasselblad's or Mamiya/Phase One's, or even the Contax 645 have the AF of a 35mm SLR from the 80's... It really is abysmal the AF on the 645 AFD...

That 80mm f/1.9 sure is beautiful, i'd love to see some full body portraits with it wide open.

revdocjim · Sep 27, 2011

Thanks for the comments. I'm confused now about the defect, but I think werra has it right because if light hits a negative that part becomes dark after development, not clear. The leader and tail of the film are completely clear after development and they are never exposed to light with 120 film. So, either there was some piece of paper or something that was stuck to the film when it ran through the camera, preventing the light from hitting the film, or there was something stuck to the film during development, preventing the developer from hitting that section of the film but then it came off by the time I got to the fixer stage.

This was the second to the last frame on the role. If it were improperly loaded onto the reel (which is very possible as I'm still really struggling with that step) you would think there would be a corresponding spot on another frame... I don't think it can be a light leak because the outlines are so sharply defined.

As for the lens, I do look forward to using it more!

vpwphoto · Sep 27, 2011

@hrnh2 Light doesn't do bizare things... It's just pinched/film sticking in development reel/tank... Iv'e seen it before and will see it again, no need to conspire about new properties of light.

@Op.. you don't see corresponding spot because the emulsion was touching the un-coated side of the film of the frame it was stuck too. Very occasionally, you will see a milky spot, that if re-fixed promptly will yield an image, because the film buckled after development and was not fixed. In most cases you get what you have... undeveloped film that is rendered clear by the fixer.

Travis Nunn · Sep 27, 2011

Regarding the lens.....I have the 80/1.9 and I've never thought it was anything other than a stellar lens. I have had the 80/2.8 and that was a very good lens, too. If I hadn't decided to take my 2.8 swimming one day....ahem.....I wouldn't have paid the difference in upgrading. I haven't looked at prices for this lens in at least 2 years, they're going for almost double what I paid only a few years ago

revdocjim · Sep 27, 2011

Thanks vpwphoto. Your explanation makes perfect sense. I just need to get better at loading my film onto the reel!

As for the lens, I have this 1.9, the 2.8 and also the 80/4 macro so I need to get out and use them more! Now that I'm developing my own film I think I'll be using this and several other cameras a lot more!

hnrh2 · Sep 28, 2011

I agree with the fact that undevelopped/unexposed should be rendered clear on the negative. But on the print this clear part of the negative should be rendered black. Can someone explain me why this is not the case here.

ruilourosa · Sep 28, 2011

well... i´ve seen a lot better bokeh... in medium format.

revdocjim · Sep 28, 2011

hnrh2 said:
I agree with the fact that undevelopped/unexposed should be rendered clear on the negative. But on the print this clear part of the negative should be rendered black. Can someone explain me why this is not the case here.

It's black on the negative. Now you have me confused again...

revdocjim · Sep 28, 2011

ruilourosa said:
well... i´ve seen a lot better bokeh... in medium format.

Oh, I don't doubt that for a minute. I was only checking to see if there were any obvious problems with the bokeh, since I had seen some other examples that were really bad. But in that sense I concluded that there were no obvious problems that couldn't be corrected with a little more care in composition and use of light etc.

TheFlyingCamera · Sep 28, 2011

What's going on with the film is that something stuck to it during processing, preventing both the developer and fixer from getting to that spot. The film itself probably has a milky green-blue-beige-ish tint to it in the spot and is absolutely dense. It's what's known in professional circles as a processing fuck-up. Happens to the best of us even when we THINK we're being careful. I had this happen to me the other day when I loaded two sheets of 5x7 into the same tube of my Jobo drum by accident. Wherever the film stuck to each other, you had this godawful splotch that looked like an industrial waste spill.

MattKing · Sep 28, 2011

The opaque area is essentially unprocessed film - none of the liquid (developer, stop or fix) was able to get to it because the emulsion was covered by the film that stuck to it. If it hadn't been exposed to light, one could put it through the processing steps again, after which the original exposure would be revealed in negative form.

As it has been exposed to light, putting it through all the processing steps would result in that opaque section being rendered as an absolutely black negative. If the film was merely fixed and washed again, the opaque section would be rendered entirely clear.

If the OP wants to keep the rest of the negative, it would be best to at least re-fix and wash the negative, because having both developed and undeveloped sections on a negative isn't good for longevity.

NJS · Sep 28, 2011

revdocjim said:
I was only checking to see if there were any obvious problems with the bokeh, since I had seen some other examples that were really bad.

My guessing is that you might be referring to few examples I've posted recently in other thread on APUG... To be honest those were quite extreme examples (or was it just one), if you take a careful look at my flickr stream taken with 80/1.9 you might notice much more examples that would make you just a little bit more of a proud owner.
Now, 6x4.5 format was the main downside for me with this lens, it's nice but somehow limiting format for composing and also the difference in details it gives in prints compared to 35mm film is the same as the difference between 6x7 prints compared to 6x4.5 - HUGE!

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

@op and all..
Booka .... is in the eye of the beholder. I DO NOT LIke the Pentagon shaped highlight cirlces rendered by this lens stopped down a bit or my Hasselblad 80mm and 150mm those five blade apertures are "nasty"... that is why I use them wide open when it matters.

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

Why isn't bookha in my old photo-books..??
Ansel Adams.. didn't concern himself with it... although he loved the range of f64 and beyond.

brucemuir · Sep 28, 2011

vpwphoto said:
@op and all..
Booka .... is in the eye of the beholder. I DO NOT LIke the Pentagon shaped highlight cirlces rendered by this lens stopped down a bit or my Hasselblad 80mm and 150mm those five blade apertures are "nasty"... that is why I use them wide open when it matters.

Exactly. I have the 5 bladed 'blad lenses as well as the mamiya 80 1.9.
You need to watch your backgrounds... more so with the 80 1.9 but specular highlights can rear their head with the Zeiss glass.

This can happen with a lot of great lenses you just need to be aware of their strengths but the weaknesses are just as important.

revdocjim · Sep 28, 2011

Thanks to TheFlyingCamera and MattKing for the good explanation about the developing mess-up. Hopefully I'll get better at this as we go. For what it's worth, after scanning that negative I tried using CS5's content aware fill tool but it wasn't smart enough to figure it out...

As for comments about "booka" and "bookha", I don't think either of those words have ever appeared in any photography book. For the record, it's "bokeh" and it comes from the Japanese word 惚け which means to be blurred (optically, figuratively, or mentally). It is pronounced "bo" as in "botox" and "keh" as in "kept". But surely the question about Ansel Adams and bokeh is asked so often that it has practically become rhetorical. His approach was to try to push the lens as far as possible in an attempt to replicate what the human eye sees. But over time others decided to embrace the inherent limitations of camera lenses and make it a strength. Its an area of photography that interests some and not others... Oh well.

But as has been pointed out, at these larger apertures watching the background really is crucial and if the photos in this thread had been intended to be artistic I would have tried a little harder. But my intent was to just show a wide range from front OOF to in-focus to back OOF.

Thanks for all the comments!

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

Get out ... I thought I was cutting edge throwing Ansel into this...
PS I have been into Booka before it was coined! I'm old as dirt now... some kid asked me last week "why would you ever shoot film'... I told him that digital wasn't invented yet (speaking about work that is still not 10 years old).

revdocjim · Sep 28, 2011

vpwphoto said:
I told him that digital wasn't invented yet (speaking about work that is still not 10 years old).

Bokeh Dreams: Mamiya-Sekor C 80/1.9

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