I saw this website posted on the LUG. It is quite long, picture after picture, but it is a good lesson in Bokeh. Many of the photos would not win any awards for sharpness, but the overall effect readily demonstates the "Leica look".

If you place the curser over the photo, the technical specs will be displayed. For the Leica mostly Noctilux and an old Summarit, with a couple of 35mm Summicron shots thrown in. There are a few Nikon shots also... but even as a Nikon user, I would have to say my preference leans towards the Leica shots with the fast fifties.

http://www.deepturtle.com/steve/photos/pod/index.html

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), January 23, 2001

Answers

I enjoyed looking at it (for a while), but there definitely ain't a single HC-B in the lot. I see no point in naming the lens used, unless the aperture is indicated. But anyhow, thanks for showing it. Mitch

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), January 23, 2001.

Interesting site specialy if you are looking to see how this lenses work wide open (most of it seems wide open).Altough I agree there isnīt much to see but two or three good pictures. Is there a reason why I like the out of focus in front of the point of focus more than behind the point of focus? For example the picture of the two guys in suit aproaching the big poster of ladies in a wall; I liked it; hope you can find it among the tons of pictures.

-- Robert Watson (mawago@prodigy.net.mx), January 23, 2001.

I thought some of the Leica shots were as sharp as any of the Nikon shots. I was impressed with the performance of the Summarit for sharpness & contrast, for a lens that's supposed to be outdated. The highest quality though, seemed to occur in one Noctilux shot, with very good sharp eyes even though in the shadow.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), January 24, 2001.

Actually, I thought the pictures were mostly pretty good looking at the "London" series. If you've been there, these pictures strongly convey a sense of the inhabitants and somehow, the mood of the place today... Just IMHO :-)

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), January 24, 2001.

I liked some of the shots. However, I find that many of the out-of- focus scenes are rather extreme, in being out of focus.

I just got back some slides of the Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California (1 hour east of San Diego). One shot, of a yucca plant (very much like an agave) came out nicely: the central stock (where the flowers are) of this yucca plant was quiet unusual: it grew in a serpentine fashion- several regular "S" curves. I recall focussing on it carefully and shooting as wide an aperture as I could, to make it stand out from the brillant background, which was cloudless and clear. I don't recall the exposure, but, on my Hexar with Provia 100F, it must've been just f11, possibly f8. Low morning sun at my back.

The background is ever so slightly out of focus that the subject stands out clearly. It looks like everything's clear, sharp, but there is something about the background that allows the subject to come off it, the way your eye-brain system sees it.

That, I think, is great bokeh.

-- Tse-Sung Wu (tsesung@yahoo.com), January 24, 2001.

I quite liked it, and I liked the shallow focus. Most photos of people walking away from the camera do not work in my opinion (although I can of course think of exceptions), and it is also important to think of why the image of any particular face is interesting. I am not convinced that a grab shot of, say, the person in the pub is really saying anything, for example. One can make a fetish of "street photography", but your shots still have to say something to the viewer either via expression, composition or interesting juxtapositions. Certainly HCB they are not, but then no doubt HCB took many "non-HCB" shots too.

Of course, in terms of sharpness at 72dpi one cannot really say anything very meaningful about the real sharpness of these shots - you would need a print for that.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), January 25, 2001.

I think Tse-Sung Wu Nailed it- great bokeh is hard to define, and certainly different lenses do this differently. I am in love with the Nikon 85/1.8 because varied positions and aperture setting give me and incredible amount of control over my bokeh. I feel that an SLR would be better for previewing, but I sure would love an M series with any 50mm.

-- Mike DeVoe (cameraservice@gci.net), February 02, 2001.

Oops- I mean "varied positions and aperture setting give me and incredible amount of control over the areas of focus(or lack thereof)." Bokeh is inherent to the lens, but it's effect varies greatly depending on the focus method(traditional helical extension or Internal Focus), focal length, distance, number of blades, and probably some other factors I'm not aware of.

-- Mike DeVoe (cameraservice@gci.net), February 02, 2001.