Longing to be Held Again - Canon 5D with EF 35mm f/1.4 Version I shot at f/1.4 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
Introduction
I think if we look at most shooters who own a modern camera body or two, many are absolutely aiming to work with the most optically perfect lenses that they can to use on the system. (For astrophotography and most of my landscape work, this is also my priority for the most part). This however is not always required, there are other considerations such as size, weight, and what is optically appropriate for the task in hand. There are other genres where I honestly think: we are shooting people here. Why are we going for that ultra digital, super-sharp look on a face? No one wants that; people don’t want that. They don’t want to see themselves in that extreme cold, hard light of day. We might even take that thinking further; what if we consider that some lens designs may not actually align with our shooting goals. Perhaps the lens designer has made a lens to be ultra sharp, with a really flat and even plane of focus, the ability to have a sharp drop off in the focal plane to bokeh, having low distortion and no chromatic aberrations, no coma, no field curvature or astigmatism, and displays that ultra sharp look from the widest aperture and all the other things that we now consider good in an optical design. Essentially they might have taken out absolutely everything that when added up, we used to refer to as ‘character’ or ‘pleasing rendering’. Further to this, many of these things when present in an image with a myriad of other depth cues, can in my opinion aid a photograph appearing more three dimensional than perhaps a lens that was made to perform amazingly well in another area. This could resultingly trip the effect which seems to have been coined in the photography world: ‘3D Pop’. So it might be said, that stripping some of these things out of a lens and making it closer to perfect, that we might lose something in terms of how well it can convey depth in a 2D scene.
I have mentioned before on this blog that I have an affinity for older lenses on the Nikon system since using a D700 camera way back as far as 2010. Despite many on the internet who decry old lenses are outdated and therefore no use to anyone anymore, it is clear that they don’t understand how this can contribute to a picture in the look they impart onto the taken frames. Everyone is going to have their wants and needs, and we will always find people whose needs align with our own. I shoot a mixture of highly ‘optically corrected’ glass, as well as a whole bunch of lenses which are anything up to about 35 years old. My approach to portraiture; (includes weddings), in the photography of ‘stuff’ or ‘ things’ is that I prefer to use older glass over the latest prime lenses, there of course some exceptions. Call it flaws, optical imperfections, sometimes even choppy bokeh. Call it a ‘film rendering’; Call it whatever you want to call it. I happen to like it, and it all differs across lenses. If I’d have shot some of the pictures I take with old primes with my 24-70/2.8S they might likely be a little sharper (but really only properly noticeable on 100% crops), however they would have been lacking in ‘character’ which can be really impactful. These qualities, unlike ultimate image sharpness, are actually noticeable from tiny thumbnails. I have noticed that many older lenses, which are imperfect optically, can in some instances, encourage a really good 3D effect than some more modern optically ‘perfect’ ‘flat’ glass. There are also some modern designs which might be more akin to my thinking from Zeiss and Nikon in particular. This article was written by myself and another photographer friend who prefers to remain nameless, however has a great interest in shooting with lenses and using techniques that help attain a 3D effect, otherwise known in the photography community as ‘3D Pop’.
Examine this extremely good example of 3D pop here from Stm Geist:
A Stunning example of 3-Dimensionality in a 2D image (Courtesy of Stm Geist)
Consider the subject distance to the camera here, the light on the subject, the leading lines with inclusion of the ‘floor’ and a distant background to aid depth cues, the relative size of dog vs girl in the background. Notice the ultra slow and smooth focus plane transition? The subtle, ever increasing bokeh. Notice also, the spacing around the subjects to allow a sense of depth ot occur, the fact that the girl is placed between the out of focus trees behind her (a very nice touch). These are just some of the elements conveying depth in this striking scene.
The Illusion of Depth in a Photograph
All conventional photographs are of course 2D representations of 3D scenes. However, our brains can create the illusion of depth based on cues from the image. Consider the Ames Room, one of the very life-sized demonstrations of perspective which produces an optical illusion of differing size and depth. Because the room is made in a distorted way, the viewer looks through a peephole into the room and sees one person of similar size, appear much smaller than the other. This is because the distorted shape of the room physically allows one of the participants to be further from the peephole (and often lower):
The Ames Room optical illusion by user Mosso on flickr (used under CC licence)
3D Pop
3D Pop itself has been established in the world of classical art for a long time. For several centuries now artists have added subtle visual cues to their two-dimensional paintings to impart the impression of physical depth. These traditional painter's "depth cues" have included occlusion, shading gradients, perspective, and converging lines among others. Look at the headline picture in this article at the top, which in my mind, trips a very strong impression of depth by using concordance of many factors in order to do so. Here's the working principle for 3D Pop...the illusion occurs when a sufficient number of concordant depth cues in a 2D depiction trigger an illusion of three dimensions for the viewer. If the recorded depth cues are too few, too weak, or have too little concordance between themselves, then no illusion is created. So generally you want to leverage as many depth cues as you can when shooting.
We can start by reviewing the depth cues that artists have used for centuries in paintings that have been applied to modern artworks:
Don’t Fall in - Extreme 3D Street art Courtesy of Edgar Mueller
Strong 3d Effect that the eyes cannot ‘Fix’ - Extreme 3D Street art Courtesy of Edgar Mueller
Edward Mueller is a street artist that I rediscovered when writing this article. He kindly gave permission to use these fantastic pieces of art here. I wanted to include these two pictures at the start of my article as they show how powerful a strong 3D effect can actually be. So strong in fact, that the second picture looks utterly faked. Our eyes cannot reconcile that the girl is ‘floating’ on top of the canyon of ice. How come she has not fallen to her death? The brain searches for the ground, but cannot find it. She appears to be floating. We have been successfully tricked, the illusion is real.
Have a look at the following image, shot on medium format with a lens known to be able to easily produce good depth rendition. I feel it renders the scene with out of focus blur transitions that mimic my own vision in real life. Notice it is not a ‘bokeh shot’, and the background the scene is recognisable despite in slight blur. Add the traditional depth cues of converging lines (from the pathway and train) to the concordant lens-driven blur transitions and voila...strong 3D Pop is conveyed to the viewer:
Railway Man - Pentax 67 with Super Takumar 105mm F2.4 @ f/3.5 (Artist Unknown)
In photography additional depth cues are made available as imaging a subject through a lens allows the photographic artist to record unique, lens-driven depth indicators. These include control over depth of field and its resultant out of focus (OOF) blur, the actual bokeh quality of that blur, the quality of the OOF transitions, and the rendering of lens micro contrast to confer subject shape and dimensionality. There has now been the suggestion of a thing called ‘flat glass’ in both cinema and still photography. Some of these lenses could be described as scientific, ultra sharp across the entire frame, having superb control of all or most noticeable lens aberrations, little distortion or field curvature, and having smooth bokeh. Watch this fantastic 3D pop demonstration video by the hilarious Casey from Camera Conspiracies here.
It is important to realize that the illusion of 3D Pop isn't an on/off quality. It exists to varying degrees in virtually all photographs dependent on how many concordant depth cues are working together in the image to render the perception of depth. The more concordant depth cues there are, the stronger the 3D Pop. And the stronger the pop, the greater the percentage of the viewing audience the 3D illusion will be triggered in.
Some lens depth cues are recorded automatically in photography and, as such, virtually every photograph has some low-level of 3D Pop. It is important to note that 3D pop can occur in lenses older and newer. I tend to see it more in older designs as undercorrection of aberrations tends to increase the 3D effect to me. There are many factors which are lens and non lens driven that can do this.
3D Pop are two (or three), almost dirty words now in the optical community. Before a certain Photographer came along and got us all discussing this online, it was a term coined way back, commonly used in the Leica / Zeiss community to explain the three dimensional look a lens could help impart onto a scene, when the other elements such as light, composition, depth of field, leading lines, contrast, vignette, etc all came together. For Zeiss pop, from what I read it was probably more about lens contrast / micro contrast when they referred to ‘pop’. It started off being discussed in terms of lens element counts in more recent times. This was mostly debunked, however there is some evidence that more glass is impactful on the blue end of the spectrum of light; however optical designers clearly know this and for the most part have balanced it by improving coatings so that they could negate the cost of adding more lens elements into more complex optical designs. So we are almost back where we started. But are we? Are their actual reasons some lenses seem to aid a strong 3D effect over ‘flat glass’ designed in such a way to achieve a better optical perfection? Why else am I shooting with an ancient 35mm lens, when I own the latest optically perfect version? Well, sometimes it’s definitely size and weight. However, it’s more than that. I’m often choosing these lenses for their look. This is not going to be a side by side scientific A-B test. Having owned most of my lenses for a long time, I simply know all of their strengths and weaknesses. I have always stated it is important to use what you feel works for you personally. Ignore others and listen to your inner voice. I’ve never been bothered by lens aberrations for this style of shooting. I know it bothers a huge swathe of the brainwashed sharpness and noise obsessed photography community though. We can’t have mistakes in our lenses. That just cannot be!
Strong 3D Pop - (Artist Unknown)
So did we get anywhere with this 3D pop thing, after most sensible shooters conceded that this effect wasn’t really anything to do with the number of lens elements in a lens? (We know this for a fact, because there are some high element count lenses that still seem to aid a 3D effect). We of course have to concede that this effect is very scene dependant too, (no lens or light will really make a flat front facing brick wall appear 3D) as mentioned, and there are a lot of factors that help trip the illusion so that a two dimensional picture appears as 3D to the viewer. Along with others who I have known and shoot with, there are just certain lenses that tend to favour the tripping of this affect over others, and consistently so.
3D Pop is the illusion of depth in human perception. Some people can see it, others not. It can be a ‘once you see it’ type thing.
How do we get the 3D pop effect?
Lens Characteristics and Focal Length
Lenses which contribute to tripping the effect are going to be somewhere between 24-200mm on 35mm format. The reason for this range is that, super long telephotos lenses normally are not the best lenses to convey depth to a subject, and can sometimes leave a subject looking flat against a bokeh background. If we use a longer focal length lens, we must be careful to not be too close, otherwise we will just be getting bokeh if we fill the frame with most subjects. This will look less like a 3D image, and more like a green screened, stuck on subject: we don’t want that. Extreme ultra wide lenses can have the problem that they are ‘too wide’ and cannot impart enough subject isolation. Most agree prime lenses are best to get this affect. Many agree that certain lenses tend to trip the effect more than others, combined with the other factors below. Older lenses tend to have (but not always) more intrinsic distortion, which I have also found helps to trip the illusion of three dimensionality. Another large aspect of the lens’ traits is the focal plane transition. The FPT essentially wants to be extremely smooth and gradual, so that we emphasize the depth in the image, in order to help produce the best 3D pop effect in the picture. As you can understand, this is a characteristic of the lens itself, and may be a significant contributing factor of why some lenses do better than others with regards to depth perception, along with lens distortion. Another element of lens characteristics is the correction of optical aberrations in the lens itself. Things like distortion, field curvature, vignetting, coma, astigmatism, chromatic aberration, can all aid a 3D effect also, as well as how much contrast and microcontrast the lens imparts onto the scene itself. I have also found, that smooth ‘modern style’ gaussian blur bokeh can kill or subdue the 3D nature of the final picture at times. The below is a good example of this, the bokeh isn’t smooth, there is an almost mildly unsettling feel to it, which I like. Note that the focus falls off extremely smoothly and gradually into the background:
Car Pop - Nikon D700 with Kerlee 35mm f/1.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
Shallow Depth of Field
Zeiss at one time stated for many lenses they think have ‘pop’ that they have: "Brilliant optical design and a sharp transition to out of focus areas, creating a perfect distinction between the main subject and it’s environment." It's exactly the opposite we want here, (perhaps Zeiss didn’t use the right descriptor in ‘sharp’) and some of their lenses do this, as do many others outwith the Zeiss optical brand. It is noted: too sudden or sharp a transition between the focal plane and planes in front and behind said plane, produce a ‘cartoon,’ cardboard cutout 2D effect. Certainly many shooters regularly confuse 3D pop with shallow depth of field. There is some relation, but not in the way they consider it to be. Many think simply using a wide f/1.4 aperture and focusing on a subject that fills a considerable portion of the frame with bokeh behind it will suffice; but it won’t on it’s own produce a fantastic sense of depth in a photograph. What a good lens must be able to do is create a long, smooth transition from the focal plane to the background, maintaining a large microcontrast in the focus plane with a deep dropoff throughout the frame to the background. This effect can be visible even when shooting at fairly stopped down apertures. To reiterate, the effect does not and should not soley rely on depth of field, and certainly not ultra shallow depth of field; therefore, 3D pop is not necessarily related to very large apertures, or extremely shallow depth of field at all. That said, without a doubt some depth of field separation aids the effect, however more so when it is a formed in a subtle manner as stated here. As soon as we introduce a little shallowness to the depth of field, we begin to gain a separation of our subject from the background. This is why to add to the previous point, prime lenses tend to be better than zooms to introduce this effect into your pictures, from the simple fact that prime lenses tend to have access to wider apertures, and can create shallower depth of field at distance to our subjeet than most zoom lenses can. To maximise the effect though, we do not want the subject to be too far from the camera that they are tiny in the frame; we also do not want them to be too close either. So it becomes a balancing act and is about considering individual scene geometry to get the best depth. As mentioned, in most cases, we also want the background to still be recognisable in order to convey a depth to the scene and aid three dimensionality. Completely bokeh-ing (technical term) the background can in most situations, have an adverse affect on depth, since this is not how our eyes view the world, and as mentioned, the subject will look like they have been green screened into the frame in front of the background. I am sure though, that there needs to be a gradual transition, be it by focus; contrast, brightness falloff or ideally all three, because all the good images that have a 3d effect have this in common. (See the fantastic pop in the Akita shot near the start of this article). This is the one criteria that differentiates 3D from just being pop from general scene contrast. So therefore, we should consider using other apertures than just the widest that the lens is capable of, infact I emplore you to do so. Lenses which are good in conveying depth should still be able to trip the illusion (sometimes they do it better), when stopped down for the reasons discussed here.
Give your subject space around them in the scene to aid the sense of depth. If you are right up and frame filling with the subject, including zero context around them, expect little resulting convayance of depth to occur. This of course, is scene dependant so judgement on our part is always required:
Framing Up - Nikon D810 with 35mm f/2D @ f/3.5. Even stopped down we have conveyable depth and pop in this image.
So now we admit that this 3D effect is not just about shallow depth of field as is commonly thought. As you will see, flat subjects, or subjects shot with extreme telephoto lenses, will normally display a relatively flat perspective in a 2D photograph. This stands to reason why most portrait lenses are 85mm and above - it is flattering to the face. It makes the features resemble how our brains form them, flatteringly so, because it physically flattens the face features as we are not close enough to introduce perspective distortion. It's not just that we can isolate a subject with a gradual fall off in depth of field. It's that the resultant bokeh can help your eyes place each item's depth in the image. Also note how the bokeh is in most good 3D shots are not creamy smooth and in fact exhibit double edges in some places. As I said: crunchy/choppy vs. creamy bokeh, really helps the subject pop out, alongside other depth cues:
Horse in School - Nikon D850 with Nikkor 35mm f/2D prime lens with pretty good 3D pop effect
Many shooters would decry the bokeh in this shot awful. I on the other hand like it. There is almost something unsettling about it here, that gives this picture an excellent atmosphere (see the first shot in this article which demonstrates this even more). I want to be very clear here: I state this as the owner of lenses with classically smooth and perfect gaussian blur style bokeh that has no edging, no choppiness, and can deal with any background. I also state this, owning many lenses that do the complete opposite. If you don’t see the pop in the first shot of this article, well heck: no one can help you. Before you go out and buy the big bucks sharp glass with the smoothest bokeh you’ve ever seen, remember you might be giving up a good bit of pop too. That shot was taken with the Canon 35mm f/1.4L Version I. It’s generally noted that version II corrected most of what we see in that first shot, and thus, has reduced it’s 3D ability in a general sense.
Light and Subject
It should go without saying that these are big ticket items. Without some directional light striking our subject, it’s going to be pretty difficult to achieve any sense of 3d on a flat plane. Subjects which have a depth into the frame, will also be able to experience the effect more than a thin object that inherently doesn’t have a great ‘length to breadth’ depth to display.
Voigtlander Aspherical VM 40mm f1.2 (Courtesy of Vlad Andrus, Romainia)
Lens Aberrations
I believe lens aberrations can have an effect on the depth within a picture. Particular big ticket items being lens distortion, and field curvature. Under the right circumstances, these two can play together to really bring a subject out from the 2D plane. The aberrations that form around the focus plane at faster apertures and at high contrast transitions, called spherochromatism, also do so. Of course I am speaking about the dreaded longitudinal chromatic aberrations, those green and purple colours that can lurk within our images.
The Camera
Medium format and other large format sensors are ‘said’ to produce this look easier than their smaller brethren. I mostly recommend full frame cameras over smaller crop sensors, as they aid the depth of field effects possible. See here.
Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AIS @ 1.4 (Courtesy of Tri Hong)
Image Processing
There is no doubt that the edit process can create / enhance the 3D effect. Effects such that add contrast (both colour and light/dark), especially between the subject and background, dodging and burning, adding vignette (or emphasising the lenses’ natural vignette) will bolster the impression of depth in a photograph. This includes using the ‘Brenizer Method’ to create a panorama from singular images - the bokeh panorama, which can be particularly effective:
Skateboard Boy - A Bokeh Panorama using an 85mm f/1.4D lens
Visual Cues Which Build Depth in a Picture
Linear Perspective - A method of depicting three-dimensional depth on a flat or two-dimensional surface. Linear perspective has two main precepts: 1. Forms that are meant to be perceived as far away from the viewer are made smaller than those meant to be seen as close. Parallel lines receding into the distance converge at a point on the horizon line known as the vanishing point.
Atmospheric Perspective - A device for suggesting three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional surface. Forms meant to be perceived as distant from the viewer are blurred, indistinct, misty and often bluer.
Shadows emphasise dimensionality within any image.
Converging Lines - Parallel lines receding into the distance converge at a point on the horizon line known as the vanishing point.
Foreshortening – A method of portraying forms on a two-dimensional surface so that they appear to project or recede from the picture plane.
Pictorial Space - The illusory space in a painting or other work of two-dimensional art that seems to recede backward into depth from the picture plane, giving the illusion of distance.
Overlap Effects - Spatial relationships are achieved by placing one object in front of another. The object closest to the viewer blocks out the view of any part of any other object located behind it (or, where the two objects overlap, the one in back is obscured).
Relative Size - Objects appear smaller as their distance from the viewer increases.
Relative Position - We view nature from our own eye level. Objects in the foreground appear lower and distant objects appear higher relative to the imaginary line created by our level of sight.
Chiaroscuro - rendering of forms through a balanced contrast between light and dark areas. Effective in creating an illusion of depth and space around the principal figures in a composition.
Sfumato - From the Italian work for “smoke,” a technique of painting in thin glazes to achieve a hazy, cloudy atmosphere, often to represent objects or landscape meant to be perceived as distant from the picture plane.
Trompe-l’oeil - A French term meaning "deception of the eye." A painting or other work of two-dimensional art rendered in such a photographically realistic manner as to ‘trick’ the viewer into thinking it is three-dimensional reality.
Native Indian hand-woven basket in 3D, Nikon D700 with Kerlee 35mm f/1.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
But We Can’t Have Mistakes In Our Lenses?
Somewhere along the line, with computer aided optical design, engineers became able to run through many iterations of a lens design based on the parameters they wanted. It is no doubt that modern lens design is faster, more efficient, and offers more options in this vein. As larger megapixel counts and sensor densities came along, the general photography community has been in out-cry about any optical defects they can find. ‘There is a bit of green or purple near those areas of high contrasts!’ (I’m crying). ‘Wait, does that bokeh have slight outlining, good heaven’s, that simply will not do!’ ‘This lens isn’t even sharp when I pixel peep at 400%!’
I’d think to think optical engineers did what they did in isolation from the general chit chat on photography forums. They wanted to exploit all that sharpness, all that correction right into the corners, to be able to use lenses wide open, or just one stop down and get those corners really useable. Occam’s Razor suggests this is how it went, and with modern design they are certainly able to fix the lenses of old. Lenses like this have absolutely come about because of the push for high megapixel sensors alongside the abilities of modern lens design which did not exist 30 years ago, which in a way is market driven because the photography community has not had much advancement in 10 years to actually sell it’s products. Mirrorless and more megapixels is about our lot, most of the time, because I like many, do not see huge innovations, not really. This in part will be due to the revenue and investment available in these photographic items. This said, in making these lenses available, we absolutely gained tools suitable for certain applications, such as astrophotography and landscape photography. (Consider for example, just how good the Tamron 35mm f/1.4 is for astrophotography work. It is utterly class leading and without comparison. On starfields, it has no aberrations other than some light chromatic aberration. Stars stay as little points right into the absolute corners of the image - this is huge boon for an astrophotographer, and is an obvious lens to acquire for this genre if one is serious about their craft). I therefore, cannot at all mourn that many modern lenses are very corrected and very sharp etc because I directly benefit from them; this is not what this article is about. But do we really want this for all aspects of our photography, especially for genres such as portraiture? Because I see this look creeping into these lenses now, even if many manufacturers tell us they have been designed with an artistic vision also. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bride ask for more megapixels on her face. No bride has ever asked for more resolution to see the layers of makeup that have been applied, or any facial wrinkles that she did not manage to hide beneath it. No, most of the time we are wanting the opposite, at least in my opinion. The ‘glowly’ look beats this ultra sharp, ultra digital look to me every time. It just so happens that lenses designed for film interact with digital sensors in such a way we get some quite interesting properties from them. Aside from all this optical engineering perfection we have seen, in my opinion, we both gained and lost something at the same time. For me, it is really boring to shoot with lenses that have no character when I am shooting portraits / things / stuff, at least to me. Even when we look at lenses where the designer has had clear intent to keep this ‘artistic’ side of the lens intact, for example the 50mm f/1.2S or the 85mm f/1.2S, they just appear a little too clinical to my eyes. I can completely appreciate what they have tried to do with these, however they leave me completely cold. I know this is a polarising view, however I can generally detect which lens I’ve shot with by examining the picture. For what I shoot, I’d still prefer the 85mm f/1.4D over someone gifting me a 85/1.2 or 135 plena. I’m serious. Some people just want clinical, sterile: an exact reproduction of what was there. However, in fixing all these flaws, improving the distortion, taking out all the aberrations, the scene has changed, and for some genres, not for the better, infact it just wastes even more time at the post processing stage trying to blur all this overdone detail away, and we cannot replicate the little flaws in our old lenses in post easily either. How lucky we are to still be able to use all this old glass for the pictures we wish to create. In a lot of ways, we have never lived in a time with more choice.
Voigtlander Aspherical VM 40mm f1.2 (Courtesy of Vlad Andrus, Romainia)
Some Tips
Try not to use these photography depth cues in isolation. Instead stack them on top of the compositional depth cues like converging lines, etc. There's a good reason why shooting a model on train tracks has become a cliché...the converging lines add depth.
Generally I recommend shooting 3D Pop with the largest sensor format and fastest lenses that you have available to you. This is mainly to have more DOF control at good subject distances. Personally I rely on fast primes in the 24-200mm range. The lens should have a slow focal plane drop off at the transition, which modest focal lengths and faster lenses do better for the most part.
You also want to consider lenses that have a rougher bokeh quality to them as rough bokeh mimics what our eyes see naturally. It takes us away from the brain recognising optical effects to something that feels a bit more real. Contrary to conventional wisdom, smooth bokeh actually looks fake to our brains which erodes the 3D Pop illusion.
Lastly, shoot 3D subjects where the eye can follow the blur transition from the sharp foreground to the slightly OOF back. The best 3D lenses and sensors still can't turn a brick wall into 3D Pop. Experiment with your scene geometry to fine tune the depth of field. Different focal lengths require the camera to be nearer or further away from the subject in order to achieve the right amount of depth of field. Also, include the ground in the shot. It serves as the contextual floor of your 3D photo. Ideally leave a good distance to the background behind your subject too:
Twisted in Knots - Canon 5D with EF 35mm f/1.4 Version I shot at f/3.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
Which Lenses have 3D Pop?
Here is a list of some lenses that are known to help produce the effect -
Nikon 24mm 1.4G, Nikon 24mm f/2.8D, Nikon 35mm f/2D, Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AIS, Nikon 50mm f/1.4D, Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AIS, 58mm f/1.2 Noct AIS, Nikon 60mm f/2.8D Micro, Nikon 85mm f/1.4D, Nikon 85mm f/1.8D, Nikon 135mm f/2D, Nikon 105 f/2D, Nikon 180 f/2.8D, Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 Nokton, Voigtlander 35mm f/2 APO Lanthar, Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO Lanthar, Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II N, Kerlee 35mm f/1.2, Canon 24mm f/1.4, Canon 85mm f/1.2 EF, Zeiss 35mm f/2.8, Zeiss 55mm f/1.8, Zeiss 40mm f/2 Batis, Zeiss 100mm f/2 planar
Tip: Lenses that help trip a 3D effect in the viewer should be able to do so stopped down. Many think that certain lenses loose their pop as soon as they are moved from maximum aperture. This should not be the case in the ideal lens. You can see my gear list for lenses I regularly use, and not just for conveying depth and the like, for other genres of photography too. There are apparently some modern lenses in the Nikon Z system which aid a 3D pop effect - the new Nikon 35mm f/1.4S and 50mm f/1.4S. If anyone us using these and can shoot some demonstrative scenes, please get in touch because I will be interested to see more. Kudos to Nikon for giving people options in this vein. Zeiss are certainly still able to achieve this in some modern designs as are other manufacturers like Voigtlander.
“Obviously there are degrees of separation, some of which may, for whatever reason, be close to extreme. But there is also the perplexing question of why some people appear to disagree on how much separation a given image has / or how 3D it is. That's very odd to me.”
Don’t see it sometimes, or any of the time? That's the observer dependency part of this phenomena. The more concordant depth cues that there are, the more powerful the 3D Pop effect becomes and the more people will agree that the illusion is tripped in them. If a photo has just a few depth cues, expect that it will still trigger the illusion in a few people but not many.
Some might say, ‘Who cares? Why do we need that in our pictures? I just want the picture to be sharp in in focus.’ Well, that’s a personal choice. You have your point. There is character vs perfection, and everything in between. I say perfection; no optical perfection has been reached really (what even is that), but compared to old lenses, relatively speaking it has. Don’t see it, don’t care? Fine, enjoy your life taking pictures however you want to, nobody is going to stop you, let alone me. However, once you see it, you will forever grade it in all the images that you take. I will admit I am no expert in this style of photography, (it doesn’t apply for me, in certain genres however I am enjoying experimenting) however I see 3D pop qualities immediately when it is strong in an image and the illusion easily trips for me. Once you start seeing like this, you will want your subjects to be like this where possible. Just remember that only part of it will be your choice of lens. It will also be your skill in how you use that lens too, adding in as many of the concordant depth effects that you can. You may not agree; and that’s fine. As I always say, life is short and you should simply shoot with what makes you happy. I use a mixture of ultra modern and vintage lenses with an enormous sense of satisfaction regularly.
(Continued Below:)
Cafe - Voigtlander NOKTON 50mm F1.2 Aspherical (Courtesy of Werner Wurst)
Serene - Nikon D700 with Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II N @ f/2.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
Doggie Paddle - Nikon D810 with 35mm f/2D nikkor
One Way Out - Nikon D700 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S @ f/2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)
Reasons I Use Certain Lenses For Specific Projects
Travelling Small and Light
Sometimes I just want to travel ultra light and not take large and obtrusive lenses along for the ride. This means I am sometimes selecting a lens that is smaller, just for that reason alone. It’s often more than this though; I like the old school look for some of my shooting, that’s just the way I am. I also notice when something improves and other qualities degrade, a subjective matter of course. This leads me to physically use a multitude of different lenses, and to own several lenses which are the same focal length.
Sunstars
As a sunstar connoisseur, I have to drop this one in here. I don’t know which photography community you belong to; perhaps you shoot with multiple camera systems and enjoy the challenge of switching gear. I simply have to state that Nikon in particular have modern lenses which are fairly terrible for this. Just a generalised weak performance over the entire board for the most part, which require too much stopping down to achieve because so many lenses have been designed for bokeh priority now, thus they have lost their straight blades which best created this effect. There are some lenses which approach having a tolerable sunstar, the problem being is it exists at f/22 so I have to blend it into the final shot. Take the Nikon 14-24/2.8S, which can produce a nice enough sunstar, but only when shot at f/22. Now let’s look at some oldies that are better across the range, and produce the effect much quicker, and in a more pleasing way:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8D sunstars at f/5.6 - the pinnacle of how I like a lens to reproduce a scene like this
The 50mm f/1.8D (and 1.4D) produce sublime 14 point sunstars from about f/5.6 onwards. These lenses are bitingly sharp corner to corner from this aperture as well, making them very useable for scenes such as these. I very rarely shoot above f/8 with them.
Nikon 35mm f/2D sunstars
The 35mm f/2D produces excellent sunstars like the old film Nikon 50mm lenses do as shown above. Unlike the 50 design which is simple and easy to craft optically, as we move into wider focal length lenses you are not going to get as much sharpness into the deep corners as you can with a modern lens, even stopped down sometimes. So bear this in mind; the smaller sized wide focal lengthed AF-D prime lenses in particular are a bit of a compromise for size and weight vs ultimate corner optical quality. Realistically though, stopped down they are more than sharp enough. For me, overall look trumps something such as this, for most applications bar astro; if I need to travel light and have access to these traits I’ll simply grab the lens. This looks great as a large print for a company based in Greenock, Scotland who wanted a dusk scene of Greenock - Gourock at night on the west coast of Scotland.
The Film Look
Oh yes, we can achieve this easily. If shooting Nikon, grab a 24/35/50/85 combo of all primes (I highly recommend the 85mm f/1.4D or the smaller 1.8D) and you have it, out of the box. I love this, I use this and never tire of it. The way a lens renders a scene is huge to many. It’s why sometimes we don’t want an optically perfect specimen. We want the one with some glow, some warts, some imperfections that draw on the image. The colour tones that old lenses produce can also be very interesting. This leads me onto:
Flare and Halation
Lens flare can show up in many ways in an image. Mostly it has been controlled via modern optical design, sometimes astoundingly so! However there are times when I want flare, and the flare of old lenses has a unique characteristic. I know my lenses well in this regard, having shot them in all lights over the years. I just grab what I need and go. Halation occurs when bright points of light bleed outwardly causing a glow effect. I love this subtle, yet beautiful effect found in many old prime lenses.
Spherical Aberration and Dialed Back Lens Sharpness Wide Open
Wide open, many older designs have quite crazy glow when shot at or close to their maximum aperture. Try the 50mm f/1.4D and you’ll see what I mean. I have long since loved this particular lens, I have access to a dual personality with it too. Lens sharpness varies across the prime lenses I own, so it becomes a case of ‘what am I shooting today’ and ‘what focal length and style of lens rendering will I want for that’. All the lenses I own are sharp enough for portraits. When I talk about dialed back sharpness, I am speaking about lenses which aren’t ultra sharp compared to modern lenses from maximum aperture, and do not have enough lens elements to come close to achieving this.
Lenses that are more ‘Artistic’ than ‘Scientific’
Obviously your mileage is going to vary here. It really depends on what you are shooting at the end of the day. I really wish I could simplify my kit and not have so many lenses for specific things. In an odd way I wish I could be happy with the clinical rendering of my ultra sharp lenses that I do own for everything. Let me restate my main talking point here…I believe some lenses, with certain characteristics help trip the 3D illusion in the viewer easier than plain, sharp, clinical glass. I do not attribute this to lens element counts, voodoo, magic; however I do attribute the 3D nature of an image to the optical properties of the lens, the subject, the light, the scene geometry…you get the idea by now, maybe…however I do feel that many lenses around today have been designed to achieve good scores in lens tests and on charts.
I am thankful I have access to be able to use a great mixture of lenses, for whatever look I am going for. You should employ the same thought to what you shoot. Use what you enjoy using, and what works for you for the results you want to achieve. I never advise people to merely copy me. A shooter should discover their passion and develop their own voice and style over many years, employing the right tools to seek that vision.
If you have a photograph that you think is a strong example of 3D pop please get in touch and if good, I’ll consider adding it to this article.
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Further Reading
3D Pop video demonstration-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqJhV_mcVw&t=180s
The effects of blue wavelengths of light with regards to lens elements-
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59216229
‘Flat Glass’ in Cinematography-
https://www.filmmakersacademy.com/leica-summilux-c-cooke-s4/
