Nick Brandt: lens selection?

I've been wondering the same thing. In the Lenswork magazine interview he said that all effects were done in camera, and not in Adobe PS. Some of the photos appear to have some wild DOF like I've only ever been able to achieve using a view camera. I shoot a lot of shallow DOF portraits with my Pentax 67II, and typical lenses, and I can't get effects like he's getting.

My guess is he used P67 120mm soft focus lens. See one shot of mine using the soft focus lens.

Hmmmm...Dave, can you show shots with the 120mm soft-focus with a lion sized subject 10-20-30 ft. away? I don't think Nick Brandt can get as close as you did with your flower without being eaten/gored.

With a 2x telconverter you don't need to be very close. He might have shot from a car/SUV which could bring him much closer to the animals. I won't think he was on foot to take these shots. The reason I guessed 120mm soft focus is because of the bokeh pattern shown in his photos. His images showed a softer trend and bokeh of that of soft focus lenses. If he used regular telephoto lens you probably would not have asked the question. I could be wrong. There are only a handful of P67 lenses longer than 200mm. Which one do you think he has used? I am familar to the kind of softness of the elephant image you posted. Images produced by my 120mm were all like that except I do not shoot animals. Invest in one or rent one to shoot some images you will see what I mean.

He might have used a soft focus filter (adapter) for a similar result. B&W Carl Zeiss Softar is made for this soft focus effect.

Interesting...However, the reason I know Nick was on foot and used a so-called "normal" lens is because, in the Lenswork article, that's what he said how he works. Thanks for the info anyway, Dave.

As a side note, I hope Nick has some sort of protection (gun? posse?) so he doesn't get gored like Peter Beard did (by an elephant). Ouch.

In the photo of the elephants above it looks like the plane of focus starts at the top of the front elephant's trunk, and extends back and downwards. I know how to do that with a view camera, but I am baffled at how he does it with a P67. Possibly it would be clearer if I saw an actual print instead of low res web photos, and small magazine photos.

David:

Thanks for calling attention to Brandt�s photography; I find them quite remarkable, in particular the arrangement of the subjects in many of the shots is perfect, e.g. Cheetah and Cubs, Sitting Lionesses, Elephant Herd, etc., etc. It�s as if they were carefully arranged and posed. The perspectives in many of his photographs have a slight compression (to my eye) and so my own nominee for a lens used might be the 300mm ED(IF) or the 200mm. Both are excellent portrait lenses and not really far from �normal� in the 67 format. The 300 in particular is very sharp wide open, but with a very shallow depth-of-field (especially with close focus) and a beautiful bokeh. There appears to be more than just a lens involved however. If the vignetting in his work is not added, then certainly some filter is used which has an irregular soft focus around the cirumference. Vaseline perhaps? However he does it, they are beautiful.

Tom

With the Elephants, it's almost as if he is hand holding a soft edge filter in front of the lens and moving it to sharpen what he wants, so your eye is directed toward the mother and small baby. My guess.