RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Home · Register · Search · Software · Hosting · Software · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

Pre-order new Rokinon 16mm f/2.0 ED AS UMC lens

Pre-order new Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM lens

Bower 35mm f/1.4 price dropped to $379

FM Forums \| Alternative Gear & Lenses \| Join Upload & Sell
1 2 3 4 5 6 end

RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Toothwalker
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #1 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

carstenw wrote:
-10, pah. Once I went to university in Waterloo, Ontario in -50 effective

Apples and oranges. What did the thermometer say?

Jan 18, 2013 at 07:34 PM

Makten
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #2 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

CVickery wrote:
I went to the UofW as well....Carsten's not kidding

I believe you!

I just laughed at the "uphill both ways" ending and thought about Monty Pyton and the shoebox scene if you know what I mean.

Actually the climat here in middle Sweden is really nice. Usually around 20°C in the summer with peaks up above 30, and few minus in the winter. I think the worst cold we've had in Stockholm during my life (I'm 33) was -28°C or so. I must say I like -20°C better than 0°C, because the humidity drops and you probably know that it's much easier to keep warm then.

What I don't like is the terrible darkness. The sun sets around 3 PM at christmas which makes working days a real pain. You just don't see daylight at all if you're not outside, except for during weekends.

-----------

Enough OT! I feel a bit better now and I'll make an attempt to take a few images at larger distance. Unfortunately (?) I can't get the background very far away from the subject at home, but perhaps that will instead reveal the possible 3D qualities of the lenses.

Jan 18, 2013 at 07:40 PM

trale
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #3 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Thanks Makten for doing this comparison! especially while sick =P

Hope you get to 100% well soon.

Jan 18, 2013 at 09:34 PM

Dudewithoutape
Online
• • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.3 #4 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Makten wrote:
Alright, I tried a little comparison between the RX1 and D700 with ZF 35/1.4 @ f/2. This is not very scientific and you have to take it for what it is, namely the effort I could possibly put into it while having a fever.

Both are shot at 1/80, ISO 200 on a tripod and developed identically in ACR. Which tells quite a lot about the sensors!

Thanks for this comparison while having a fever! I have a question though. When you say "developed identically", do you mean you developed one and then applied the exact same settings to the other? Or did you develop them separately to look identical? I would imagine it is the former and that is why they look different even when exposed the same settings. And if it is the former, can you develop for the D700 and apply those settings to the RX1 and see how that looks?

Jan 18, 2013 at 09:46 PM

OntheRez
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.3 #5 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Totally off topic (which was cold and uphill both ways

, but I'm fascinated to note that dish soap in Sweden and the USA are exactly the same color. How do you suppose green got equated with clean?

Robert

Jan 18, 2013 at 10:09 PM

Makten
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #6 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Dudewithoutape wrote:
Thanks for this comparison while having a fever! I have a question though. When you say "developed identically", do you mean you developed one and then applied the exact same settings to the other? Or did you develop them separately to look identical? I would imagine it is the former and that is why they look different even when exposed the same settings. And if it is the former, can you develop for the D700 and apply those settings to the RX1 and see how that looks?

Yes, the former way is how I did it. The thing is, that the highlights of the D700 shot is totally blown. But of course I could push the RX1 file to the same level and get better similarity.

Again; if you know where I could upload the original raw files, just let me know and you can then cook them as you want.

Jan 18, 2013 at 10:11 PM

Makten
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #7 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

OntheRez wrote:
Totally off topic (which was cold and uphill both ways

, but I'm fascinated to note that dish soap in Sweden and the USA are exactly the same color. How do you suppose green got equated with clean?

Robert

I think it could have something to do with what soap was back in the days! You know, the word "såpa" (pronounced something like "saupa") in swedish doesn't mean "soap", but rather the fluid we had before someone invented the solid soap.

"Tallsåpa" (liquid soap from pine tree) is actually green, and could be the origin of the color of modern dish soap.

Jan 18, 2013 at 10:19 PM

Mescalamba
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #8 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

RX1 reminds me bit of DP2M, nicely matched lens to sensor. Would surely get one, if I could..

Bokeh seems very nice to me. Tho I kinda expected bit more "blurry" at longer distances. Maybe has something to do with being not "true" 35mm?

Jan 18, 2013 at 10:29 PM

carstenw
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #9 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Toothwalker wrote:
carstenw wrote:
-10, pah. Once I went to university in Waterloo, Ontario in -50 effective

Apples and oranges. What did the thermometer say?

-42 IIRC. There wasn't much wind, just a touch, thankfully.

Jan 18, 2013 at 11:22 PM

wayne seltzer
Online
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.3 #10 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Yes, I meant to say undercorrected SA which is similar to Softar filter affect. This is all mentioned in the Zeiss white paper on bokeh which came out when ZF35/1.4 was released. The ZF 35/1.4 has a soft veiling haze when dhot wide open which can be removed with sharpening.
The lens also doesn't focus the rgb colors in the same plane. You can align a bunch of different colored crayons with their ends the same distance from the lens and if you focus on one crayons end, other crayons ends will be slightly out of focus. This makes focusing of neutral color objects more difficult.
The Sony 35/1.4G also has this undercorrected SA influenced bokeh wide open. Its like putting a softar filter on the lens,that is why the pitcher is blurred more.
Read the zeiss white paper on bokeh and it explains this.

Makten wrote:
wayne seltzer wrote:

The ZF 35/1.4 renders the metal pitcher with more blur due to its uncorrected SA design (like Softar filter). Soft beauty portrait type bokeh. The RX1 imho renders bokeh more like C/Y 35/1.4 except the transition from in focus to OOF is much slower and smoother. RX1 sharpness across the frame is excellent even WO. The RX1 has non-round bokeh circles (cat's eyes) due to ratio of entrance pupil to exit pupil and maybe short distance from last element to sensor. And ZF 35/1.4 with uncorrected SA should have onion type bokeh circles where the luminosity across the bokeh circle is not uniform.

This doesn't make sense.

#1: Of course there are no lenses "uncorrected" for SA, since they would be completely useless.
#2: The ZF 35/1.4 is very sharp wide open.
#3: If you look at the blur in the middle, its very much the same in relation to the magnification of both lenses.
#4: The ZF 35/1.4 actually has a harder edge to the blur discs, which means overcorrected for SA compared to the Sonnar.

Mechanical vignetting (cats eye effect) will make DOF larger in the corners, which is exactly what I said in my last post.

Jan 18, 2013 at 11:43 PM

wayne seltzer
Online
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.3 #11 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

The behavior of slightly undercorrected SA lenses is described and shown on pgs 35-42

of http://www.zeiss.com/C12567A8003B8B6F/EmbedTitelIntern/CLN_35_Bokeh_EN/$File/CLN35_Bokeh_en.pdf

Jan 19, 2013 at 02:03 AM

HelenaN
Online
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #12 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Thank you for doing this Makten! I sold my ZE 35/1.4 a couple of days ago and for some reason I never got around to making a proper comparison. Whenever I have sold a good lens I get some seller's remorse, but it usually passes in a few days. Hope it will this time too. It's silly to even feel like this because I rarely used the lens while I had it...

Mescalamba wrote:
RX1 reminds me bit of DP2M, nicely matched lens to sensor. Would surely get one, if I could..

Bokeh seems very nice to me. Tho I kinda expected bit more "blurry" at longer distances. Maybe has something to do with being not "true" 35mm?

Maybe I misunderstand, but isn't it a true 35mm?
I agree about the DoF though. I have several shots at f/2 where just about everything looks to be in focus, unless you zoom into the picture. I recently compared RX1 with 5D + 35L and found that the Sony has clearly more DoF at f/2. That is somewhat disappointing for me even though it can be very useful at times. Sometimes I also feel that RX1 is a bit too perfect (renders overly smooth etc.), but I still love it.

It'll do fine until there are more small (affordable) FF cameras to choose from.

Jan 19, 2013 at 09:50 AM

Makten
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #13 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

HelenaN wrote:
Maybe I misunderstand, but isn't it a true 35mm?
I agree about the DoF though. I have several shots at f/2 where just about everything looks to be in focus, unless you zoom into the picture. I recently compared RX1 with 5D + 35L and found that the Sony has clearly more DoF at f/2. That is somewhat disappointing for me even though it can be very useful at times. Sometimes I also feel that RX1 is a bit too perfect (renders overly smooth etc.), but I still love it.

It'll do fine until there are more small (affordable) FF cameras to choose from.

To me the amount of blur isn't as interesting as the character, and I find the Sonnar very good at separating the subject from the background even at several meters distance. The bokeh doesn't get a bit harsh either, which is very common with other 35 mm lenses. I think I prefer the ZF rendering, but its not surprising that such a huge lens is "better".

At this time I'm just very greatful that I can get all this in such a small camera. The APS-C ones just don't come even close, because of lack of fast enough lenses. The Metabones Speedbooster might change that, though. But what smallish 35/2 for SLR:s could beat the Sonnar? Probably none.

Jan 19, 2013 at 10:55 AM

HelenaN
Online
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #14 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

I agree completely, and think my previous post came out more negative than intended. All in all I'm very happy with the camera and (most of the time) prefer the output to what I get from 5D + 35L. The Sony gives more sense of depth, DR, smoother bokeh and of course clearly better high ISO performance. Metering and AWB (at least in artificial light) is also much better.

Jan 19, 2013 at 11:05 AM

Toothwalker
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #15 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

carstenw wrote:
Toothwalker wrote:
carstenw wrote:
-10, pah. Once I went to university in Waterloo, Ontario in -50 effective

Apples and oranges. What did the thermometer say?

-42 IIRC. There wasn't much wind, just a touch, thankfully.

Now that is impressive. Did you perform any lens tests that day?

Jan 19, 2013 at 11:44 AM

wayne seltzer
Online
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.3 #16 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Hey Martin and Carsten, do you believe my earlier statement that the ZF 35/1.4 is a undercorrected Spherical Aberration design which is why it has this slightly softer bokeh rendering wide open and near wide open? It is why this lens has softer bokeh style compared to other more nominally corrected SA design lenses like the one in RX1 and C/Y 35/1.4. This undercorrected SA affect is simialar to Zeiss softar filter used for glamour portraits.
Also, Martin Zf 35/1.4 is sharp wide open but relative to C/Y 35/1.4 and ZF 35/2 it is not as sharp at f2. Lloyd Chambers compared the ZF 35/2 and 35/1.4 when it came out and found the 35/2 slightly sharper at f2 if I remember correctly. He also documented the slight veiling haze the ZF 35/1.4 has wide open till f2.8.
Do you agree with these statements and if not why.
Have you taken a test shot of a pile of crayons where the ends of the crayons are alll aligned and seen that the different color crayons will not be uniformly sharp?
I think this is called spheroachromatism, from Toothwalker's SA page.
Let's discuss the bokeh characteristics of each 35/2 lens and the reasons why they render bokeh differently. We can all have different bokeh tastes. Most of the time I prefer RX1 type bokeh over the ZF 35/1.4 except for if I were shooting beauty portraits.

Jan 19, 2013 at 07:53 PM

Makten
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #17 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

wayne seltzer wrote:
Hey Martin and Carsten, do you believe my earlier statement that the ZF 35/1.4 is a undercorrected Spherical Aberration design which is why it has this slightly softer bokeh rendering wide open and near wide open?

/.../

Do you agree with these statements and if not why.

Wayne, no I don't agree!

First of all, the ZF/ZE 35/1.4 doesn't give softer bokeh than the Sonnar/RX1. It gives harsher blur disc edges, but is still very nice indeed. I'd say the Distagon renders more "classy" while the Sonnar is smooth and comfy in almost any situation.
The Sonnar seems to be optimized for wide open use and I can't see much improvement regarding sharpness even when stopping down from f/2 to f/4. But also, it never delivers the same clearness stopped down as the Distagon, or the Planar 50/1.4 for that matter.

Softer bokeh isn't always better. I had a love-hate relationship with the Sigma 50/1.4 because of that. It was just too smooth, and while the Sonnar behaves a bit like the Sigma, there is still a lot of "Zeissiness" and the shorter FL makes smooth bokeh a different story.

Jan 19, 2013 at 10:25 PM

carstenw
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #18 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

Toothwalker wrote:
carstenw wrote:
Toothwalker wrote:
carstenw wrote:
-10, pah. Once I went to university in Waterloo, Ontario in -50 effective

Apples and oranges. What did the thermometer say?

-42 IIRC. There wasn't much wind, just a touch, thankfully.

Now that is impressive. Did you perform any lens tests that day?

No, IIRC (I am using that a lot in this story, aren't I) I had only a Hasselblad 500C with Chrome 80/2.8, which I knew how behaved.

Jan 19, 2013 at 10:55 PM

carstenw
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #19 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

If it does have under-corrected SA, I believe that the rest is correct.

I try not to delve too deeply in the mathematics and theory of lens design. Every time I start spending time reading up on some theoretical aspect of lens design, I end up wondering why I am doing it, and not seeing how it helps my photography more than, say, going out shooting or reading photo books, so I stop again

Edited on Jan 20, 2013 at 09:46 AM · View previous versions

Jan 19, 2013 at 10:56 PM

mirkoc
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.3 #20 · RX1 bokeh vs other cams/lens at F/2.0

wayne seltzer wrote:
Most of the time I prefer RX1 type bokeh over the ZF 35/1.4 except for if I were shooting beauty portraits.

Would you be kind to elaborate that?

Jan 19, 2013 at 11:08 PM

1 2 3 4 5 6 end
FM Forums \| Alternative Gear & Lenses \| Join Upload & Sell 1 2 3 4 5 6 end