I get a lot of wonderful wide open results from this lens, particularly at medium distances with no infinity backgrounds, and even more particularly in B&W (the distracting green fringes around OOF highlights turn to soft glow in B&W). Sharpness, color, contrast are never a problem and the speed is plainly useful for me.
My question is this: are these results out of line with yours? People often quote excellent bokeh as being a feature of this lens. I'm unsure whether such people simply aren't shooting with these kind of difficult backgrounds, whether they're simply amazed at the ability to generate OOF at all in a wide angle lens, or maybe such comments are limited to 1.3/1.6 users. Maybe everyone gets these results but are reluctant to post or talk about them.
Most of all I'd like to know if there's simply something wrong with my lens and I might do better with another sample.
Now FYI, I've looked at a lot of other 35/1.4s (Nikon, Leica, Zeiss) and as far as I've seen all of them have similarly badbokeh. 35/2.0 lenses do seem to do better (for instance the 35mm Summicron-M, Mike Johnston's so-called "bokeh king"). I'm not asking about the inherent problems of fast wide angles, just the disparity I see between reviews of this lens and my results.
I don't get amazing bokeh on my 35L but I get better than what you're getting, at least I think I do. I can post some examples when I get home this evening.
It looks like you are shooting against a highly reflective subjects in the background. Try to shoot something that has plain background and see what happens.
every lens looks fine with a plain background, I have no interest in that. I'm interested in what happens with difficult backgrounds, which in my experience are unavoidable in real life.
If you choose to shoot the same type of background then you will get this every time on any given lens. There is nothing wrong with lens, rather, it is the angle you shoot. Try to avoid too much contrast high lights in the background.
hate to say this, but what you're illustrating in your examples above are consistent with what i see in my photos given the same kind of background and shooting environment.
so.. i'd say nothing's wrong with your 35L and its just part of the deal.
"bokeh galore...What impresses me most about this lens is it's bokeh and colour. If you are shooting relatively close to the subject at f/1.4, the background just melts. And it melts beautifully. It's often referred to as "creamy" and "buttery smooth", and i can't think of a better way to describe it. The background is just gone. I appreciate that an out of focus background generally is all just a matter of physics, but the quality mechanics and glass in this lens makes the theory of the physics turn into an artistic rendering."
"The Bokeh is very nice."
"Whenever i'm not photographing people, I can go closer and get the premium bokeh quality of this lens. Can't wait to get a FF!"
"Beautiful bokeh;"
" it creates a very creamy "bokeh" background. "
"Background blur is smooth and creamy,"
"very nice bokeh"
"Colors and bokeh are wonderful on both my 1D and 5D."
just from the first of seven pages of reviews. A hundred or more reviewers hare mistaken the terrible bokeh above for what's being described here?
>>I'm not asking about the inherent problems of fast wide angles, just the disparity I see between reviews of this lens and my results.
When I imediately realized how unhappy I was with my EF 35/2 (bought for my first crop camera) I looked into the 35L and saw too many obvious examples like you post... I don't understand the disparity of the reviews to the results either... do others not see it or just not want to see it? ...but you buy a fast lens for low light and shallow DOF and then decide that you can't stand it... and the lens becomes nearly useless to you... I know...
s23chang wrote:
If you choose to shoot the same type of background then you will get this every time on any given lens. There is nothing wrong with lens, rather, it is the angle you shoot. Try to avoid too much contrast high lights in the background.
This is clearly false with longer lenses like the portrait primes, which can take these terrible high contrast backgrounds and truly melt them away (the third shot is from a shoot mixing 35L, 85L, and 135L and only the 35L makes the background ugly). So I take it you mean any given 35mm lens. Do a flickr search on the M-mount 35mm Summicron - never a doubled line or ringed highlight, smooth transitions from in focus to out of focus. But that's a symmetric non-retrofocus lens, which is a different beast. But even the Canon 24-70/2.8 beats my 35L for bokeh at equal apertures. My 24-105 or 17-40, both known for their ugly bokeh (what little of it you can get at 35mm f4) are about equal to my 35L.
The bokeh is good, but it's not mindblowing like the 85L or 135L. I'm not suprised, it is a wide lens afterall. I bought the lens to be an environmental portrait lens. If I wanted to knock out the background completely, I'd use a much longer lens.
bokeh is subjective. sometimes i get bokeh im not too happy with. sometimes i get really amazing bokeh.
i have photos where the kind of bokeh you have issues with, actually contribute to the photo itself.
i really dont know what tell you. you can drag out all the reviews that rave about the 35Lbokeh till the end of days. it just goes further to prove that bokeh is a subjective matter that varies from people to people.
you have stated twice that the summicron delivers the kind of results you're looking for. i've stated that your results are similiar to what i see from my 5D + 35L - so I do not believe that you are experiencing a lens flaw.
So my course of action to recommend for you would be to sell/trade the 35L and accquire a summicron.
>>So my course of action to recommend for you would be to sell/trade the 35L and accquire a summicron.
this is not a lightly take action... switching not only from a Canon system to a whole new (and expensive) Leica system... but also SLR to rangefinder... is very disruptive... You really have to balance everything out as a system, even when you aren't entirely delighted by every single aspect of that system... so short advice like this is generally not very useful.
fourfa wrote:
This is clearly false with longer lenses like the portrait primes, which can take these terrible high contrast backgrounds and truly melt them away (the third shot is from a shoot mixing 35L, 85L, and 135L and only the 35L makes the background ugly). So I take it you mean any given 35mm lens. Do a flickr search on the M-mount 35mm Summicron - never a doubled line or ringed highlight, smooth transitions from in focus to out of focus. But that's a symmetric non-retrofocus lens, which is a different beast. But even the Canon 24-70/2.8 beats my 35L forbokeh at equal apertures. My 24-105 or 17-40, both known for their ugly bokeh (what little of it you can get at 35mm f4) are about equal to my 35L....Show more →
Of course to a lesser degree. That's why I use Summicron 35/2 50/2 90/2 180/2 with Canon bodies
mh2000 wrote:
>>So my course of action to recommend for you would be to sell/trade the 35L and accquire a summicron.
this is not a lightly take action... switching not only from a Canon system to a whole new (and expensive) Leica system... but also SLR to rangefinder... is very disruptive... You really have to balance everything out as a system, even when you aren't entirely delighted by every single aspect of that system... so short advice like this is generally not very useful.
My suggeestion was made in half-jest - to indicate the core truth to photography.. its all about tradeoffs. To gain something you almost always have to sacrifice something else. So one either learns to live with the 35L's bokeh qualities. Or one can purchase a different focal length with better bokeh qualities and learn to work with it. Or one can switch to a different system if it is that critical.
Isn't it possible to mount a R-mount Leica to Canon anyway? AFAIK, 35mm summicrons for R-mount do exist.
In my limited experience, the 35R as a retrofocus design doesn't have the bokeh magic of the 35M. all the other Leica qualities, sure, and that makes it a great option for some people
but regardless, I didn't post to look for alternatives, I know what they all are. As it happens I can't really live without autofocus (I've tried). Just wanted to clarify a gap I see between perception and reality. I'll continue to work around the problem as I have been, rather than swap copies and chase magic bullets.
wow, you're shooting 35mm,not 85 or 105. You get great bokeh, but if you want backgrounds that are really blended together, you have to shoot with something 85mm and above (try a 200mm L wide open THEN you'll get super blended backgrounds). The main reason to shoot wide is to be inclusive with the environment. The reason to shoot teles is to be exclusive and to really get only the subject in the image or as the focal point. I think you need to rethink what focal lengths you shoot at, not blame a wide angle for including too much info, it's physically what a wide is limited to, period. The 200mm L is a great lens that you'd never have to worry about seeing your backgrounds wide open again.
