Tariq Gibran wrote:
Thanks. I have shot traditional Zeiss lenses for many decades - and do like the more lively bokeh from them in general. Most of that has been with Medium Format and I have not ran into this ugly (imo) cats eye/ egg shaped bokeh.
Non-circular boke highlights has not been issue to me as I'm little "shy" shooting lenses wide open, there are typically too many issues and the cat's eye in corners disappears on aperture I'm usually shooting.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I also don't really count extreme close shots (what you call "flower boke") since most lenses can do fine in that situation. I'm more interested in what happens with the oof areas at medium, portrait distances.
G45 works weird in that sense that these extreme boke wide open scenarios the boke highlight circles are OK, but medium distances the boke gets very nervous. To me it seems this happens because the light concentration in boke highlights is bad, too much concentrated to outer edge of highlight "ball". Maybe picture tells more than 1000 words...
(Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2/45 G @ f/2, 1/5s, Sony A7 @ ISO 100, B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer 46mm)
For me this kind of edginess is not ok, so I'm usually shooting apertures, which doesn't cause this to happen. Even without boke highlights the background is very rough, look for example the tree in middle on above photo. But G45 gives quite exceptional results when closed down to f/2.8-4.0, and I'm very happy to it's performance. More or less it's same with other normal lenses, they need little closing down to get best out of them.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
In those situations, the cat's eye bokeh really bothers me as I find it extremely distracting. I suspected it likely was influenced by the size of the optics in general. Anyway, nice to know it's not as much an issue with the G 45. I will be testing/ shooting a number of 40-50mm lenses on the A7r in the coming weeks and this is something I will be looking at.
As I usually don't pixel peep AND don't shoot f/2 often ==> I haven't noticed earlier, but in photo above the boke highlights are weird shaped in corners, not cat's eye but like combination of circle and triangle: 1:1 crop of top right. Not sure if this bother you less than cat's eye effect.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Not sure if this bother you less than cat's eye effect.
Samuli
Thanks Samuli. It does appear that the G 45 Bokeh may be more lively/ harsh than the FE 55 in general - perhaps more-so than what I'm used to from say the Zeiss 80 Planar on medium format. Interesting as I would have thought most Planars might render similarly. I have a Minolta CLE 40 coming in about a week so I'm curious how that renders in similar distance situations.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Thanks Samuli. It does appear that the G 45 Bokeh may be more lively/ harsh than the FE 55 in general - perhaps more-so than what I'm used to from say the Zeiss 80 Planar on medium format. Interesting as I would have thought most Planars might render similarly. I have a Minolta CLE 40 coming in about a week so I'm curious how that renders in similar distance situations.
I have learned that there are two kind of Planars;
1) ones with spherical aberration wide open
2) ones highly corrected, but with very harsh boke wide open
Group 1 lenses are C/Y 1.4/50 (lesser degree also 1.7/50), ZE/ZF 1.4/50 and I would assume medium format 80mm gives similar rendering. These have less harsh boke wide open (better light concentration on boke highlight circles), but are softer and may have focus shift.
Group 2 lenses are ZE/ZF MP 2/50, G45 and most likely ZM 2/50 based on photos I have seen (no personal experience). Based on recent samples maybe also N-series 1.4/50 belongs to this group (see Kokusai's posts with 50mm), haven't ever seen as harsh boke wide open from C/Y or ZE/ZF 1.4 versions. These seem very harsh wide open, but also sharper and have better contrast.
For years I have enjoyed group 1 rendering, and enjoy it most when closed down to f/2.5-2.8 range. With A7/A7r wanted to try something new, and I'm really liking G45. It's boke quality improves fast, and usually @ f/2.8 it's equal to group 1 f/1.4 lenses, but microcontrast and overall contrast is much higher on focus plane. Maybe Zeiss tried to do same again with ZE/ZF2/50, but for me they failed; boke takes f/4-5.6 to smooth out and corners have enormous field curvature which is visible in almost every photo at medium/far distances, and also it's boke contrast is high compared to simplier planar.
Today I decided to give a bit of a fresh air to some of my FDn Canons acquired in winter time,so tried them out in the field with the A7,but because of vita brevis et tempus praeceps I had only one hour to do it.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
For years I have enjoyed group 1 rendering, and enjoy it most when closed down to f/2.5-2.8 range. With A7/A7r wanted to try something new, and I'm really liking G45. It's boke quality improves fast, and usually @ f/2.8 it's equal to group 1 f/1.4 lenses, but microcontrast and overall contrast is much higher on focus plane. Maybe Zeiss tried to do same again with ZE/ZF2/50, but for me they failed; boke takes f/4-5.6 to smooth out and corners have enormous field curvature which is visible in almost every photo at medium/far distances, and also it's boke contrast is high compared to simplier planar.
sebboh wrote:
the 40 cron/rokkor doesn't have cats eyes wide open, but it does have a lot of SA wide open and open circles towards the corners in the bokeh rings:
Thanks Derek. I'm curious if the later CLE 40 renders slightly differently. I have read the lens coating was improved and that's it's possible that Minolta may have even tweaked the design with the second CLE version of the lens (no confirmation though). In any case, that looks pretty nice to me overall.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Thanks Derek. I'm curious if the later CLE 40 renders slightly differently. I have read the lens coating was improved and that's it's possible that Minolta may have even tweaked the design with the second CLE version of the lens (no confirmation though). In any case, that looks pretty nice to me overall.
Tariq,
I can't really say if the CLE MC 40mm f2 M-Rokkor lens renders differently than the older 40mm Summicron or the older 40mm CL models. But, I do believe that the coatings are superior for the newer lens. You can certainly observe the affects of the lens flare with the lens when previewing the image on the screen. If I want to include flare in the image I will watch as I adjust the composition to place the flare where I want it in the composition. If I notice lens flare and I do not want the flare at all I will recompose the image. The lens creates 10 pointed stars and for the most effective usage for including them I normally set the lens to f8 or f11.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Due to reflection issues with Sony cameras (please read my post to Official thread page 185 posts #17 and #19) this is not causes by adapter, but can be prevented with adapter. A7 & A7r are allergic to extra light coming to "mirror" chamber. This is why all Sony lenses have masks in the rear end, as well as their own adapters are masked. I have masked majority of my adapters (they way explained in post #19 I referred above).
Samuli
Hmm. I don't get the same problem with any other M-mount lens I have (most of which are modern designs). But, the ZM50/2 could very well be throwing a lot more light around than the other lenses I have.
I don't know my impression yet, the weather is very hot and i was sweating, dusty, i don't have a plate for this to put on tripod, and i forgot that standard Manfrotto cameras plate so i was carrying the Manfrotto tripod pointless, all these are handheld.
