absolutic wrote:
well Zeiss used to say that VR and AF screw with optical quality. Then they made AF lenses. And now they make VR lenses (well Sony Zeiss does)
IS can compromise sharpness. I can't imagine how it'd effect bokeh, though.
But for this lens of moderate telephoto I doubt that is the cause.
As to aspheres screwing up the bokeh besides onion rings I'm guessing there isn't anything about aspheres themselves that would cause bad bokeh. Rather the issue is more probably giving a computer optimization algorithm a whole bunch of degrees of freedom including aspheric surfaces and then letting it run with cost functions only for aberrations in the plane of focus with no or poor parameter bounds to control bokeh. Give any optimization routine enough degrees of freedom and you'll find uncontrolled parameters quickly get places you'd never think possible.
Undercorrected spherical aberration gives smooth background bokeh, neutral or a bit over corrected spherical aberration gives better sharpness.
Aspheres are good to correct spherical aberration - so they could be used to achieve the correction one wants - for one distance (but with the risk of onion bokeh). Floating elements are used to get a more or less stable spherical aberration correction over the focussing range.
I think they sacrified smooth background bokeh for sharpness in this lens.
Probably they want to have not only smooth background bokeh in their lens lineup, but also the "soap bubble" effect like the Meyer Trioplan - probably this zoom lens has enough overcorrection of spherical aberration (I doubt)?
now this review is somewhat misleading. If you look carefully, the author shot most portraits with any sort of background at F/5.6 to F/4 to F/3.6. Nothing wide open, absolutely nothing.
Then at the end he attached a few carefully selected headshots at F/2.8 where there is no background to judge bokeh with).
In any case, maybe this guy is a better photographer than the first 3 guys, but overall his shots look more pleasing.
absolutic wrote:
If you look carefully, the author shot most portraits with any sort of background at F/5.6 to F/4 to F/3.6. Nothing wide open, absolutely nothing.
The lens' bokeh reminds me of the 35/2 IS; very sharp, but capable of producing overly noisy shots with just the right apertures and subject to background spacing. The Canon lens is one that I'd like to pick up eventually but also one that I realize that I'd have to be careful with around noisy backgrounds with just the right amount of 'blur'.
Dec 02, 2014 at 02:47 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
now this review is somewhat misleading. If you look carefully, the author shot most portraits with any sort of background at F/5.6 to F/4 to F/3.6. Nothing wide open, absolutely nothing.
Then at the end he attached a few carefully selected headshots at F/2.8 where there is no background to judge bokeh with).
In any case, maybe this guy is a better photographer than the first 3 guys, but overall his shots look more pleasing.
Actually if you look at the extra sample pict posted in a link at the end of the review you can see some truly awful bokeh. For example here is a link to one that made me dizzy:
So far I have not seen a shot with diffuse blur with any structure in the background in which I like the bokeh. It seems bad very much of the time. It would be a deal breaker for me, but obviously people have their own preferences.
Does not look as bad as some of the others but you can still find nervousness if you look for it. This lens is probably great for landscapes where you want ultimate sharpness but don't care too much for bokeh. Bokeh seems fine for tighter shots where structure is not on the verge of being oof.
Does not look as bad as some of the others but you can still find nervousness if you look for it. This lens is probably great for landscapes where you want ultimate sharpness but don't care too much for bokeh. Bokeh seems fine for tighter shots where structure is not on the verge of being oof.
I think the photographer seems to have worked around the bokeh in a number of shots, but if you look down at the ones which are shots of the road, the bokeh is strikingly bad to my eye. Specifically the one where the focus plane is parallel to the road and there are grape vines in the background and the one just a bit further down where the focus plane in perpendicular to the road with trees in the background are pretty terrible to my eye. Bad examples like that and a paucity of examples in which there is bokeh that works certainly turn me off on this lens, and that is especially so as the FF 70-200 lenses typically have decent to quite nice bokeh.
Love my fuji body and lenses, the 50-140mm looks like an awesome lens. I wasn't ready to ditch my 6D - 70-200mm 2.8 II combo until I was sure this lens would deliver similar quality/bokeh/DOF as my 6D combo. I guess it won't because of APS-C vs Full frame. But LOVE what the 6D @ 200mm @ 2.8 can do with the background. Will be keeping on eye on see what this lens can do in the future. For now 6D- 70-200mm 2.8 II will still be my go to combo for smooth bokeh and DOF.
My light weight kit is an X-E2 for XF lenses from 14mm to 60mm (incl. 18-55 OIS), and a Canon SL1 (100D) with EF 70-200/4L IS. Based on what I'm seeing from the XF 50-140/2.8, I don't plan to change that mix.
esanchez wrote:
70-200mm 2.8 II combo until I was sure this lens would deliver similar quality/bokeh/DOF as my 6D combo. I guess it won't because of APS-C vs Full frame.
The APS-C vs FF bokeh difference is just a modest difference in the amount of bokeh. The problem here is with this particular lens the quality of the bokeh sucks. And that has nothing to do with APS-C vs FF.
But yes, for the same amount of bokeh you'll need to get an F/2 zoom for an APS-C camera to match the F/2.8 on your 6D.
kwalsh wrote:
And that has nothing to do with APS-C vs FF.
Maybe it does. If you want the best possible sharpness, you can't have the creamiest bokeh unless the lens is gonna be huge and very expensive. So, using a smaller format needs a sharper lens, which makes it harder to produce smooth bokeh.
Just look at the Nikon 85/1.4 AF-D shot earlier in this thread. It's really dull and lacking contrast. But the bokeh is beatutiful.
I said "overuse" does anyone know how many Asphericals are used in this zoom?
rattymouse wrote:
Yeah but Fuji always uses aspherics and for the most part, their bokeh is not all that bad. Certainly not as bad what we see with this new lens. I quite like the bokeh from the 23, 35m and 56mm lenses.
Personally I'll take the smaller size of the Fuji over the arm breaking Canon and Nikon versions, and the sharpness of the Fuji. I don't like soft subjects. The photos at olafphotoblog (link above) look great including bokeh that is fine. That's how I'll use this lens (I mostly take photos of people).
Cliff Stevens wrote:
Personally I'll take the smaller size of the Fuji over the arm breaking Canon and Nikon versions
you are talking about the relative lens weight difference, or combination of bodies and lenses? It is true that this Fuji lens is 1 kilo vs 1.5 kilo for Canon version. 1 kilo is still not small especially on a lighter body such as XT1. In fact, you probably would want to add a 'large' grip to XT1 to comfortably handhold this lens.
But yes, I carried Canon 5DM3 and 70-200L IS II around and that combination gets really heavy really fast.
