Oh dear... the OP chooses the ugliest photos possible to demonstrate bokeh of a new lens. In the first one, the subject takes up a tiny space in the photo, which means that the relative difference in distance between her and the background is too little to create any soft bokeh. The second shot suffers from some of the same, a full body portrait at 140mm also means a long distance to the subject. In addition, it's shot at 1/8000s, freezing the waterfall, making any attempt of nice bokeh even more difficult. The last photo is slow pan at a relatively fast shutter speed, making bokeh unpredictable.
I've looked at other photos from the same lens, also taken by the same three photographers, and most of them show anything from acceptable to great bokeh. If you look at the second photo of the woman and the waterfall by M. Worsdorfer, taken much closer, there's no problem with the bokeh.
The OP chose early samples, the story has been evolving since then as more photos were posted and examined. Don't twist this into something it is not. In other words, I don't think the worst photos were chosen on purpose to further an agenda, rather, it was just early samples.
galenapass wrote:
The OP chose early samples, the story has been evolving since then as more photos were posted and examined. Don't twist this into something it is not. In other words, I don't think the worst photos were chosen on purpose to further an agenda, rather, it was just early samples.
If you look at the pages they were taken from, they were the worst samples, more or less.
carstenw wrote:
Still valid though. Some lenses couldnt make this boke...
If the distance to the subject is far away and the background busy, you can make ugly bokeh with any lens except very wide aperture primes. We are talking about a zoom lens on a crop sensor camera here. I went through all the photos on the pages referred to by the OP, and most of the photos look fine.
carstenw wrote:
Still valid though. Some lenses couldnt make this boke...
I now own this lens and to think these photos are representitive of the bokeh this lens produces is just downright wrong. I originally speculated that the OIS could be causing the harsh bokeh because I've seen this effect in other lenses, but I am unable to reproduce it with my lens. I'm now wondering if crazy amounts of sharpening or some other adjustment resulted in those images. I have no reservations using my 50-140 for a formal shoot I am doing this evening, it is an optically stunning lens in every respect.
Dec 10, 2014 at 07:22 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
If the distance to the subject is far away and the background busy, you can make ugly bokeh with any lens except very wide aperture primes. We are talking about a zoom lens on a crop sensor camera here. I went through all the photos on the pages referred to by the OP, and most of the photos look fine.
That too is a subjective judgment as it always is with bokeh. It is good to see that the bokeh isn't always ugly with a busy background, but my judgment is that it is a very modern lens that emphasizes sharpness over bokeh. It isn't over corrected for spherical aberrations--bokeh before the focus plane looks much the same as behind the focal plane, and there are no strong outer rings on highlights. It does, however, in moderately blurred backgrounds have a harshness to my eyes. The Canon 70-200 f/4L IS (which I had at one point) can have that as well and in many ways this lens seems to produce very similar results, and that lens is very well liked among Canon shooters.
For me and what I shoot, however, I would want better bokeh, but that is a personal preference. I certainly understand that other people would trade some smoothness in the bokeh for some extra sharpness. By the way, I do think that some of the worst examples, as Ron suggested, many well have been the result of over sharpening.
wcowan wrote:
I now own this lens and to think these photos are representitive of the bokeh this lens produces is just downright wrong. I originally speculated that the OIS could be causing the harsh bokeh because I've seen this effect in other lenses, but I am unable to reproduce it with my lens. I'm now wondering if crazy amounts of sharpening or some other adjustment resulted in those images. I have no reservations using my 50-140 for a formal shoot I am doing this evening, it is an optically stunning lens in every respect.
They may not be representative, but they were made with that lens...
carstenw wrote:
They may not be representative, but they were made with that lens...
Virtually any lens can create pictures with bad bokeh given right circumstances. So the question is not whether the lens CAN produce bokeh like that in some cases. The question is whether this is the typical bokeh performance of this lens or is it something you will just see in torture tests. OP's post suggested that the lens generally has ugly bokeh and he showed these samples as representative of its performance. However the recent posts and samples from the members who actually own this lens and are using it in real world seem to show that these are far from representative.
Dec 10, 2014 at 08:31 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
curious80 wrote:
Virtually any lens can create pictures with bad bokeh given right circumstances. So the question is not whether the lens CAN produce bokeh like that in some cases. The question is whether this is the typical bokeh performance of this lens or is it something you will just see in torture tests. OP's post suggested that the lens generally has ugly bokeh and he showed these samples as representative of its performance. However the recent posts and samples from the members who actually own this lens and are using it in real world seem to show that these are far from representative....Show more →
They may be far from representative, but I do see a tendency that when the subject is 10 to 20 feet away and the background has structure, then the bokeh has a look that I don't like. Not all lenses have this either. Some are quite good in this situation. Yet across photographers I see the same sort of issues that aren't to my liking in that situation. To my eye that is the subject to background ratio that doesn't look good, but like I said some other moderately fast zooms have much the same look. So the question to me is whether the lens is generally not that good in that situation.
I posted these in the rolling impressions thread, but some bokeh samples...most of the time it's great. At wider focal lengths with really busy sticks, it can get less attractive, but overall it's pretty good.
The shot with the welder has a really interesting rendering of the bricks in the upper left and the shot with the parking meter has a similar effect on the tree. I'm not sure if I like it or not but it certainly gives the lens some character.
The welder shot also has a ton of microcontrast added in post through the VSCO preset I used on that shot. (the rest are pretty well 'pure' with only minor exposure and color tweaks).
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
Oh dear... the OP chooses the ugliest photos possible to demonstrate bokeh of a new lens. In the first one, the subject takes up a tiny space in the photo, which means that the relative difference in distance between her and the background is too little to create any soft bokeh. The second shot suffers from some of the same, a full body portrait at 140mm also means a long distance to the subject. In addition, it's shot at 1/8000s, freezing the waterfall, making any attempt of nice bokeh even more difficult. The last photo is slow pan at a relatively fast shutter speed, making bokeh unpredictable.
I've looked at other photos from the same lens, also taken by the same three photographers, and most of them show anything from acceptable to great bokeh. If you look at the second photo of the woman and the waterfall by M. Worsdorfer, taken much closer, there's no problem with the bokeh....Show more →
I was looking at those photos wondering if there might have been some user error involved, specifically some over processing
Dec 10, 2014 at 10:24 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I still see two issues even with Jordan's shots, which I mostly like. The pillars shot and the parking meter shot both have the look (some might call nervousness) that I don't like (in addition to the annex shot), and the one under the parking meter shot shows the cat's eye highlights that extend almost to the centre of the image. Personally I am not that bothered by the cat's eye pattern (it would be better if it weren't there, but it doesn't bother me), but the look in the other shot does bother me, but that is just my preference and if I had the lens that would just be one thing to work around.
To keep this in perspective, one of my favourite bokeh lenses is my Minolta MC Rokkor 58 f/1.2. It has great bokeh in many situations, but wide open with a subject about 10 feet away and a structured background about 10 feet away its bokeh can be a bit jarring too. I just don't shoot it wide open in those situation--I stop it down to f/2 and it is fine and in almost every other situation the bokeh is great from my perspective.
So working around bothersome bokeh is something that is needed with many if not almost all lenses. I think with this one, however, the solution in the situation that bothers me (shots with a subject 10 to 20 feet away, e.g., full body shots, with a structured background 20 feet behind the subject) would be to stop down to f/5.6 or more to just not have much bokeh in that situation. I see that as much less than ideal, but not the end of the world either.
I reckon the ugly ones were probably a typical rookie mistake (or experienced user with lack of time): dont sharpen the bokeh. Use a mask or brush and only sharpen the subject. To make things worse xtrans is particularly allergic to clarity and sharpening tools in most raw developers, it can only handle small amounts, if any.
Here's a worst-case background: Bare winter branches more or less immediately after the focus point, continuing backwards. Very few lenses handle this well, and the 50-140 certainly doesn't turn it into cream. However, I think it's actually a better showing than most zoom lenses (and even most primes).
