For those who have had questions about the "donuts" in the bokeh often mentioned when the 400/4 DO is discussed, I offer the following images. These are from the 100-400 (@ 400mm) and from the 400/4 DO, at f/8, f/5.6, and f/4 (for the 400/4 DO only).
Feel free to draw your own conclusions. But I would say that between these two samples, there's not really an issue of the DO being more "donuty" in the bokeh.
I've got a pretty good eye at this, but the only difference I see is that that DO is producing more resolution by a small margin.
At first I thought I was seeing banding in the pictures till I realized it was the horizontal grout lines in the brick wall.
The blades in the 100-400 are rougher and a bit smother from the DO
The Bokeh would have been smoother only if the background where farther back, having made the so called donuts less apparent.
When I saw the title to the thread my mind set jumped to the donuts made by the Reflex lenses but see none of that here.
The DO doesn't really produce mirror-lens-like donuts, but rather "bullseye" shaped highlights. They can be quite noticeable but only in certain situations. --c
charlesk wrote:
The DO doesn't really produce mirror-lens-like donuts, but rather "bullseye" shaped highlights. They can be quite noticeable but only in certain situations. --c
Daniel,
The highlights within the bokeh are the ones that look like "bullseye"; the bokeh itself is just fine and not much different, if any, with that taken with refractive designed lenses.
I think I don't understand your use of "highlights", meaning to me the bullseyes?
But beyond that I would agree that the bokeh is the same... well almost
Bokeh is a complex artifact. It's not easy to tell if the difference in the examples, if any, is caused by DO. The DO lens shares pretty much the same design with other EF "L" tele family. Only the very first lens, usually UD glass, is replaced by DO. I think it is equivalent to a normal glass with higher refractive index and wavelength dependency.
The following is taken with 70-200/2.8L. At the lower part of the image, I can see some donuts and rings http://www.sesee.com/photo/Galleries/Flowers/IMG_2913.jpg
Daniel,
The out-of-focus highly reflective spots such as reflections of a water surface or like the samples Pondria provided highly reflective droplets are the highlights I was referring to. Those were either depicted in general as round highlights in full aperture shots or as the shape of diaphragm/aperture in close down shots. BTW, the 200mm f/1.8 is of course the king of producing buttery smooth bokeh. Nice picture, BTW .
Thanks AGeoJo, just teasing and throwing in the extreme _poke_
The 400 DO from my experience is so light for it’s focal length and my friend is going to Africa with his and it will be the right lens for his journey.
Waiting for DavidP to wake up and jump in here, he a smart boy and a passionate photographer
400/4 DO image showing "donuts or bullseyes" in the bokeh, with the exact same image then taken with a 400/5.6 or 100-400 or even 300/2.8 + 1.4x TC that shows the difference.
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