Makten wrote:
I recently switched my Nikkor 105/1.8 AIS for a Nikkor 105/2.5 AIS. This lens is totally incredible, bokeh-wise!
This is wide open (f/2.5) on D700:
Oh yes, but not in the same way. The 105/1.8 is a faster lens, with good sharpness from corner to corner, even wide open. It gives a bit low contrast from f/1.8 to f/2.8, but it is extremely sharp at f/4. Though it is extremely prone to ghosting and flare, due to the large lens elements.
Bokeh is good, but not as good as the 105/2.5. At f/4 they seem quite equal, but the 105/2.5 is much nicer at f/2.5 than the 105/1.8 is at f/2.8.
Both are stellar lenses, but they don't do the same thing. The 2.5 is much lighter and smaller, while still at least equal in sharpness compared to the 1.8 stopped down to f/2.8. Flare and ghosting is way less troublesome.
On the other hand; the 105/1.8 is mechanically THE nicest lens I've ever held. The engineering is just awesome. Focusing is buttery smooth, and it feels and looks like a 1500 dollar lens. Which I guess it was, back then.
If you don't need the extra stop, or the superior mechanical "feel"; the slower lens is the better one.
-------------------------------
Edit: Heck, here are a couple of pics with the 105/1.8 wide open on FF too!
The Noct certainly is a great lens. Superb shots, TWoK.
I think the major difference in bokeh drawing I have noticed compared to the Rokkor is that the OOF highlights/rings are more circular on the noct, while they are drawn more out of shape with the Rokkor.
ovredal73 wrote:
I think the major difference in bokeh drawing I have noticed compared to the Rokkor is that the OOF highlights/rings are more circular on the noct, while they are drawn more out of shape with the Rokkor.
Isn't that also how the Noct Nikkor was advertised: "Extremely little coma" ? (as in good for night shooting in the streets)
Didnīt know this - had to look up coma on wikipedia Probably this is what it is then. I will see if I can take some comparison shots in the next few days.
ovredal73 wrote:
Didnīt know this - had to look up coma on wikipedia Probably this is what it is then. I will see if I can take some comparison shots in the next few days.
Classic coma is about distant lamps, stars, the moon (astro shooters like lenses with little or no coma) and so on. Then we have the shapes we see from aperture blades (or the inner circle of the lens) discussed above. Finally (? probably not) we have what I think is coma, or strongly linked to coma:
See images Daniel Buck has showed earlier taken with his Bausch&Lomb petzval type lens. See cogitech's images taken with the Rokkor 58/1.2 of his daughter in the wood. In those samples we can see the background making a circular pattern. Stopped down this effect diminishes or goes away completely. While this is not "classic coma" I usually think of it as something strongly correlated to lens coma.
Jonas B wrote:
Somebody please correct me if I got it all wrong.
The "swirl pattern" I think you are talking about, is due to mechanical vignetting. The iris becomes lens shaped when looking through it from the corners of the picture. This makes the blur discs non circular out there too, and it also increases the radial sharpness while the tangential sharpness is virtually unaffected.
Coma can affect the bokeh, but that often makes the blur discs look "triangular" towards the corners. Very common with fast wide angle lenses.
Makten wrote:
The "swirl pattern" I think you are talking about, is due to mechanical vignetting. The iris becomes lens shaped when looking through it from the corners of the picture. This makes the blur discs non circular out there too, and it also increases the radial sharpness while the tangential sharpness is virtually unaffected.
Coma can affect the bokeh, but that often makes the blur discs look "triangular" towards the corners. Very common with fast wide angle lenses.
Thank you. The Cat's eye effect? Of course. So when I related the two to each other it is mainly because we are (at least I am) discussing fast lenses then?
Increases or decreases the radial sharpness? Hmm. There is something here I don't understand: As point light sources, in focus, get smeared in a tangential direction (mostly) and can get the shape of gull wings it seems to me as sharpness, tangentially, is decreased. Then, why would radial sharpness increase? Isn't it either nearly unaffected or decreased as well?
Probably this is what it is then. I will see if I can take some comparison shots in the next few days.