phillip ino wrote:
Well then let's see some examples of what is supposed to be the proper rendering of bokeh. A lot of words and not so many images to back them up.
Did you miss the 4 on the last page? The 10 I just posted to my Flickr account? Needless to say, I think "proper" is probably not the right term. I think Jammy was just speaking to his personal preference.
phillip ino wrote:
BTW.....I purchased a 50mm lens so that I can get close to my subjects. Otherwise I would have purchased a tele-zoom.
I think I've explained myself pretty well on this one already. I have nothing against shooting close to your subjects, even wide-open, if you're going for a certain effect. But using that as an example of "good bokeh" is misleading, particularly with people who don't realize how DoF gets shallower the closer you get to your subject. There's a reason you don't see f/1.4 Macro lenses. There may well be significant differences between the Sigma 50/1.4 and the 50G in these conditions, but I doubt it. We'll see when I get mine.
From the sample pics of both lenses, it looks like the Nikon produces more defined bokeh and the Sigma's bokeh is smoother, more blended, and very laid back if you can call it that. They both look great, but I think it's more a matter of preference.
who really cares? they are both nice lenses. In fact, Im going out at lunch to getthe nikon cause I need a AF lens. But honestly, I think we are getting to deep into this discussion. They are both nice lenses and the average person that you show your photos too will not know the difference between one or the other.
Sam Bennett wrote:
Did you miss the 4 on the last page? The 10 I just posted to my Flickr account? Needless to say, I think "proper" is probably not the right term. I think Jammy was just speaking to his personal preference.
I think I've explained myself pretty well on this one already. I have nothing against shooting close to your subjects, even wide-open, if you're going for a certain effect. But using that as an example of "good bokeh" is misleading, particularly with people who don't realize how DoF gets shallower the closer you get to your subject. There's a reason you don't see f/1.4 Macro lenses. There may well be significant differences between the Sigma 50/1.4 and the 50G in these conditions, but I doubt it. We'll see when I get mine....Show more →
Sorry, I should have read every post in this thread, which I haven't.
The definition of bokeh is rather general and seems to have been left open for discussion. I don't think anyone can really say what is proper or not, or that it's misleading. What we can say is what effects we like and what effects we find attractive. And of course, the answers are going to be as diverse as the meaning of bokeh itself. Like Jorge says, this has been discussed in depth for too long already. No sense in beating a dead horse. Let's use this energy to go out and take pictures!
Jorge Torralba wrote:
They are both nice lenses and the average person that you show your photos too will not know the difference between one or the other.
But alas, we are not average people. We have the good taste and forethought to be... NIKONIANS! errr... NIKMIRANDIANS!
phillip ino wrote:
The definition of bokeh is rather general and seems to have been left open for discussion.
No, actually, it's not rather general. There's a definition of bokeh:
from Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English
a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image
There's really no debating the definition.
phillip ino wrote:
I don't think anyone can really say what is proper or not, or that it's misleading.
Whether it's good bokeh, or bad bokeh or even proper bokeh is indeed totally subjective. My point was that if you're trying to demonstrate "good bokeh" to someone by getting 1 foot from your subject, setting the lens to f/1.4 it can be misleading if that person is not accustomed to viewing images critically. They see a lot of OOF areas and think "Wow, that's amazing!" when really what they should be paying attention to is actually much more subtle. And of course, these images in isolation without a direct comparison to something else are not very useful when you're trying to make X vs. Y comparisons.
Sam Bennett wrote:
My point was that if you're trying to demonstrate "good bokeh" to someone by getting 1 foot from your subject, setting the lens to f/1.4 it can be misleading if that person is not accustomed to viewing images critically. They see a lot of OOF areas and think "Wow, that's amazing!" when really what they should be paying attention to is actually much more subtle. And of course, these images in isolation without a direct comparison to something else are not very useful when you're trying to make X vs. Y comparisons.
In my case I want medium range bokeh for environmental portraits where the oof background needs to be distinguishable but quite oof. And my preference is for the bokeh to be that which doesn't distract from the subject: translation from : "my preference is for the quality of the out-of-focus areas to be that which doesn't distract from the subject". I don't want beautiful bokeh: I want invisible bokeh. To my mind the oof background from such a lens is more natural and a more attractive backdrop to the subject. That's why I would choose the "boring" bokeh of the Sigma, and would normally call it 'good' bokeh, even though I agree that it is boring. For this reason I agree that obliteration bokeh is a useless bokeh test.
Generally I would also think of your plants and other examples you have chosen as not being useful bokeh tests because they are not distinct enough, except for the fact that unusually they are quite busy. Unusual because only a seriously 'bad' bokeh lens could manage to mangle such a background. Although that might just be the rain drops. I am disappointed by this lens because I would like to move to Nikon without having to use 3rd party lenses with all their attendant problems.
As it happens the artifacts of busy-bokeh lenses can vary in their attractiveness depending on the background. Some busy flower bokeh can be quite pretty. I've seen just such from the 50 G.
lorriman -
I think we're mostly on the same page. Could you point out specifically which of my images have "busy" bokeh - feel free to grab the full-rez and mark them up if you like. I definitely see something in some of the photos I posted that I don't like. Whether the Sigma would have done any better is still open to question, however. I tend to get the impression from you that you think the Sigma is completely without fault. Without a direct comparison that seems pretty presumptuous.
Sam Bennett wrote:
[There's no denying how smooth the Sigma's bokeh is. But this is a 50G thread, so I would have to assume that you're saying the 50G isn't as smooth. It may well not be, but so far I haven't seen a back-to-back test to illustrate the point. The "obliteration factor" here in the examples you gave seems more due to the usage than the characterstics of the lens, imo.
Once I have my Sigma in hand, I will be sure to do the sorts of tests that'll settle this once and for all.
Looking forward to seeing your tests, Sam. I'm not the bokeh connoisseur that some of you guys appear to be, but find the comments interesting. Seems to me that both new lenses are very good, better than the old D version, in many ways. I'd guess that it'd be hard to go wrong with either one, when the discussion boils down to this level of difference.
I'll add that my favorite lens, bar none, is the 105 f/2 DC. I really like the bokeh of that lens. Dunno if either of these would get there, but if they did, that would be terrific.
Yeah, I've heard the 105 is really nice. But keep in mind that longer lenses tend to have more pleasing bokeh simply due to the fact that they compress the background a lot more, so there's inherently less clutter than if you'd framed the same subject with a shorter lens.
Here's an example -
35mm @ f/2, from about 3 feet:
135mm @ f/2, from about 13 feet:
This actually poses problems comparing the bokeh of a given lens on a FF vs. crop camera, since the effective FL is longer on the crop camera, so the same difference would apply - the crop camera has a different perspective and will compress the background a bit more and you'd be standing further back for the same framing. (Note that some of Jammy's examples of the Sigma 50/1.4 were on a crop camera.)
Hey Sam, I found this example over on the Sigma Marmite Bokeh thread. Done by Husband of 16-9.net It's the best illustration of what I'm seeing so far, I look forward to your comparisions too. I believe they were taken on a 5D.
hubsand wrote:
Here's the Pentax Super Takumar, Pentax SMC Takumar, Sigma 50/1.4 and Zeiss 50/1.4 AE ('Ninja Star') from left to right: background bokeh at f2: http://www.16-9.net/raw/bokeh_f2.jpg
You might want to step back from your screen a bit . . .
hubsand wrote:
It might be regarded as 'good bokeh' not to outline this defocused white power lead, but again I'm not sure it looks right – though the Sigma handles foliage with aplomb. Perhaps Richard's 'more interesting' Zeiss bokeh is preferable here . . . http://www.16-9.net/raw/bokeh_f1_4b.jpg
You'll notice here that the Sigma 50mm f1.4 seems a fair bit shorter (in focal length) than most 50mm lenses.
Sorry the images are so big, when Hubsand does something he does it big. This totally seems like the wrong thread for this...
hubsand wrote:
The point is that all four lenses were placed under identical conditions; the comparative difference is the point.
I'm not sure that posting the full frame will tell you anything more meaningful than the crops, but here it is anyway: the Sigma at f4. Distance to focal plane (subject centre frame) was about 1m. Distance to bokeh samples ranged from about 15cm to 1.5m. As stated previously, all these are background rather than foreground samples. http://www.16-9.net/raw/bokeh_ff_f4.jpg
I will be looking at the bokeh in other settings but I'm not interested in shooting an unrealistically contrived set: for me, bokeh only becomes an issue when it's either too busy, draws ugly light discs, or has prominent CA – so I'll be seeking out scenes that tell me something I want to know.
....Show more →
Sam Bennett wrote:
There's nothing "wrong" with it - I just get tired of people using that sort of shot as an example of "good bokeh" when really it's the least challenging bokeh situation possible, in my experience. Usually it's not really "good bokeh", simply "lots of blur". The amount of blur is not bokeh - a point a lot of people seem to miss. Bokeh is the subjective quality of the OOF area, not the amount.
I've seen lots of examples of lenses focused at minimum focusing distance where the OOF background looked harsh, so I'm not sure why it's the least challenging situation or as you are saying not indicative of anything?
m_appeal wrote:
I've seen lots of examples of lenses focused at minimum focusing distance where the OOF background looked harsh, so I'm not sure why it's the least challenging situation or as you are saying not indicative of anything?
It seems to me the more challenging situation is where you don't have an obliterated background. Where there's a better balance between the in focus areas and the OOF areas.
Knew there would be shiny things on this evening's shopping trip, so I brought along the 50G just for the hell of it. I really am curious to see how the Sigma would handle the same situation, there's definitely a few images here that give me pause. Hopefully I'll get it before I head off for vacation...
Sam Bennett wrote:
Knew there would be shiny things on this evening's shopping trip, so I brought along the 50G just for the hell of it. I really am curious to see how the Sigma would handle the same situation, there's definitely a few images here that give me pause. Hopefully I'll get it before I head off for vacation...
Presumably the circles would have softer borders with the Sigma and no bright-ring. With the 105 DC you could dial in enough spherical aberration to dissolve the borders of the circles entirely, but I personally need a 50mm perspective. What would have been interesting to see is the 50 G at a slightly smaller aperture to remove the bright-ring; the circles might have been soft enough to be acceptable though I am suspecting not.
It is a strange thing, to my mind, that Nikon made this lens bokeh-harsh. With high ISO taking the low-light market these lenses are now more important to portraitists like myself, for which bokeh is quite important. And so one would think that since the predecessor lenses would satisfy the sharpness addicts that they would have produced a bokeh-friendly lens. Sigma has proven that you can produce a faily sharp lens with decent bokeh. It's perplexing. Perhaps the token bokeh feature, the rounded aperture blades, was felt to be enough to give a nodd to bokeh in the marketing blurb while the super-sharpness would get them the vital high scores. But that would be to accuse Nikon of deception.
lorriman wrote:
What 35 is that? That oof background looks promising. I would like to research it further on flickr.
Unfortunately that is with my much-beloved old Canon 35mm f/1.4L - so, stopped down. The other lens was the Canon 135mm f/2.L. Both fantastic lenses.
lorriman wrote:
What would have been interesting to see is the 50 G at a slightly smaller aperture to remove the bright-ring; the circles might have been soft enough to be acceptable though I am suspecting not.
I actually took some stopped down, but threw them out.
lorriman wrote:
It is a strange thing, to my mind, that Nikon made this lens bokeh-harsh.
I still can't agree that generally it's "bokeh harsh" - particularly compared to my Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f/1.4, which clearly is - it may not be as smooth as the Sigma, but I think it's undeniably an improvement. But I think one of the problems is becoming too focused on this one aspect. A lot of Sigma's lenses suffer from CA in bokeh, which I personally don't like. I can't say I've seen a lot of that with this lens, so maybe that's part of the design tradeoff they made. However, I can't say I've seen that characteristic with the Sigma 50/1.4 in particular.
lorriman wrote:
It is a strange thing, to my mind, that Nikon made this lens bokeh-harsh.
lorriman, do you have much experience with fast 50mm SLR mount lenses?
I ask because the Sigma is an anomaly among them using an new exotic aspherical element design. The 50G to my eye looks much calmer in the OOF areas than past 50-55mm Nikkors. Traditionally 50-ish lenses aren't exactly cream machines, take a look at the large crops I posted on page four showing OOF areas for several well respected lenses.
