Alf Beharie wrote:
I still have'n come across anything better than the Canon FL 55mm f1.2 for bokeh quality and sharpness:
Im inclined to agree on the sharpness. I sold two Planar 50/1.7's because I truly could not see any more detail from them than the FL. sure they had richer colour but I prefer the soft colours of the FL for people.
I also find the bokeh pretty damn good too - its quite smooth but has enough information left to be interesting. I definitely prefer the rokkor's bokeh though, there's something magic about fast 58's for bokeh. Closest thing to medium format focus transition I've seen yet.
mawz wrote:
And that lens is the Pentax 55/2 ;-) It's one of the oddest ways of making a cheap variant of a lens anybody's ever come up with but the 55/2 is just a 55/1.8 with the aperture ring changed so it doesn't open up all the way.
Definitely not true for my Super-Takumar 55/2. Maybe it's true that the aperture doesn't open as fully as it physically could, but wide open you can't see the aperture blades because they are hidden behind some metal with a circular hole. Maybe it's a fixed "stop" that limit's the aperture to 2.0 instead of 1.8, but the opening is certainly a perfect circle.
Just curious - in the original series why was the Tamron shot at 28mm not 50mm? Would that have made a difference? Not that I expect a 375.00 zoom to match a 50mm Leica prime lens...
Senor, thanks for this most informative post, and assuming you used the same WB the coolness of the Leica is a surprise, to me at least. Then again, the last bokeh shots seem to confirm it. Much more realistic colour from the Planar as well, notice the blue shadows on the trunk in the Summicron image, it looks like poorly processed Velvia.
And the life in the image is not a contest, the Leica looks very flat despite there being little difference in perceived sharpness at most apertures.
For info, at the comparable aperture of f5.6, the f1.4 CY Planar is also clearly 'sharper' than the f1.7 CY Planar as measured by micro-contrast (40 lpmm) as well as the less demanding MTF lines; unless Zeiss are fudging their own lens data tests. This is looking over the major part of the frame, as both have poor corners. See them here:
The best 50mm i'v tryed so far is th Olympus Zuiko 2/50 Macro. Smooth bokeh (no circles) and tak sharp from edge2edge. Best wide open performance i ever seen.
Qwerty64 wrote:
Thanks for all the work and sharing. I've had all three lenses in the past. My previous superstar the Zeiss 50mm f1.4 was finally upseated by my current superstar the Nikon 50mm f1.2 AIS which is simply incredible. Don't know if it's my copy or the lens in general.
My copy of Nikon 50mm f1.2 AIS is shining too... I think this is a very underrated lens, I have very good glass in my bag but this 50 is a superstar as you said.
I was also surprised to see the bokeh of my recently acquired summicron-r 50. as nervous as Zeiss. I love Leica colours and sharpness of Zeiss. Now I have a hard time deciding which one to keep: ZF 50/1.4 or Leica.
It seems that your Leica is the earlier version, which is supposedly slightly inferior to the latter ones.
My copy of Nikon 50mm f1.2 AIS is shining too... I think this is a very underrated lens, I have very good glass in my bag but this 50 is a superstar as you said.
I replaced my 50L with an AIS. I do like it as well.
AhamB wrote:
Just a small remark about the first infinity focus series: you can see that the sun was quite a bit lower at the time the Tamron images were shot, which probably explains why they look quite a lot warmer/more yellowish.
It's also my impression that the Zeiss is the overall winner and that the Leica looks really quite flat and lifeless.
The only weakness of the Zeiss' bokeh is polygonal highlights. All the other lenses show less of it. So the contrast behind the focal plane is higher with the Zeiss.
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For the newer mm zeiss didn't they round the blades; or was that just for the 85.
