Samuli Vahonen
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 p.830 #8 · ZE/ZF/ZM Images (Official Thread!) | |
RiverGuy wrote:
Samuli,
There are a few images like you want to see in my Farmer's Mkt gallery that I just happened to do with the Otus as it was all i had after Saturday morning's shoot of a pottery kiln opening.
http://danmacdonald.zenfolio.com/knoxfarmersmarketnov16_013/slideshow
Thanks for these, I have been hitting F5 all weekend so I did see them already 
RiverGuy wrote:
I think I'm going out very early Wednesday here to do some shooting in the Great Smoky Mtns park. I will keep your wishes in mind and try to deliver you some images that should match up in content the sort of images you showed from your 50 1.4, a lens I used to own.
Wow, I spent few years in USA (Milwaukee, WI / Columbia, SC / York, PA) due to my work and Great Smoky Mtns park was my favorite place. Now I really envy you; Otus in my absolute favorite place in USA  Your effort is very much appreciated.
RiverGuy wrote:
I too prefer stopping down. I only had the f 1.4 images early on because there are so many "shoot only wide open" fanatics in these forums. Some of them are under the impression that the only advantage to an f/2 or f/1.4 lens is to shoot at that widest aperture. They repeatedly drop comments that indicate they actually think the quality of an image shot stopped down to, say, f 2.8 or 3.2 on a 1.4 or 2.0 lens is no different in bokeh, IQ, etc, from 2.8 or 3.2 shot on a much cheaper lens of far less quality....Show more →
Gear forums tend to be this way. However if one is not very picky about image quality and/or can use defects artistically beneficial way (I do this sometimes, example), I do see their point from their perspective. One of the biggest issues shooting wide open for me is that the bokeh, from quantity point of view, isn't usually so much different from more optimal apertures, but quality of bokeh can vary a lot. In end of this post I added two photos to demonstrate this.
BTW. If you haven't read Roger Cicala's resolution tests, might be worth checking - seems that also sharpness is not as high level in f/2 than it's from f/2.8 to f/5.6 (thou f/2 numbers indicate that unless doing 100% pixel peeping w/ 36Mpix camera that it's near perfect from f/2 to f/8 what comes to sharpness)
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/11/otus-is-scharf
RiverGuy wrote:
I think with the Otus I'll end up shooting most of my outdoor subjects (non studio, non landscape) in the 2.0 to 3.2 range, by the feel of the images I'm seeing so far. After the initial images for the Otus gallery I'll probably never shoot at 1.4 again and rarely at 1.6......I have yet to grasp all the variables (including me) in this, but I will in another week or so of work. I confess I'm not used to using a normal range lens as a walkaround candid lens shot at very wide apertures.
If you are not familiar shooting very wide apertures, few ideas about situations where I would prefer to shoot large aperture IF there would be no optical issues:
- short-DOF landscapes (=subject quite far away like 5-20m/15-60feet), have to be careful to position camera so that subjects line up so that they are in DOF. Examples: 1.4/35@f/1.4, 1.4/85@f/2.8.
- "full body environmental portraits", more referring to object size than subject matter. Examples: 1.4/85@f/1.4, 1.4/50@f/1.4 (without vignetting this would be much better in my eyes).
RiverGuy wrote:
At the moment I'm encountering significant vignetting at 1.4 to 1.8. I can correct it easily, but the amount of correction necessary bothers me.
Vignetting or how I some case call it "hot spotting" can be really annoying, very much depending how it appears. Personally I was quite disappointed, when I heard that Zeiss compromised from their original plan to use 82mm filter with Otus - if they make lens so huge, why in earth to save few mm and have rather large vignetting. I'm sure people many people say "but vignetting suits my subjects", however I would prefer to add it in post processing since it won't suit to all subjects; and if one shoots like me (subjects quite often positioned outside the 1/3rd "lines") then it almost never suits the photo well.
With most modern Zeiss lenses it seems vignetting is worse on large distances, I wonder if that that is the case with Otus as well? For example both Makro-Planar have hideous vignetting at f/2 @ infinity, but are quite ok with close-ups and makro.
RiverGuy wrote:
Those are beautifully clear shots with the 50, by the way.
Yep, very nice clarity, brilliance and pretty well controlled bokeh @ f/2.8, at least with 20Mpix sensor cameras this lens is the best investment I can imagine (assuming user is able to understand focus shift and mitigate it).
Example of 1.4/50 Planar - bokeh actually doesn't change (in quantity) much between f/2.8 and f/1.4, even bokeh should be much much more blurry since there is 2 stop difference. In addition spherical aberration cause small contrast in subject as well. Shoot from about 2m/6feet distance. [Note! this image would not worked @ f/1.4 even I would have had optically perfect f/1.4; the branches in front of the vertical part of tree trunk would not be enough in focus @ f/1.4]
f/2.8
f/1.4
Samuli
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