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 Zeiss 55mm F1.8 - background blurs too quickly, compact alternative? | |
gdanmitchell wrote:
The lens on the right does not appear to be as sharp in the plane of focus.
Yogifi wrote:
gdanmitchell wrote:
I would love to see identical images from the two lenses at the same apertures.
Yogifi wrote:
gdanmitchell wrote:
You might try f/2.8 or f/4…
Yogifi wrote:
If I wanted a moderately compact, f2 and larger aperture, 50mm auto-focus lens - but I didn't want the background blur to be so strong and fast, while still shooting wider at around f2-f2.8 1m distance, are there good options that aren't as sharp (and modern rendering) as the gm 50mm f1.4?
I'm finding the images look off because of how fast the background blurs with this, it's not gradual enough for what I want as my go-to. Perhaps it's the 5mm tighter focal length that's causing that?
Maybe I'm not understanding / explaining my issue with it exactly, but the background blur looks "cheap", apologies for the poor choice of word:
@ f2.8:
If there's an established word to describe it, would love to know. I've heard "transition zone" used quite often here but not exactly sure what it's referring to. "Falloff" would make sense to me but I'm not sure if that's actually what people use to describe it. This is rapid falloff, turbo charged falloff, I'd like something more subtle, while still letting me shoot wide.
I know from my testing with the Nokton and APO from CV, the apo lens is much more gradual, at the same aperture, perhaps even too much. And the APO is even a little tighter fl.
I don't mind some spherical abberation (I might actually prefer it). Though I don't particularly like the glow of the nokton at close range, doesn't look like a nice glow. It's a lovely lens regardless but I'd like something with autofocus for people.
I was thinking about the 50mm f1.4 ZA but it's rather heavy and so I wouldn't get as much use out of it.
So perhaps the Sigma 50mm f2 - but just curious if anyone has thoughts or comments on this, as I can't find it to rent and it doesn't seem all that popular. The other one I know is available is the Samyung 45mm f1.8.
Anyone been through this and know what I mean? Any suggestions other than stop down to f7 with the 55f1.8  .
I think it's useful wide-open for longer range at say 2m or so, not just for people, or looking down at a pet and still getting some blurring with the body/floor. But with normal waist-up portrait range I feel like it needs significant stopping to slow the blurring.
I think the Sigma 50mm f2 might have less pop and separation but I think I'll give it a try for standard 1m-ish distance people shots. Will try and find a used copy unless I get warned off by follow-up posts.
45mm f2.8 I'm liking very up-close for pets ... and pretty up-close for people, but closer than I would ideally want to be. Has a really nice form-factor though.
That shot was at f2.8, I need to take it to at the very least f4.5 and then I've lost so much light already.
Whereas with the Sigma 45mm f2.8, at 1-1.5m, the f2.8 doesn't produce enough of a blur, while the 55mf1.8, too much at the same aperture, and not a pleasant blur.
It's something to do with the lens design, I'm not sure what. I read somewhere on this forum after starting this thread that the lenses undercorrected for spherical abberation seem to have larger DOF, I'm not sure if there's truth to that.
If the 45mm f2.8 from Sigma could do f1.5 - f2, I suspect that would have been perfect if the AF didn't suffer even more than it already does. Hopefully f1.8 would have been enough to keep it smaller. Meantime going through the ones that exist...seemingly one by one. The Samyung 45mm f1.8 is next up, let's see arrives tomorrow.
The APO and Nokton are closely related in focal length, you can see the falloff difference where the APO is more gradual, and it actually has a very slightly tighter focal length:
Different lenses, similar focal length, same aperture (f2.8), different falloff. The Zeiss would be quite a bit more blurry than the Nokton still, you could put it down to focal length differences, it's why I mention the APO and Nokton in the previous post and this one. Zeiss has rapid falloff and it's not pleasant until you stop down significantly or increase the focus distance quite a bit and it improves, for my taste at least.
I actually have the Zeiss on the same scene for anyone curious, here it is compared to the Nokton. And this was at a distance of around 2.5m where I like the Zeiss falloff ... a lot more than at closer range:
The Nokton is actually sharper than the APO in the center, where that crop is from.
You can clearly see the falloff is more gradual with the APO as it gets further behind the BBQ, though the Nokton has nice fall-off too. It's consistently like this, gives the APO a nice realism look.
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