If you can see it, you can measure and quantify it. It may take careful thought and planning to construct a methodology to do so in a meaningful fashion, but that does not make it \"impossible.\"
For instance, blur circle characteristics such as size, shape, distribution of light intensity, and color are things that can be measured.
What one really needs to understand about bokeh is that it also depends on non-optical parameters--i.e., the nature of the scene. It is entirely possible that the same lens can simultaneously produce smooth and unsmooth bokeh--sometimes even in the same shot, depending on the subject and shooting parameters.
As for whether something is \"pleasing\" or \"unpleasant,\" that is an entirely different question. I disagree with the assumption that \"we all have a good idea of what nice bokeh is,\" because there is no universally accepted standard for what constitutes \"nice bokeh.\" Were it so, it would be quantifiable, but by your own admission it is subjective. Your earlier analogy referring to the flavor of food also assumes that there is such a thing as a universally agreed set of criteria that makes some things taste good. As you know, people have different tastes. I love cilantro, but quite a few people hate it, for example (they claim it tastes \"soapy\").
Objective measurement can give us answers to questions such as, \"how big?\" \"What color?\" \"What shape?\" \"How much?\" To the extent that these things inform our perception of what is desirable, we can use these measures to describe what is good; for example, we generally consider high resolving power and high transmission to be positive attributes of a lens. But not everyone might agree that a certain characteristic is desirable or a criterion is significant, and that is where the discussion becomes subjective. The reason why many of us have been so critical of Zeiss in this thread is because some of you are trying to pass off your subjective impressions of the lens as objective fact, and when confronted with side-by-side comparisons under controlled conditions, those claims fall apart.
No one is saying you can\'t prefer the Zeiss just because you like it. What I and many others have been saying--largely to no avail--is that it is unfair and inappropriate to say that the Canon is not as good a lens because of some vague belief in some rendering difference that is not borne out in the side-by-side testing that has been done. I truly, honestly believe that if more side-by-side images were taken, you would find it extremely difficult if not impossible to distinguish the two, especially if the colors were rebalanced to match (as this is the most obvious difference).
May 31, 2011 at 09:28 AM
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