What has good Bokeh

In article ,
says...
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As far as I
can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica lenses; and, b) some
pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm _not_ intersted in esoteric
lenses such as some lens on an old folder from the fifties etc., (including
canon fd, etc., etc.).

The ones I have used:

Nikon 180mm f/2.8
Nikon 105mm f/2.5
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR

Canon 400mm f/2.8

Leica 50mm 1:2 Summicron
Leica 90mm 1:2.8 Elmarit
Leica 135mm 1:4 Elmar

The ones I know about:

Nikon Series E 75-150mm
Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro

As somebody else has said, it tends to be a subjective thing, but as you
say, Leica seems to have a penchant for getting it right.

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Tell your tits to stop staring at my eyes.

In article VbDBf.44623$V.5621@fed1read04, "Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest
even number says...
Matt Clara wrote:
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As far
as I can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica lenses;
and, b) some pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm _not_
intersted in esoteric lenses such as some lens on an old folder from
the fifties etc., (including canon fd, etc., etc.).

Here's a shot taken with Canon's 100-400 IS L (which I no longer have, but
wish I did):
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47306216
Smooth, pleasing bokeh.

Here's a another shot that would have been a bokeh disaster with most
lenses, but was handled extremely well by Canon's 24-70 2.8 L (Hmmm...maybe
I shouldn't sell this lens after all...):

This shot of leaves was illuminated from BEHIND (sunbeam shining through
them), with very bright sky spots and other very busy, messy leaf-highlights
behind these (see upper left portion of frame). This sort of background
usually leads to total crap bokeh, but this is darn good--especially
considering that it was shot at f13 (!), which is hardly an aperture usually
associated with good bokeh.

Note the LACK of hard-edged circles around the highlights directly to the
left of the main subject.
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47770602

Here's some great bokeh, from a P&S no less.

http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/forum/...php?photo=9491
&cat=502

(may need to unwrap that URL, sorry.)

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Tell your tits to stop staring at my eyes.

"Floyd Davidson" wrote in message
...
"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote:
Skip M wrote:
I'm sorta curious what constitutes "good 'bokeh.'" I've seen bad,
but I've seen several lenses that produce what I feel is a smooth,
soft out of focus area, like my Canon 100 f2:
http://www.pbase.com/skipm/image/53329055

IMO, most any lens shot using that huge an aperture will do reasonably
well--especially with no bright background highlights...so it's perhaps
not
the best sample shot (that's NOT to say anything negative about that
lens,
rather that this shot might not be the best indicator). I think what

Agreed on all of the above. There isn't much in the background that would
change between a lense with "great bokeh" and one with "okay bokeh". A
lense with really horrible bokeh probably would make some of the vertical
lines in the background look very annoying with double edges, but that's
about it.

However, "good" bokeh seems to be *very* subjective...

usually what sets good bokeh example apart is the way they show the
handling
difficult backgrounds. Your model is only partially in focus, so it's
pretty easy to render the background WAY out of focus. But what happens
when you use an aperture that gets more DOF on the model? Can it still
render a background that isn't overly defined? Perhaps another shot
would
show that...

Here's a shot with your same 24-70 2.8 L lens, but with a very tricky
background...and at a pretty small aperture. I think it passes with
flying
colors, especially considering that the scene and small aperture
combination
that would usually lead to ugly OOF qualities:

http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47770602/original

To me, this shot shows that the lens produces nice bokeh where others
might
fail.
-No overly defined circles around the bright spots, and no converging,
bloby
circles where the messy backgroud leaves cross.

For example, I don't agree with that analysis of this image. I
see what appears to be a six bladed aperture, and especially the
brighter backgroud highlights have noticable "donut"
characteristics.

My subjective opinion is that a lense with an odd number of
blades in the aperture is nicer, though in that image it would
make no difference. But a lense with 8 or 9 blades would have
been significantly better! And it appears that spherical
aberations is slightly over corrected, and that a lense with
under corrected aberations would have produced a nicer
background.

The lower left is rather rough looking, a would have been helped
significantly by either a different lens or a wider aperture
setting.

I would expect that Photoshop could cure anything wrong with
that photo that would have been better with a different lense.
(And note that switching to a different lense would probably
have lost the shot entirely, so I see nothing to be negative
about; and it *is* a very pleasant image!)

Here is a really great series of articles on lense
characteristics related to bokeh. Jumping to the third one gets
to the point faster, but reading the first two provides a
background.

http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/spherical.html
http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/astigmatism.html
http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/bokeh.html

This one isn't the best explaination around, but some of the
details it demonstrates are really interesting.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml

Here is a URL showing what can be done using Nikon's "Defocus
Control" lenses (105mm f/2D AF DC-Nikkor).

http://www.stacken.kth.se/~maxz/defocuscontrol/



Thanks Floyd--great links.

--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com

"Tony Polson" wrote in message
...
"Matt Clara" wrote:

Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As far as
I
can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica lenses; and, b)
some
pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm _not_ intersted in esoteric
lenses such as some lens on an old folder from the fifties etc.,
(including
canon fd, etc., etc.).


Let's start with Nikon:

FFL:
85mm f/1.4 AI(S) and AF-D Nikkors*
100mm f/2.8 Nikon Series E
105mm f/1.8 AI(S) Nikkor
105mm f/2.5 AI(S) Nikkor*
105mm f/2 DC AF-D Nikkor*
135mm f/2 DC AF-D Nikkor*
180mm f/2.8 AI(S) and AF Nikkors*

Zooms:
75-150mm f/3.5 Nikon Series E*

I've put an asterisk next to the ones I think have the best bokeh.



Yet you switched from Nikon to Pentax in large part due to their out of
focus characteristics. Would I be safe in infering then, that though these
Nikons you list have good bokeh, they do not have great bokeh?

--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com

"DD" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As far as
I
can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica lenses; and, b)
some
pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm _not_ intersted in esoteric
lenses such as some lens on an old folder from the fifties etc.,
(including
canon fd, etc., etc.).

The ones I have used:

Nikon 180mm f/2.8
Nikon 105mm f/2.5
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR

Canon 400mm f/2.8

Leica 50mm 1:2 Summicron
Leica 90mm 1:2.8 Elmarit
Leica 135mm 1:4 Elmar

The ones I know about:

Nikon Series E 75-150mm
Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro

As somebody else has said, it tends to be a subjective thing, but as you
say, Leica seems to have a penchant for getting it right.


Thanks Dallas. If "good" and "bad" are subjective--and not everyone agrees
they are--then yes, it's subjective. But if you follow Floyd Davidson's
third link you'll find some pretty objective criteria with which to measure
bokeh by.

--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com

DD wrote:
In article VbDBf.44623$V.5621@fed1read04, "Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest
even number says...
Matt Clara wrote:
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As
far as I can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica
lenses; and, b) some pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm
_not_ intersted in esoteric lenses such as some lens on an old
folder from the fifties etc., (including canon fd, etc., etc.).

Here's a shot taken with Canon's 100-400 IS L (which I no longer
have, but wish I did):
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47306216
Smooth, pleasing bokeh.

Here's a another shot that would have been a bokeh disaster with most
lenses, but was handled extremely well by Canon's 24-70 2.8 L
(Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't sell this lens after all...):

This shot of leaves was illuminated from BEHIND (sunbeam shining
through them), with very bright sky spots and other very busy, messy
leaf-highlights behind these (see upper left portion of frame).
This sort of background usually leads to total crap bokeh, but this
is darn good--especially considering that it was shot at f13 (!),
which is hardly an aperture usually associated with good bokeh.

Note the LACK of hard-edged circles around the highlights directly
to the left of the main subject.
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47770602

Gotta disagree with you here. That bokeh looks harsh to me. Both pics.


I'm not saying it's perfectly smooth, but most lenses would render it very
very badly.
Just about any lens can produce decent OOF elements when shot wide open, but
this was f13.
Big difference there.

Floyd Davidson wrote:
"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote:
Skip M wrote:
I'm sorta curious what constitutes "good 'bokeh.'" I've seen bad,
but I've seen several lenses that produce what I feel is a smooth,
soft out of focus area, like my Canon 100 f2:
http://www.pbase.com/skipm/image/53329055

IMO, most any lens shot using that huge an aperture will do
reasonably well--especially with no bright background
highlights...so it's perhaps not the best sample shot (that's NOT to
say anything negative about that lens, rather that this shot might
not be the best indicator). I think what

Agreed on all of the above. There isn't much in the background that
would change between a lense with "great bokeh" and one with "okay
bokeh". A lense with really horrible bokeh probably would make some
of the vertical lines in the background look very annoying with
double edges, but that's about it.

However, "good" bokeh seems to be *very* subjective...

usually what sets good bokeh example apart is the way they show the
handling difficult backgrounds. Your model is only partially in
focus, so it's pretty easy to render the background WAY out of
focus. But what happens when you use an aperture that gets more DOF
on the model? Can it still render a background that isn't overly
defined? Perhaps another shot would show that...

Here's a shot with your same 24-70 2.8 L lens, but with a very tricky
background...and at a pretty small aperture. I think it passes with
flying colors, especially considering that the scene and small
aperture combination that would usually lead to ugly OOF qualities:

http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47770602/original

To me, this shot shows that the lens produces nice bokeh where
others might fail.
-No overly defined circles around the bright spots, and no
converging, bloby circles where the messy backgroud leaves cross.

For example, I don't agree with that analysis of this image. I
see what appears to be a six bladed aperture, and especially the
brighter backgroud highlights have noticable "donut"
characteristics.

My subjective opinion is that a lense with an odd number of
blades in the aperture is nicer, though in that image it would
make no difference. But a lense with 8 or 9 blades would have
been significantly better! And it appears that spherical
aberations is slightly over corrected, and that a lense with
under corrected aberations would have produced a nicer
background.

The lower left is rather rough looking, a would have been helped
significantly by either a different lens or a wider aperture
setting.

That's my whole point, though.
Just about any lens can do nice OOF with a large aperture.
-That this one did as well as this with a very small f13 is quite decent.
If only ideal shots are used as examples, then there's little point in
asking the question, since nearly any lens will do where conditions are
good. What you need is a lens that will still do well in poor conditions,
or conditions that typically lean to horrible bokeh.

DD wrote:
In article VbDBf.44623$V.5621@fed1read04, "Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest
even number says...
Matt Clara wrote:
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As
far as I can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica
lenses; and, b) some pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm
_not_ intersted in esoteric lenses such as some lens on an old
folder from the fifties etc., (including canon fd, etc., etc.).

Here's a shot taken with Canon's 100-400 IS L (which I no longer
have, but wish I did):
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47306216
Smooth, pleasing bokeh.

Here's a another shot that would have been a bokeh disaster with most
lenses, but was handled extremely well by Canon's 24-70 2.8 L
(Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't sell this lens after all...):

This shot of leaves was illuminated from BEHIND (sunbeam shining
through them), with very bright sky spots and other very busy, messy
leaf-highlights behind these (see upper left portion of frame).
This sort of background usually leads to total crap bokeh, but this
is darn good--especially considering that it was shot at f13 (!),
which is hardly an aperture usually associated with good bokeh.

Note the LACK of hard-edged circles around the highlights directly
to the left of the main subject.
http://www.pbase.com/markuson/image/47770602

Here's some great bokeh, from a P&S no less.

http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/forum/...php?photo=9491
&cat=502

(may need to unwrap that URL, sorry.)

This is why I see very little point in comparing shots taken under ideal
circumstances (large aperture, no bright background highlights). What we
really need to know is how lenses deal with problematic scenes, where (for
example) a small aperture is needed, and where the background typically
leads to major problems.
My leaf shot isn't an example of a "perfect background" but it is an example
of a lens that dealt with a scene and aperture that would be total crap with
many lenses.

"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote:
Floyd Davidson wrote:
My subjective opinion is that a lense with an odd number of
blades in the aperture is nicer, though in that image it would
make no difference. But a lense with 8 or 9 blades would have
been significantly better! And it appears that spherical
aberations is slightly over corrected, and that a lense with
under corrected aberations would have produced a nicer
background.

The lower left is rather rough looking, a would have been helped
significantly by either a different lens or a wider aperture
setting.

That's my whole point, though.

Just about any lens can do nice OOF with a large aperture.
-That this one did as well as this with a very small f13 is quite decent.

No, that is *not* what I'm saying. Note that I gave *two*
alternatives, one of which is indeed a wider aperture.

But I think a lense with better bokeh would have produced a
better image too. And I listed the specific reasons, one being
the 6 bladed aperture and the other being the slight over
correction for spherical aberation.

If only ideal shots are used as examples, then there's little point in
asking the question, since nearly any lens will do where conditions are
good. What you need is a lens that will still do well in poor conditions,
or conditions that typically lean to horrible bokeh.

On that we agree 100%. Others have posted images with what they
say is "wonderful bokeh", but there are no straight lines or
points that are highlighted against a darker background either,
so how can anyone tell what the lense contributed to it? It's
just a great background, not a great lense!

Your image is appropriate for determining the effects from the
lense, but I don't think the lense did all that well. Not that
it looks horrible, but it isn't anything near "great bokeh", and
a better lense (in that one respect) would have improved the
image.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Matt Clara" wrote in message
...
Could someone please list those lenses that, have good bokeh? As far as I
can tell they are limited to: a) a good share of Leica lenses; and, b)
some pentax lenses; and c) very little else. I'm _not_ intersted in
esoteric lenses such as some lens on an old folder from the fifties etc.,
(including canon fd, etc., etc.).

--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com




Canon EOS 85mm F/1.2, and the f/1.8 is pretty good, too.



Patrick