Rate My Bokeh
- Thread starter matthewr
- Start date
joel
Painter of Dragons, Maker of Mirrors
The general implication is a kind haziness, for sure. But it's a word not reserved solely for senile old boys. In a fit of eye-popping anger, one's boss may scream something like: omae, atama boketeru janaeika...nodrog said:
ALC's take on boke
Joe P
Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
Yeah, that's not impressive bokeh. Maybe the latest Leica designs don't have the best bokeh ever, but that's disappointing for a $2700 US lens -- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...585&is=USA&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation
It's also a crap picture, proving that however good the glass may be, the photographer matters most -- oh, and that some people shouldn't own $2700 lenses. Honestly, that ***really*** is a crap picture, but the dog's OK, as is the stuffed animal.
Joe
P.S. For comparison, here's the crap bokeh of the 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor, bought secondhand for a hundred clams --
It's also a crap picture, proving that however good the glass may be, the photographer matters most -- oh, and that some people shouldn't own $2700 lenses. Honestly, that ***really*** is a crap picture, but the dog's OK, as is the stuffed animal.
Joe
P.S. For comparison, here's the crap bokeh of the 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor, bought secondhand for a hundred clams --
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
igary.
those leica pictures are third-hand postings. we can't be sure it's leica, we don't know how the film was processed and whether the digital scans came from film or print and what device was used. we also don't know what image processing software and techniques were applied to the jpeg resizing.
all i can tell you is that the 3 leica lenses i own never, ever produce anything but top quality bokeh. in fact, even my non-leica lenses (all carefully chosen) never let me down in this regard, with the exception of the tamron 90mm macro. another horrible performer was a nikon lens i borrowed a few years ago.
if you wish to satisfy your curiosity, go rent a leica for a day and do you own comparison. better yet, just buy one ebay and play with it for a year--you will recover every penny if you choose to sell it. that's actually what i did, except i was so impressed, i bought a superior leica camera once the experiment was over.
lots of people yack and yack about this and that on the internet forums, but hardly any of them actually try out the competition and they all invariably quote "specs" (the way someone would talk about aplifier watts) to justify their opinions. i have a canon, a minolta (TLR), a contax, 2 leicas (rangefinder and SLR), a zorki, a pentax and just recently acquired a bessa. if you go back a few years, i owned the olympus e-10 digital. i even shot a session with a nikon digital a few weeks ago as a favour to a friend. hence, most of my impressions are to do with first-hand experience and i have to say it's the only way for an obsessive-compulsive to avoid having questions of quality hanging over him for ever.
vuk.
those leica pictures are third-hand postings. we can't be sure it's leica, we don't know how the film was processed and whether the digital scans came from film or print and what device was used. we also don't know what image processing software and techniques were applied to the jpeg resizing.
all i can tell you is that the 3 leica lenses i own never, ever produce anything but top quality bokeh. in fact, even my non-leica lenses (all carefully chosen) never let me down in this regard, with the exception of the tamron 90mm macro. another horrible performer was a nikon lens i borrowed a few years ago.
if you wish to satisfy your curiosity, go rent a leica for a day and do you own comparison. better yet, just buy one ebay and play with it for a year--you will recover every penny if you choose to sell it. that's actually what i did, except i was so impressed, i bought a superior leica camera once the experiment was over.
lots of people yack and yack about this and that on the internet forums, but hardly any of them actually try out the competition and they all invariably quote "specs" (the way someone would talk about aplifier watts) to justify their opinions. i have a canon, a minolta (TLR), a contax, 2 leicas (rangefinder and SLR), a zorki, a pentax and just recently acquired a bessa. if you go back a few years, i owned the olympus e-10 digital. i even shot a session with a nikon digital a few weeks ago as a favour to a friend. hence, most of my impressions are to do with first-hand experience and i have to say it's the only way for an obsessive-compulsive to avoid having questions of quality hanging over him for ever.
vuk.
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
mike.
your bokeh is not particularly offensive, but the image is so simple that the potential to annoy has been severly limited. from what it there, i can see that you're getting a doubling of highlights (which can sometimes actually work) and a fair degree of clumpiness (that i usually see in digital captures) in the mid-tones.
vuk.
your bokeh is not particularly offensive, but the image is so simple that the potential to annoy has been severly limited. from what it there, i can see that you're getting a doubling of highlights (which can sometimes actually work) and a fair degree of clumpiness (that i usually see in digital captures) in the mid-tones.
vuk.
Joe P
Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
Vuk,
I also admit that Nikkor is not the best choice in glass for smooth bokeh, but not every Nikkor is crap. In fact, I have three Nikkors I think you'd give a pass to because their bokeh is decent and they do the 3D thing reasonably well -- 35mm f/1.4, 45mm f/2.8 and the 105mm f/2. They don't do tonality exceptionally, but that appears to be something that no lens other than a Leica seems to get right.
(I don't know if he still thinks so, but back in the day Ian quite liked the 35mm f/1.4.)
Joe
If the crap Nikkor you're referring to is the 55mm f/2.8 Micro, I agree completely. Macro lenses, with few exceptions, have terrible bokeh because they're optimized for all sorts of optical parameters other than smooth OOF regions.
I also admit that Nikkor is not the best choice in glass for smooth bokeh, but not every Nikkor is crap. In fact, I have three Nikkors I think you'd give a pass to because their bokeh is decent and they do the 3D thing reasonably well -- 35mm f/1.4, 45mm f/2.8 and the 105mm f/2. They don't do tonality exceptionally, but that appears to be something that no lens other than a Leica seems to get right.
(I don't know if he still thinks so, but back in the day Ian quite liked the 35mm f/1.4.)
Joe
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
here are those pics i shot for a friend (with her nikon d200) a few weeks ago:
http://www.qstatistic.com/foto/hrm/
the pictures turned out alright, but the markings in the finder were so excessive it nearly drove me crazy.
i also don't understand why the camera has to be so f*cking big--it's not as if they put a nice big viewfinder in there.
vuk.
p.s. joe, yes it was the 55mm macro i used. took the 3rd and 4th shots in this set with it:
http://www.dynavector.co.jp/english/photo/photo_vk.html
that was in my digital days, when i had to borrow a decent film camera ;-)
http://www.qstatistic.com/foto/hrm/
the pictures turned out alright, but the markings in the finder were so excessive it nearly drove me crazy.
i also don't understand why the camera has to be so f*cking big--it's not as if they put a nice big viewfinder in there.
vuk.
p.s. joe, yes it was the 55mm macro i used. took the 3rd and 4th shots in this set with it:
http://www.dynavector.co.jp/english/photo/photo_vk.html
that was in my digital days, when i had to borrow a decent film camera ;-)
Joe P
Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
What lens(es) did you use? Pics look good, but not up to your usual colour standards. (But I dunno, maybe that's a film/digital difference I'm seeing.)
I suspect you'd like the D2H's finder -- apart from the 3500 focusing brackets -- but the thing is so massive it makes the D200 feel like a pocketable camera. (Still smaller than my F4, though.)
Did you apply a bit of Gaussian blur here and there, as its bokeh doesn't look as bad as what I get with that lens.
Joe