Regarding lens bokeh and the 50/3.5 macro, here's a photo I mentioned a week
or so ago in another context. The reason I consider this to be pretty good
bokeh is the background is among the most difficult to render well: out of
focus brightly lit foliage.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1005538&a=7400079&p=26757317&Sequence=0
The nearest thing to harshness is in the upper left portion. While it's not
objectionable to me, this area demonstrates an OOF effect I refer to as
multiple imaging. That effect is typical of Nikkors, which I generally find
unpleasant.
But look at the greenery below and behind the two blossoms. And, in
particular, the stem from the right blossom. Very smooth. It doesn't
distract the eye from the in-focus elements of the photo.
Granted, we've all seen better bokeh. But this ain't bad.
For a look at what I consider surprisingly good bokeh - especially
considering the lens used - take another peek at Ulf's photo of a Monarch
butterfly (which he recently mentioned). It was taken with a 65-200 zoom!
And in his photos from Portugal of the flower festival, the buildings in the
background are so smoothly rendered there's no distraction from the children
in the parade. In those photos, he used the 35-75/3.5-4.5. One seldom sees
a zoom of any kind capable of rendering the in-focus image sharply and OOF
background smoothly. But Ulf has two such zooms!
And while we've discussed this before, there's definitely more to bokeh than
the number of blades in the diaphragm. What's the Japanese equivalent term
for voodoo or magic? r(%)?
Lex
===
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [OM] Re: Bokeh (was "language bastardisation" etc.)
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 11:21:19 -0500
I am sort of a skeptic about bokeh as an objective quality, however. We
just recently had someone talk about the beautiful bokeh of the 50/3.5
macro. Hitherto the consensus had seemed to be that the bokeh of this lens
is poor.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|