Non-formal Testing of 85mm~105mm Lenses

[raid]

Thanks Mark and Roland. I will then plan a test for this weekend.
I will use several bottles and not one bottle.
maybe I can arrange the bottles one after the other and I will focus on the first bottle. This way, there will be an out of focus effect with the rest of the bottles. Or, I use the background for bokeh with one bottle.

Roland, which lens do you have in your [small] Avatar? is it the smaller black nikkor 85mm lens?

Raid

 

[ferider]

Hi Raid,

here is a bigger version of the avatar. The M6 is carrying the Nikkor. Same size as the chrome one, but no hood for the photo. The M2 carries the Canon 35/2.

Cheers,

Roland.

 

[raid]

Hi Raid,

here is a bigger version of the avatar. The M6 is carrying the Nikkor. Same size as the chrome one, but no hood for the photo. The M2 carries the Canon 35/2.

Cheers,

Roland.

Hi Roland,
Thanks for the enlarged avatar. Cool!
I will wrap up the test this weekend hopefully.


raid

 

[raid]

I took two rolls of film today, and hereby have completed my testing.
First, I took a roll of film with the Canon 85mm/1.8 just to see if the images come out different than with the 85mm/1.9 that I own. I have already in recent weeks taken one roll with the Nikkor 105 and one roll with the Nikkor 85.

Then I did the bokeh test.
I placed two bottles on the porch fence, and I chose as background the street and neighbor's house. If all goes well, I should have a light and dark background, as someone has suggested here.

To make things easy for me, I skipped using a tipod. I managed to use shutterspeeds around 1/1000 ~1/2000 with Fujicolor 200 film.
I took two identical photos at max aperture with each lens.


I hope to have the film developed very soon.

Raid

 

[raid]

Here is the first replicate for the bokeh test.
I hope that you can benefit from the photos.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=628757

If you want to see the second replicate, just let me know.
I thought that having all ten images on one page makes comparisons easier for you.


Raid

 

[johne]

Remarkable Zeiss! I do not own one.
Johne
Thanks for your effort in this, Raid.

 

[raid]

Remarkable Zeiss! I do not own one.
Johne
Thanks for your effort in this, Raid.

Glad you like the results, Johne. The lens labeled as Zeiss is a special Jupiter lens that has in it glass by Zeiss. Roland owns this lens and he refers to it by its exact name.I stated the full name in the beginning of this thread.

Raid

 

[raid]

Note that the black Elmar now focuses on the right plane. It turned out to be a problem of matching between the Elmar and that specific M adapter which caused the incorrect focus in the previous posting on the black Elmar. This time, I forced the lens to be screwed on tightly, thereby damaging the adapter but getting focus. 🙂

Raid

 

[johne]

Raid,

I do have a jupiter 85 and love it.
Johne

 

[raid]

I don't have a Jupiter tele lens except the J-3 (50mm/1.5), but it seems that people like them.


It would be useful if someone posts some guidelines on what a good bokeh actually is. I have a feeling that different peopleview bokeh differently.

Raid

 

[ferider]

Nice, Raid.

You put that bottle up for me, didn't you ? "Selbstgemachter" Objektiv Test 🙂

I need to spend a bit more time on the photos ... on first glance I find the ZK and both Nikkor bokeh's real pretty (you will say: "what a surprise" ...)

Thanks for all the work,

Roland.

 

[raid]

Nice, Raid.

You put that bottle up for me, didn't you ? "Selbstgemachter" Objektiv Test 🙂

I need to spend a bit more time on the photos ... on first glance I find the ZK and both Nikkor bokeh's real pretty (you will say: "what a surprise" ...)

Thanks for all the work,

Roland.

Yes, Roland, the bottle was for you. A German student brought it to me as a gift. His father (before he died) used to make homemade fruit alcoholic drinks.
I am glad that the bokeh tests went well. I learned a lot about the ten lenses tested. After a long break, I may do a test for 35mm lenses.


Raid

 

[payasam]

Some forty years before I came across the word "bokeh", we'd speak of out of focus backgrounds in a descriptive way: "smooth", "velvet", etc. The ideal was no jaggies which jumped out and poked you in the eye. That makes sense in a general way, because the whole purpose of throwing a background out of focus is to keep it from becoming a distraction. The red kaffiyeh photo is an example, though it doesn't have any bright spots which might have been offensive.

Does the German student's father now make ambrosia?

 

[raid]

Some forty years before I came across the word "bokeh", we'd speak of out of focus backgrounds in a descriptive way: "smooth", "velvet", etc. The ideal was no jaggies which jumped out and poked you in the eye. That makes sense in a general way, because the whole purpose of throwing a background out of focus is to keep it from becoming a distraction. The red kaffiyeh photo is an example, though it doesn't have any bright spots which might have been offensive.

Does the German student's father now make ambrosia?

I also don't like "Jaggies". I have noticed that the very fast lenses, such as a Summilux, has such background jaggies. It seems that with fast lenses such a background is expected. In the tested lenses there are minimal jaggies.

As mentioned above, the "late" father who made the drink is dead.


Raid

 

[VinceC]

Good bokeh is a deeply blurred background where the elements melt/dissolve into one another.

Bad Bokeh is distracting, with doubled lines, zig-zags and out-of-focus rings. It is most common with fast 50mm lenses and perhaps some fast wides.

I'm attaching one of my stronger examples of harsh bokeh. The first picture is from a classic Nikkon 5cm f/1.4 of the 1950s at probably about f/2. The spots of light coming through the trees are distinct, hard-edged circles, many with brighter edges than centers, so that there's a ring effect. Many of the out-of-focus branches are doubled, with jagged lines, especially to the lower right and lower left. The overall effect is a very "busy" background with a lot of movement and tension for a photo that ought to be tranquil. My understanding is that the harsh backgrounds were an intentional tradeoff. The lens designers when for the sharpest, fastest lens the Sonnar formula could handle. It's important to note that bokeh is very different depending on f/stop and the distance where the lens is focused.

For comparison, I've attached a photo of another daughter taken with a longer lens ... 105 or 135 Nikkor ... also close to wide open, so that you can see an example of a smooth background. Most longer lenses have "good" bokeh.

I took the first picture last year. Walking in the forest near our home, my youngest daughter took the map from me and decided she would take over being the guide. The second picture was this past winter in front of our house.

 

[raid]

Vince,

There is a difference between a pleasant and unpleasant background effect, and I noted that the fast lenses have unpleasant bokeh to my eyes.The Summilux is a lens that I don't own, but I don't like its bokeh as seen in many posted images online. Others insist that this lens has great bokeh.

I have the Nikkor 50/2and 135/3.5, and I know that the 135mm lens has very nice bokeh. I still need to use the 50/2 lens wide open.



Raid


"Good bokeh is a deeply blurred background where the elements melt/dissolve into one another. It's most common with fast 50mm lenses and perhaps some fast wides."

 

[VinceC]

Raid,
Everything I've ever heard about the 50/2 Nikkor is that it has wonderful rendering of backgrounds. I know in my SLR lenses, the 50/2 is a very smooth, very pleasing lens (that I never use because I like having f/1.4!).

>>"Good bokeh is a deeply blurred background where the elements melt/dissolve into one another. It's most common with fast 50mm lenses and perhaps some fast wides.<<

I was again typing faster than I was thinking. I edited my earlier post. Actually "good" bokeh is more common with longer lenses, while "harsh" bokeh can show up on fast 50s.

I've also seen some examples of a Leitz fast 50 (f/2?) from the 1930s that had strange swirls in the background.

 

[raid]

Vince:

Yes, this is more similar to what I have noted. It seems that when designing a fast sharp lens there is a price to pay; harsh bokeh.

I am quite pleased with the test results of the ten lenses. Do you have observations on the results? You are one of the few who have commented in depth.

Raid

 

[VinceC]

Interestingly, I just tried a "blind" test and somewhat favored the Zeiss and Nikkor 85mm. But all the examples look good. The reasons I favor the Zeiss and Nikkor were the more deeply blurred backgrounds. The Steinheil seemed the "least good" because of more defined circles in the background highlights, a characteristic shared by the Elmars and, to a lesser extent, the Canons. But this is being real nitpicky. All the lenses look really nice. Probably I'm just so used to the look of the Nikkor 85mm (and the Zeiss is very, very close ... I actually picked it as my favorite) that my eyes were drawn to it. In practical use, I've found the Nikkor 85mm is capapble of doubled lines in the out-of-focus area, but they're so soft that it's not as distracting as with a 50mm lens.

There's a big difference between f/2 on the Zeiss and Nikkor, and F/2.8 or f/4 on some of the other other lenses. The f/2.8 and f/4 lenses simply can't smooth out the background as much.

 

[ferider]

Here are more examples from my worst case "gas lamp test" with illuminated leaves in the background. It illustrates what Vince wrote above, how some OOF rings and their patterns can be disturbing (at least to me).
From left to right: Canon 85/2, Nikkor 85/2 and Jupiter-9 (this is a different lens, a J9 from 71, but it should behave similarly to the ZK Raid tested). For me the J9 is the prettiest, but then the Nikkor is much sharper. The (for me) right compromise between sharpness and bokeh is why I like the Nikkor so much.

Cheers,

Roland.