02-16-2018, 10:07 AM
The "problem" with bokeh will always remain that it is very subjective; what one person likes, someone else does not.
What many see as good bokeh, e.g., the Canon 85L and L II, is the standard bokeh described in the article referenced by borisbg. It appears to have nice bokeh in the OOF background, but if you look carefully, you'll notice doubling of lines, even if they are blurred. This is very noticeable if you need to do some extreme edits on your images (for whatever reason), especially if the background is not very distant. And foreground bokeh is not as good as the background one.
They do mention in that article that if you have nice blur in the foreground, you get rings in the background, and vice versa. This is caused by the raypaths of light through a lens, and normally unavoidable.
However, the whole idea of these F/1.2 Olympus lenses is that they have good bokeh both in foreground and in background OOF zones. It is one of the reasons why they have so many elements: they do correct for the ring shaped OOF blurs, resulting in very nice gradual blurring both in foreground and in background. This, IMO, is what makes them special - not many lenses are capable of this feat.
I also find that looking at any images created with these lenses, that the 25 F/1.2 is best at this. The 17 is of course a moderate WA, which makes it harder to do, IOW, more a function of increased DoF, and the 45 shows some doubling of blurs if you look very carefully, but certainly to a much lesser degree than its competition, like any other MFT lenses in that FL range, or the Canon 85L for that matter.
Some FF lenses which are very good at gradual, smooth background and foregound OOF blurring, are funnily enough the Canon TS-Es (all of them). I think this is accidental rather than by design, and probably is a side effect of the much larger image circle they are designed for, stretching the blur zones as it were. The 50L is also quite good at this, although in the tests here it appears to have some busy background blur under certain conditions, which I haven't experienced yet myself.
Anyway, in the end it is a matter of taste. Some like it, some don't. Personally I do.
Kind regards, Wim
What many see as good bokeh, e.g., the Canon 85L and L II, is the standard bokeh described in the article referenced by borisbg. It appears to have nice bokeh in the OOF background, but if you look carefully, you'll notice doubling of lines, even if they are blurred. This is very noticeable if you need to do some extreme edits on your images (for whatever reason), especially if the background is not very distant. And foreground bokeh is not as good as the background one.
They do mention in that article that if you have nice blur in the foreground, you get rings in the background, and vice versa. This is caused by the raypaths of light through a lens, and normally unavoidable.
However, the whole idea of these F/1.2 Olympus lenses is that they have good bokeh both in foreground and in background OOF zones. It is one of the reasons why they have so many elements: they do correct for the ring shaped OOF blurs, resulting in very nice gradual blurring both in foreground and in background. This, IMO, is what makes them special - not many lenses are capable of this feat.
I also find that looking at any images created with these lenses, that the 25 F/1.2 is best at this. The 17 is of course a moderate WA, which makes it harder to do, IOW, more a function of increased DoF, and the 45 shows some doubling of blurs if you look very carefully, but certainly to a much lesser degree than its competition, like any other MFT lenses in that FL range, or the Canon 85L for that matter.
Some FF lenses which are very good at gradual, smooth background and foregound OOF blurring, are funnily enough the Canon TS-Es (all of them). I think this is accidental rather than by design, and probably is a side effect of the much larger image circle they are designed for, stretching the blur zones as it were. The 50L is also quite good at this, although in the tests here it appears to have some busy background blur under certain conditions, which I haven't experienced yet myself.
Anyway, in the end it is a matter of taste. Some like it, some don't. Personally I do.
Kind regards, Wim
Gear: Canon EOS R with 3 primes and 2 zooms, 4 EF-R adapters, Canon EOS 5 (analog), 9 Canon EF primes, a lone Canon EF zoom, 2 extenders, 2 converters, tubes; Olympus OM-D 1 Mk II & Pen F with 12 primes, 6 zooms, and 3 Metabones EF-MFT adapters ....