Ok, it seems I've become another bokeh maniac (this site has many resposibility about it ;-)

I have this shot, taken with a Planar 45 and contax G1 (I cannot afford an M6 now), would you comment on the bokeh here? Would you define it harsh? BTW, I'm not necessarily asking for critiques on the picture itself, I'm trying to get them the usual way, via photo.net, so don't feel obliged.

Thank you very much, here is the shot:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=454644

-- Antonio Carrus (antoniocarrus@yahoo.it), November 28, 2001

Answers

I'm no expert on bokeh but I'll tell you why I really like your shot. The background is basically one and the same object, and it's at an angle so that it's partly WYSIWYG, but partly not. Now about the subject herself...

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 28, 2001.

I like it the way it is. Due to the original point of view / angle the wall is not lit evenly, which make the oof area before the face quite harsh and the oof area behind quite soft because of over- and underexposure. The rendering of these areas looks very nice to me. Maybe changing the lightning may help here, if the source of light yould be moved more to the right, but this shouldn't affect the boukeh.

BTW, the G2 + 45/2 is not more expensive than a used M2 / M3 plus summicron, so if you're after Leica lenses this might be a way to go, but to me the Zeiss lenses seem to be more than good from what you hear and from own experiences (only SLR) ... no reason to change if you like the handling of the G2. This is in my eyes the main point to change to Leica.

Kai

-- Kai Blanke (kai.blanke@iname.com), November 28, 2001.

The background fades away progressively with distance, into a smooth blur. There's no distracting "busy-ness" within the blur. That's what I consider good bokeh.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), November 28, 2001.

I'm no expert either, but this looks like good Bokeh to me too -- Of course we are viewing it on a computer and not a print... Perhaps if you were to compare it side by side with Leica in print form you could notice some difference, but this image looks good to me. Great shot!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), November 28, 2001.

It looks good to me.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), November 28, 2001.

The Zeiss 45mm Planar is a wonderful lens as evidenced by your result. Provided you are comfortable with the Contax G system, I see no reason to switch to Leica. I prefer the manual control afforded by the Leica and do not like the uncertainty of autofocus of the Contax G.

-- David (pagedt@chartertn.net), November 28, 2001.

I am terribly sorry to disappoint all of you, but I think that the posted picture is hardly suitable to draw any conclusion on whether the specific lens has a good or bad bokeh.
The roughness of the wall has an indefinite pattern, at least on my screen. It has bright and dark areas but it is even. The background has no structure. It has no lines, no edges, no highlights, no reflections or whatever could be a basis for a positive assessment of bokeh.

One could also say that since there is no distracting element in the background, there is no bad bokeh!!!
The only problem I can see is that you focussed too close: the left part of the wall is sharper than the girl's face. Otherwise it is OK.

-- George (gdgianni@aol.com), November 28, 2001.

I thank you all for your comments. I'm still thinking about the picture not being suitable for assessing bokeh qualities, but I'm sure similar shots with my former nikkor 50 1.4 were noticeably worse. I've noticed too something strange in the focusing of the wall compared to the eyes, I guess I slightly moved backwards after I locked the focus (I was really close). I admit I love the quality of the lenses in the G line, and the small G1 body, I only have something to say about AF (which I don't need, sometimes it can actually interfere, as here) and no DOF on lenses. All in all I love it, but M6 has always been tempting. Ciao!

-- Antonio Carrus (antoniocarrus@yahoo.it), November 28, 2001.

I suspect the sharp focus on the wall is co-planar with the model's eyes as both appear to be in focus. Supporting evidence is the zippers on the jacket, also about co-palnar with the models eyes...

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), November 28, 2001.

Zeiss Planars of most lengths tend to produce a bit of double-line bokeh in background lines, especially bright lines. It's not extreme as in some lenses, but it can at times be annoying.

Your image doesn't have anything in it that would show double-line bokeh. Otoh the 45 Planar isn't bad at all in this regard, although the current 50 Summicron is smoother.

The Contax 35 f2 Planar is something else, though; at wide apertures imho the out-of-focus background character could best be described as horrible, wormy, crawly etc.

That lens is fine at medium and small apertures.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), November 28, 2001.

Hi, Antonio:

Being bokeh what it is I think it also is a matter of personal taste. In short, I don't think there is something like THE right bokeh.

I like the one you show here.

Regards, Antonio.

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), November 28, 2001.