I wondered if anyone else has an interest in the Bokeh of the Pentax 67 lenses. (Short explanation of Bokeh at bottom.)

I've heard that the 165 and 200's Bokeh's are OK, and the 135 macro is bad, but does anyone have more detail to add about these and other lenses (especially the new 300mm f4 ED IF?)?

Also, how many leaves are in the irises of the various P67 lenses (a rounder, many-leaf iris shape usually helps Bokeh, over a more angular (i.e. 5-leaf) iris.)

Explanation: Bokeh relates to the rendering of out-of-focus parts of an image - "good" bokeh generally is thought to produce more pleasing out-of-focus highlights and background images. (The new Contax 645 brochre is proclaiming that all its lenses have good Bokeh.)

I owned one of the original 6x7 systems, then sold about 8 years ago, but am considering getting another system now.

-- Randall O. (robot@earthlink.net), March 20, 2002

Answers

I don't have any techical data to prove that Pentax has better performance than any other camera. However the Pentax lenses seem to have more aperture blades than the other MF cameras I have used in (Bronica and Hasselblad). I'm wondering if the focal plane shutter design of the P67 gives extra flexibility to the designers that isn't available with leaf shutter lens designs. I seem to remember Minolta making a special portrait lens for their 35mm a few years ago which had extra-special bokeh capabilities by having a near perfect circular aperture.

-- Tony Estcourt (tony.estcourt@talk21.com), March 25, 2002.