How's Bokeh of Zeiss ZF 25mm lens

<P>I know the Zeiss ZF 25mm lens has received very good reviews. I would like to

know how its out of focus area look at the corners. Would appreciate if anyone

can post a sample here. I have a trusted Nikon AIS 24mm f2.8 but I'm not too

thrill about its corner bokeh. See sample picture below.</P>

<p><a href="http://www.InspirationPointStudio.com/IPS/Welcome.html "

rel="nofollow"><b>Inspiration Point Studio.com. </b></a></P>

<a href="

title="Azalea Hill by Inspiration Point Studio, on Flickr"><img

src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2131/2353876930_5c30eb2f20_b.jpg"

height="600" alt="Azalea Hill" /></a>

Here's a good comparison of the two lenses, Google more when you get a chance..

 

http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/zf25mm/index.html

The effect your photo shows is not a result of bokeh, but a natural consequence of wide angle lenses. I see some distortion and, possibly, coma, but bokeh is not a factor here.

How the heck do you get around the 510 pixel limit?

 

Nice foreground! (The seriously good looking brown leaves)

Andy, he put his image on a photo sharing site "flickr". photo.net won't display a wide image that you try to upload nad host on photo.net, but it doesn't care about how big an image hosted on an external site.

The 511 pixel width limit is intended to make the forums accessible to everyone regardless of ISP access. Bypassing the width limits and attaching large file sizes is inconsiderate to folks on dial-up or anything other than a standard computer or laptop with broadband internet access.

 

While large photos are often helpful for illustrating problems, such as Michael is asking about here, it's more considerate to photo.net's international membership to give them the option of viewing larger photos if they wish to, or bypassing them if they prefer.

I'd go one step farther. If I were posting about edge vs. center bokeh, resolution, distortion, CA, etc. I'd post relatively small (typically 400x400) crops from a 100% image. Easy on the bandwidth, and gets the point across better than a whole image at say 50% resolution, 1500 pixel wide.

Thanks for the suggestions. Bryan, I checked the 16-9.net article before I made this post. The problem is the review tested for corner performance when the subject was in focus, not where it was out of focus. I have no major problem with the AIS lens when it's in focus, just like the foreground brown leaves at each lower corner. It's the top corners that I don't like.

 

Regarding Lex suggestion about distortion and coma, that may be one explanation, but why is the distortion/coma more objectionable when the subject is out of focus than in focus, and therefore leading to my question about bokeh: How does the lens perform at the corner areas when the subject is out of focus?

 

 

To answer Andy's question about the size of the photo, if you click on the above photo, it will bring you to the flickr site. If you then click on the All Sizes icon above the flickr photo, it will show you the different sizes available for posting, and underneath the picture, a HTML code for you to include in your photo.net comment. When you contribute to photo.net comment, just place your comment text between <P>...</P>, insert your flickr reference after </P>, and tell photo.net that your input contains HTML codes. That's it. My habit is I only load my pictures under flickr because it's easier to use, and I use HTML reference to show the pictures on other sites.

 

 

In any case, thanks for your inputs.

I'm still not sure what you don't like about the corners. Can we see the 100% crop?

Seems to me that a 25mm lens is not a good candidate for much bokeh, good or bad.

<P> In the posted image, the upper left and right corners do not look good. The underside seems better! On DX or FX (I'd say the latter) ? At what aperture?

 

@Andrew Robertson: ("Seems to me that a 25mm lens is not a good candidate for much bokeh, good or bad.") I find your assumption strange and incorrect. The image attached here (visible underneath?) shows how even a 20/3.5 Nikkor on DX sensor can exhibit 'bokeh', pleasant or not. </P>

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/2323315625_b1be815aa0.jpg

It's a pity that Michael's image has no EXIF information. Like Albin, I've done quite a bit of 24 and 28mm work with pleasant background blurs. If I had to guess, I'd say Michael shot that one pretty well stopped down, maybe f11. I think opening up would have improved the picture, increased the background blur and deemphasized some very distracting corners.

 

I took the existing image, cropped just the upper left corner, and did a Laczos interpolation 3x larger. That's obviously not as good as looking at a 100% crop from the original before it was downsized for posting, but it's the best I can do. As far as I can tell, the bokeh of the lens is fine. There just isn't enough bakground blur in that image to judge it.

 

If you want the most background blur you can get in that focal length range, go for the old Nikon 24mm f2.0 AIS, not the f2.8.

 

Or, if you really want to push the envelop, and have the budget for it, get the new 24mm PC-E. Instead of using it normally (tilt the lens downward that the camera upward to allow close focus of the foreground and a sharp background) tilt it downward and you will have a pleasantly increased background blur with a sharp foreground on a 24mm wide. It's incredible on a D3.

The photo was taken with Velvia 100. I used a wider aperture, probably f5.6 to blur the

background because I thought it would be too busy and compete against the foreground

subject.

Albin, it is impossible to infer anything about the bokeh using a subject like a human face.

It may still fare poorly when exposed to point light sources, vertical or horizontal repeating patterns, etc.