Some bokeh from my Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar 60/2.8

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

I have to say that i love my Zeiss lenses Smile

So i usually take them with me when i'm going to make some pictures of nature. This one Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar 60 mm f/ 2.8 C/Y if lens that i use most of all. It isn't sharpest Zeiss lens that one can think but it's every-day lens allowing to make bokeh-oriented photos and portraits in the same day.

Here i want to show my Bokeh pictures that i usually "hunt" Smile

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What do you think about Zeiss bokeh and especially this lens being compared to Canon, Nikon and Leica?

walter g · Joined: 20 Feb 2010 Posts: 2463 Location: NC, USA

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Bokeh doesn't look anything special, it looks nice but not different to many others.

Smoli4 · Expire: 2013-06-07

hey man, nice shots and thanks for sharing these! a very interesting lens indeed!
lol and i like you avatar alot!

Gerris2 · Expire: 2014-01-17

Hi Kenji, and welcome. I think your photos are great, keep posting!

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

poilu · Expire: 2019-08-29

nice leaves series !

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Gerris2 · Expire: 2014-01-17

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Bokeh is not something I'm very interested in but the lenses which have the most pleasing bokeh to my eyes are the ones where it is very smooth and not distracting, I suppose my favourites for bokeh would be the Meyer Primotar 3.5/135, Petri CC Auto 1.8/55, Canon FL 2.5/35, CZJ Biotar 2/58, Meyer/Pentacon 2.8/135, Ross Xpress 3.5/4inch, those are just off the top of my head.

My absolute favourite for bokeh are probably Sonnar designs such as the Jupiter 8 and Jupiter 11, they have such smooth and soft bokeh, such as in this shot with a 1957 Jupiter-8 2/50:

Most modern double-gauss/planar type lenses have very similar bokeh, the differences being rather small. I posted bokeh samples from 13 different 50-ish mm lenses a while back and they were all very similar.

In general, it is the older lenses that are less highly corrected that tend to have the most interesting bokeh, for instance, swirly bokeh is the result of spherical abberation. I'm not really a fan of swirly bokeh but it can be nice sometimes if it's not over-the-top, I like the slight swirl my Apollo 1.3/50 c-mount lens gives:

There is no reason at all why Zeiss T* lenses would have 'better' bokeh (although better is quite meaningless as it's all a matter of personal taste) for instance, a T* Sonnar 2.8/135 wouldn't differ much, if at all, in it's bokeh from an older Sonnar such as the Jupiter-11 4/135 or the CZJ 3.5/135 as they share the same optical formula with only very minor differences.

If I were to chose a lens from my collection specifically for making pretty bokeh (that was pretty to my eyes at least) I'd go for the 1950s Kershaw made Gaumont Kalee Bloomed 5inch projector lens, it's a Petzval type, has many scratches and quite severe separation of the front pair of elements, but the bokeh is the smoothest I have ever found.

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

If absolute sharpness is important to you and you live in Russia, you should look at the first version of the Zenitar 50mm, only the legendary Planar 50 for Contarex is sharper. Also, the OKC pro movie lenses made by LOMO, many of those have 70/35 centre/edges. Bear in mind that the Industar-50, which is a very sharp lens only has 38/22 so the LOMO movie lenses are outstandingly sharp.

Of course, once you reach a certain level of sharpness then it's irrelevant just how high the resolution is. If the lens has equal or greater resolution to the sensor or film you are using then it is sharp enough. Most lenses by top makers will out-resolve the densest sensor so sharpness debates are a little pointless imho.

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

That's a fascinating photograph, thanks for sharing.

You wouldn't see bokeh in such a studio portrait, the distance from subject to background is insufficient, especially with the small aperture lenses in use in that era.

Perhaps the place to look for vintage examples of bokeh would be the work of Erich Salomon, he was probably the first person to shoot with large apertures.

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia

poilu · Expire: 2019-08-29

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I think in both cases the backgrounds are painted.

I can't find the info about the Zenitar right now, but I was referring to the first version released, it was revised and the resolution lowered. Someone posted resolution figures for all the variants of the Helios-44, Helios-77 and Zenitars, the Zenitars were the sharpest.

The 1959 Industar-50 I have is a very sharp lens, the manufacturer's figures give 38/22 as it's resolution statistics. I have a 1966 I-50 that is equally sharp.

I have a 1955 Jupiter-8 that has lower resolution statistics but is still very sharp, I suspect they both outresolve the 4mp sensor in my NEX-3 as I have been unable to discern a different in perceived sharpness:

If your film or sensor can't record more than a certain resolution then it's irrelevant how high the resolution of the lens is as long as it is equal or greater than the resolution of the sensor/film. I think that with sensors, other factors such as the strength of AA filter or whether it even has an AA filter and it's pixel density are more important to perceived sharpness of the output than the lens, as I said before most lenses from top makes outresolve the sensor. Even the latest very dense sensors like the 36mp Sony full frame one are lower in resolution than a good film such as Fuji Velvia 50 and the lenses we are discussing were designed to have superior resolution to the best film types (not including microfilms and special purpose films, there were very high resolution special lenses for use with those).

The LOMO lenses are not for video, they are for 35mm motion picture cameras like the Konvas and Kinor.

About the resolvance of LOMO 35mm movie lenses, the 35 OKS-3-14-1 has an incredible resolving power of 82/30, others such as the 35 OKS-2-14-1, 35 OKS-6-22-1 and 35 OKS-10-28-1 have 70/35. The only one I own is the 35 OKS-1-18-1 which has 64/27.

Here is a typical LOMO datasheet, this one for the OKC-1-18-1 I own:

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

To get back to the point about bokeh, I found my old post with 13 different 50-ish mm lenses shot wide open. I think this shows that there is less difference than most people think:

kenji · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 36 Location: Russia