Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 bokeh samples and question

[kenji]

Hi guys!

I want to share some photos from my beloved Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 C/Y.



Hope you will enjoy and tell me your opinions about it's boke, and is it better or weaker than modern Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 ZE. Should i switch to modern lens or stay with old one?

A lot of thoughts about who is better. New version in produced in Japan by Cosina and old one is produced in Japan by Kyocera.
Both have T* multicoating. Both have rigid construction and their MTF charts are mostly the same.

So what do you think, who is better and why?

Here are some photos from Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 C/Y

[iangreenhalgh1]

Bokeh is typical of a modern double-gauss/planar type. I doubt any lens of this type is going to be much different in bokeh.

Compare your last shot to this one from a Minolta Rokkor-PF 1.7/50.



They are similar because they are similar optical formulas. The Minolta is smoother because the shot was taken wide open, whereas the 6-bladed aperture shape is visible in the Planar shot.

If you want to find bokeh more than ever so slightly different to this you need to look at older lenses. The most highly sought after bokeh lenses around 50mm are old ones like the Meyer Primoplan 1.9/58.

Even a cheap lens like the Chinon 1.7/55 will be an improvement in bokeh over the Planar.

[ManualFocus-G]

I'm not sure about the modern version, but I love my Contax versions so much I've never considered changing them! I have three copies of it now

Some of my samples:




Reptiles at Marwell Zoo (3) at f1.4 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Vegas at night (3) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


York - Christmas Fayre 1 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Street theatre in Oxford by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Excuses by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

Here's some from another poster here with the new lens:

http://forum.mflenses.com/photos-made-with-new-planar-50mm-f1-4-t30596.html

To me, the Planar 50/1.4 is not a flower lens. It's not got incredible bokeh, but it does have incredible pop at f/2.8 and on. Nothing else touches it IMO, which is why it is my main lens. It's also extremely useful wide open for night shooting.

[iangreenhalgh1]

[ManualFocus-G]

Cheers Ian, I think we've gone off topic though

But in the interest of continuing the debate, I prefer the Sonnar 135/3.5 for flowers:


Furzey Gardens (19) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Furzey Gardens (21) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Furzey Gardens (23) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Furzey Gardens (17) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr


Furzey Gardens (12) by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

[Attila]

Bokeh not depend only from lens it is highly depend from light, background , subject distance from background. So no matter really which lens do you have almost any can make good bokeh from 50mm lenses, certainly this is valid for your two Zeiss also.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Those are all lovely shots Graham, I sold my CZJ Sonnar because I could make a pretty good profit on it and had a Jupiter-11 that was as good, perhaps slightly better. I also really like the Meyer/Pentacon 2.8/135 for flowers.

It's not so easy to grasp the crux of this topic. The OP seems confused about how to achieve what he wants. If it is bokeh that is his criteria for selection then his concern should be with aesthetic character of a lens' rendering rather than it's technical excellence. MTF charts and stats are of no value at all in determining the aesthetic qualities and character a lens possesses.

The lenses with the most characterful rendering and most interesting bokeh are those where abberations are not completely corrected. The closer to perfect correction a lens is, the less character in it's rendering, therefore looking for the best bokeh in the most technically excellent and highly corrected lenses is rather oxymoronic.

As Zeiss double-gauss/planar type 50mm lens designs have progressed, they have become ever more highly corrected and technically excellent, but the character of their rendering and aesthetic qualities of their bokeh has become reduced as a side-effect.

For instance, the Biotar is less highly corrected than the Pancolar that replaced it, so the Pancolar is the technically more proficient lens but the Biotar has more character to it's rendering and more aesthetically pleasing bokeh. The Contax Planar supercedes the Pancolar in timeframe of design and is more highly corrected again, with higher technical excellence, but as we said, has less aesthetically pleasing bokeh.

As a rule of thumb - older lenses for aesthetic character and bokeh, modern ones for technical excellence and more sterile aesthetics.

[iangreenhalgh1]

[Attila]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[Orio]

[iangreenhalgh1]

What I said wasn't contradictory, you are confusing planar the lens design of Paul Rudolph with 'Planar' the lens name used by Carl Zeiss Oberkochen since the 1960s.

To be clear, I will use planar with a small p when I talk about the design type and Planar with a capital P when I talk about the Zeiss lens.

The planar design has a large number of air to glass surfaces, therefore it was not feasible to produce lenses of this design with sufficiently high contrast and low flare until the advent of lens coatings.

For this reason, it was not until the Biotar that Zeiss produced the planar design for SLRs. This is an excellent lens but is not fully corrected for some abberrations, hence it has glow when wide open and a characteristic swirl to it's bokeh. (other early planar types like the Dallmeyer Super-Six and Cooke Speed-Panchro are similarly not fully corrected, giving them a lot of character and interesting bokeh, that is why they are so highly sought after today by bokeh lovers).

The Biotar was superceded by the Pancolar, this is also a planar design but is more highly corrected than the Biotar, hence it has less glow wide open and lacks the swirl in it's bokeh.

CZJ didn't produce another planar design after the Pancolar, they just carried on that design, adding multicoatings, and making slight improvements over the lifespan of it's production.

CZ Oberkochen designed the Planar, which, like the Biotar and Pancolar is also a planar type. It is even more highly corrected than either of the CZJ planar types. This higher level of correction of abberations is why it is a superior lens in technical terms to either the Biotar or Pancolar, but also why it lacks the character and interesting bokeh that make those older designs so appealing to many.

So while there are many planar type lenses, they are not all the same by any means.

Here's a Biotar (1950s) shot, displaying the glow and swirl it is known for:



Here's a Pancolar (1960s) shot, the glow is much reduced and the swirl is gone:



I don't have a Planar but you know about that one.

I hope that's clearer for you. The greater the degree of abberation correction, the less character in the rendering and the less interesting the bokeh, so the Planar, being the most highly corrected has the least character and least interesting bokeh, but conversely, the highest level of technical excellence.

[kenji]

[kenji]

[iangreenhalgh1]

No, I like the Planar very much, I am just saying that it's strengths are in it's technical excellence, not in it's bokeh or having a lot of character in how it renders. I like the Biotar because of it's bokeh and character, but it has inferior sharpness and contrast to a Planar. Therefore, each lens has it's merits and I would chose one or the other according to the subject and the desired look. I like the Biotar wide open for portraits because the glow it has (from uncorrected spherical abberation) gives a nice look to the skin, but I would chose the Planar for an architectural shot where edge-to-edge sharpness, lack of distortion and contrast are desired.

The number of aperture blades plays a role in bokeh in two ways, first in the shape of the highlights, the more blades, the closer to a round shape they will be, with less blades, you get a different shape, less round, lenses with 5 or 6 blades produce highlights with that number of sides. Secondly, the more blades, the smoother the bokeh tends to be, particularly in the transitions between bright and dark areas.

One example I can think of is the Meyer/Pentacon 2.8 /135. Earlier versions have 15 blades, later ones only 6. Therefore the earlier ones have a smoother, creamier bokeh and later ones it is a bit harsher.

Here is a shot with the early 15-blade version, I think at f4, notice the smoothness of the bokeh and the round shape of the highlights:



I also have the later 6-bladed version but I can't find a good example of how it's bokeh differs to show you.

[Orio]

[kenji]

[kenji]

[metallaro1980]

what do you mean for boring?