Stoppingdown wrote:
First time the foreground blur is smoother than the background one?
Well it didn't used to be back in the day, the Nikkor AF/AF-D lenses and other makers where the glass moved as a group typically showed soft foregrounds and busy backgrounds ..... fortunately as reviewers focused more on rendering lens makers took notice ........
here is Klaus's comment on the AF35mm F2D lens which is typical for the whole AF/AFD series:
"The quality of the bokeh (out-of-focus blur) is a little disappointing. Good news first: in front of the focal plane the bokeh shows very pleasant blur. However, for a wide angle lens this is probably a completely irrelevant property in the field. In the transition zone and behind the focal plane the lens produces "double images and nervous blur."
Background highlights are troubled by very pronounced outlining wide open, stopping down helps to reduce this issue. However, from f/5.6 onwards the straight aperture blades form polygon highlights instead of circles."
Lens makers soon realized that nisen bokeh was being exposed as a drawback, and lenses with soft backgrounds and busy foregrounds made nicer images and was what the market wanted .... finally we got a few lenses that produce soft OOF areas wherever they appeared in the image ......
