Bokeh Test

I have 4 new(old is the right word) Minolta lenses and I've used them in various situations- indoors, outdoors, landscapes and such. But I never really tested the bokeh.

Wikipedia defines bokeh as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light "

Normal folk call like us call them "those soft beautiful things in the background!"

It's a given that only the best lenses in the business can make good bokeh(read Zeiss). I took my lenses for a spin today under a dark but windy sky shooting a set of decoration lights on the adjacent building. A tree squarely in the middle ruined it for me and I ended up getting very little light for photographs. The results are ok though.

Camera settings:

ISO 400
Aperture priority mode 2.8-5.6
Auto white balance



I started with the primes and then to telephoto.

The 50mm prime, as expected gives the best bokeh -usually called "creamy" by critics. There is no halo or dark ring and the colors look great. The images are unedited with no adjustments made to levels or color balance. I like the second image the most.

The 28mm prime fare well too with not too apparent halos around edges. My only gripe here is the lack of light. If only I'd moved to a nearby building...

This is a great lens but bokeh is not one of it's strong points. The dark rings are apparent and noise is an issue too

It's the same case with the 28-100mm too. The rings are annoying and the noise too much. Have to admit though..... all the images look great at thumbnail size :-p