Originally posted by ChristianRock I think the lens did fine... it blurred out the background smoothly. But it won't turn your background into something different, it's still whatever background you choose... if the background is not complimentary to the subject, the lens can't change that...
I agree with you on that everything you said after, "it blurred out the background smoothly"! If you take a look at the fringes on the oof highlights in the trees you'll see what I was trying to get across. Thank you for your comments, I hope this helps foster understanding with what I'm talking about here.
Again, a lot of what makes us like or dislike a lens is subjective between photographers. People are still out there buying meyer optik gorlitz triopans! While most lenses have limitations that the photographer will have to work around, personally, I found this one's to be particularly aggravating. Like the FA 50mm f/1.4 that I sold, the F 50mm f/1.7 had me distracted while creating photos. Trying to isolate a subject with shallow DOF would frequently yield shots with distracting backgrounds, the opposite of my intention while opening up the aperture. So, I found myself trying to avoid making images with point light sources in the background because I knew they would be rendered as eye-catching hard edged blobs.
But, on this lens, I clearly have a dissenting opinion from the norm. As always, your mileage may vary!