[VellMerlot]

I’ll have images later tonight, but quick impression of the 120: f/4 is smoother than f/11, which may mean that radically out of focus is smoother than more slightly out of focus. But we would have expected that.

Out of focus in the foreground is much worse than out of focus in the background for double-line and false edges. That distinction is very obvious.

At its worst, it can show bright-edge bokeh, but usually its neutral. In the macro range, it’s quite pretty with a faded edge.

Pictures later this evening.

Rick “grabbing some shots in fading light” Denney

Sounds logical: the larger the aperture, the larger field of depth, and more items/lines try to be "on focus". Yes, I know there are "scientific" terms for those things (confusing circles or whatever), but I need to think using easy words. These double-lines are the scarier things I'm afraid of.

@Sandy the boletus' background is not much worse than some of my "best" pictures (the ones I discard because the background)... the rose's one is smooth and -for my taste- very pleasant.

Vic "waiting for Rick" Lozano

PS: it's kinda fun those signatures... I wish you don't be offended if I use them to answer you, mate

[baro-nite]

Have you considered the 105/2.4 from the 6x7 lineup? You might need an extension tube or close-up diopter for it for macro subjects. Loads of examples of it in use wide open on Flickr and elsewhere.

[rdenney]

Here are the images I promised earlier. These were shot at rather high ISO, because I was in fading light on an overcast day. ISO was typically 3200. That would have no effect on the bokeh, of course. These were processed with DxO Photolab 2, but with nearly all corrections turned off. I left the tonality sliders to adjust the curves. No sharpening, no noise reduction, and no other adjustments that might introduce artifacts.

Japanese maple series:

Leaf with distant landscape as background, at f/4. The background is at least 30 feet away, and some of it farther:


Leaves with other leaves behind them. The leaf in focus is about a foot or two from the camera, the background leaves are 8-15 feet away, with overcast sky showing through. I made two of these. The first one shows the foreground leaf in focus, and the bokeh is neutral--the edges are neither faded nor brightened. That means the edge of the blurred spot is rather crisp, which can introduce false patterns as the spots overlap.


But when the foreground is out of focus, things get a big wild. Here, I adjust the focus to a point about halfway between the foreground leaf and the background leaves. The foreground leaves really went nuts with all sorts of diffraction artifacts.


Azalea series:

I set up the tripod and photographed an azalea leaf at three apertures. The leaf is focused at 1:1--minimum focus for the 120 Macro. The shutter speed ranged from 1/25 to 0.6 seconds. The background is quite nice on all of these.
F/4:


F/8:


F/11:


Birdhouse series:

As above, but focused to about two or three feet, with a background 70-400 feet distant. The shutter speed was 1/8 at the smallest aperture, and the birdhouse was swaying slightly, so there is a tiny bit of horizontal motion blur. The bokeh for these gets a bit clumpy, but not objectionably so.
F/4:


F/8:


F/11:


Chain series:

Here, the chain is about a foot from the camera, and the little cedar bush in the background is about 3 or 4 feet from the camera. Same three apertures. Here, the bokeh is a bit clumpy, but again not objectionably so.
F/4:


F/8:


F/11:


Bush and Dogwood series:

Two pairs of photos, here. For the first, the subject is at about 4 feet, background is at 20 feet. The branches in the background are rendered with neutral bokeh--neither bright nor faded edges. But those clean edges are still edges. Faded-edge bokeh would be much prettier here.
F/4:


F/11--I'll take neutral bokeh over insufficient selective focus to isolate the subject:


Here, the subject is at 2 feet and the background at 4 feet. Those edges really create some false patterns here:
F/4:


F/8--again, too little subject isolation. But the bokeh patterns are small enough not to add together in distracting ways:


Th 120 Macro performs like most highly corrected lenses. The out of focus spots expand into an even disk with no fading or brightness at the edges.

With a classic (read: old) Sonnar, the edges would be faded at wider apertures. With some really vintage lenses (Heliars, for example), the out of focus patterns would be distorted into tangential ovals, creating a swirly pattern.

But with many lenses, the out-of-focus highlights are bright. In this image, the highlights are bright-edged, but are tolerable because they are small. This photo was made with an otherwise superb 121mm f/8 Super Angulon on 6x12 Velvia, mounted on a Sinar view camera, shot at f/16:



(It's the same Japanese Maple, but in a much more colorful year. And then there's the Velvia effect.)

And from my article, here's a 180mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar (aka, Wide Smooth Brush), at f/4, showing the effects of the faded edge at wide apertures:



Rick "we report; you decide" Denney

[iCrop]

The second one from iCrop is the kind of bokeh that scares me. I use to have "difficult" backgrounds, and too nitid lenses tend to react that way.

Nothing to be scared of here. The lens can be had for less than $200 on ebay. Grab one and learn to use it to your liking. If not, sell it. BTW, what is a 'nitid' lens? (Please forgive my ignorance. )

[VellMerlot]

Wow, that was a full exhibition about the 120, thanks Rick "who spent a lot of time helping around" Denney. The foreground chaos is really bad, but I think I can guess the behaviour of the lens with those pictures...
I'll spend a bit of time with the 150 alone, as I spent two or three walks with the 75 alone, and I'll try to know if I can get used to its long minimal focus distance. I can try it with one of the extension rings to be able to shoot at closer distance, but as I'm trying to remove weight (and volume) from my little bag, I thought the 120 could be a nice choice.

@iCrop I thought it, but here in Europe the cheapest one is around €300, except one from Italia, and I had sad experiences with italian sellers
I'll try the 150 again, I loved it but its damn minimum focus distance.

Thanks to all you, guys.

[Andrea K]

Uhm.. I think that these shots are unfair because a disturbing background is a disturbing background at every aperture values.

[VellMerlot]

Maybe, Andrea, but for many of my shoots, I cannot have a fair background, and some lenses make a better work "reducing its noise" than others.
Sadly, I cannot find the definitive lens... from shots I saw, the Sonnar 180 would be a nice addition to my bag, but its minimum focus distance scares me.
This saturday I did some tests with the 150 and the extension rings... the nº 2 makes a pretty nice job reducing the minimum distance keeping some focus margin (not a lot, but), but it's not enough.

I'm still wondering wich lenses I really need. Maybe something like 35-75-150 with a duplicator will fit all my needs, but then I remember the Sonnar, and my doubts raise again.

But again, thanks for your answers.

[mikeSF]

In my bag, the 90macro and FA150 have better bokeh, but apparently the 120macro can hold its own:

Backyard Delights


This one exhibits that edge effect you experienced with the statue.
Last Leaf


this one is focus stacked, but you can still see how the bokeh is rendered wide open: Grape Leaf


Stopped down to f/5.6 (notice some double edge effect of distant grass blades):
Long Legged Fly

[rdenney]

Uhm.. I think that these shots are unfair because a disturbing background is a disturbing background at every aperture values.

Depends on the lens. Some lenses manage a disturbing background better than others.

But I don’t carry backgrounds around with me, and the subject has a preferred angle, as well.

Rick “who included several images with pleasingly smooth backgrounds” Denney

---------- Post added 12-03-18 at 12:17 PM ----------

In my bag, the 90macro and FA150 have better bokeh, but apparently the 120macro can hold its own:

Backyard Delights


This one exhibits that edge effect you experienced with the statue.
Last Leaf


this one is focus stacked, but you can still see how the bokeh is rendered wide open: Grape Leaf


Stopped down to f/5.6 (notice some double edge effect of distant grass blades):
Long Legged Fly

True. I just finished putting my Alaska book together, and it started with flower photos. In no case did the 120’s background rendering ruin a photo.

At some point, I’ll start posting some of those photos.

Rick “now thinking about how to get the cost of the book down” Denney

[marcusyoung]

The A120 macro, wide open aperture f4 produces execellent sharpness on the subject and nice out of focus bokeh.


marcus

[K1Ray]

I own this lens for about a month now. The genuine Pentax 645 to PK adapter costed more! So far I find the lens very sharp; hoping to do head shots wide open to see how much bokeh.

[Eric Auer]

[marco_gea]

A couple of attachments to illustrate below.

But of course, it depends on the background, and if it's really busy and distracting, then it won't look pretty no matter what lens you use.

Marco.

[PhilRich]

I appreciate the responses post in this thread, and particularly those posted by Rick demonstrating the effect of a range of apertures on the overall rendering of the picture. Thanks! I haven't been using my FA 120 macro for quite some time to take advantage of its capabilities.

[RICHARD L.]