- REVIEWS
early eliminate the inevitable signals interference due to diffraction and spectrum shift. This lens tames the zones of confusion (commonly but erroneously called "bokeh balls") and eliminates airy discs, onion ring effects, and other out of focus noise.
What this means practically is that in images, as objects move away from the zone of focus, they do not blur or smear out, have green or violet shifts, or (common to point-sources of light) go to bokeh balls, onion rings, or other shapes less pleasing, but rather gently retain their forms.
This make this lens ideal for situations where you want a sharp subject, but also want the background to retain something of a recognizable and non-distracting form, and where you want things slightly away from the focal plane to not become immediately and noticeably blurry. This makes it superb for shooting flower and faces alike, or any scene where you want the subject dead-sharp, but the scene itself still present. Comparisons to fast 85mm or 135mm lenses miss the point of what this can do.
The big tradeoff is that the apodizing element does cut your light in half. While the lens is an f/2.8, it will show up in-camera reading "f/5.6", and this can be confusing until you understand that this is for metering purposes.
Again, this is a technical lens, so it best rewards those who use it with a full understanding of what it does. Properly handled, this lens is a gem and will reward a photographer with fantastic images. Read Less