Sony 85 1.4 GM and cat's eyes

Hey,

I was considering buying Batis or G-master. After looking at lots of pictures I decided I'll go with G-Master because of rounder bokeh.

I love the lens, absolutely love it. BUT I still get the cat's eye bokeh. Here are some examples:

As you can see - it's everywhere.

So - my question is - is it something that I will get from time to time and it is dependent on backgroud light or maybe it is lens-dependent and it just a quality of mine? I just remembered thay I had protective filter on (Hoya Pro1 Digital) - but I don't think it should have any impact.

Other than that - the lens is perfect. I know some ppl like this shape - but I especially bought GM for rounder lights.

Thanks for suggestions.

The question being if circular is aesthetically more pleasing than oval? Personally, I find the car's eye look and the occasional swirl it produces more interesting. It is purely subjective and would not make me choose one over the other.

PS: Very nice photos, especially #2 and #3.

All lenses will have this sort of cat's eye bokeh. It's to do with the angle of the specular highlight. At some point, the light entering the lens gets "clipped" by the lens barrel, causing the cat's eye. If the light entered from dead on, it'd be round.

Thanks.

I'm not exactly against oval shapes - but frankly the more oval/natural shapes sold me to G-master. I love this lens and really there is nothing that would undo this feeling

(This pics looks kinda "stretched" contrast/quality wise cuz I shot them with post in mind and when I got back home - it turned out I shot in medium quality JPEGs - so it's rather saving what I can :< )

But what exactly make a cat's eye on the lens side? I saw comparisons Batis vs GM and definitely G-Master had rounder out of focus lights. Is it aperture blades?

I'm asking because I'm curious if this is copy dependent or maybe I just got these type of lights in the background that gave me cat's eye

This is a perfect example - blue lights on top of a stadium.

Heffner wrote:

I love the lens, absolutely love it. BUT I still get the cat's eye bokeh. Here are some

As you can see - it's everywhere.

So - my question is - is it something that I will get from time to time and it is dependent on backgroud light or maybe it is lens-dependent and it just a quality of mine? I just remembered thay I had protective filter on (Hoya Pro1 Digital) - but I don't think it should have any impact.

Other than that - the lens is perfect. I know some ppl like this shape - but I especially bought GM for rounder lights.

Yeah, you still get that effect, but if you have the Batis shooting in the exact same condition you will see even more.

I also went with the 85GM for the same reason, it has Cat's Eyes Bokeh, but to a much less degree than the Batis 85 and the Canon 85L which I also own, so if you have that "Sony 85 GM has no Cats eyes bokeh" in mind before you bought the lens, you simply have a wrong expectation. I have played with many 85mm before and decided the 85 GM is the one for me and i have been happy with mine.

Other than that - the lens is perfect. I know some ppl like this shape - but I especially bought GM for rounder lights.

Yeah, you still get that effect, but if you have the Batis shooting in the exact same condition you will see even more.

Even better, as some would think I went with Batis cause I love my occasional cat eyes.

BBQue wrote:

Other than that - the lens is perfect. I know some ppl like this shape - but I especially bought GM for rounder lights.

Yeah, you still get that effect, but if you have the Batis shooting in the exact same condition you will see even more.

Even better, as some would think I went with Batis cause I love my occasional cat eyes.

Add another cheap UV filter you may even get some lens flare too, LOL call it " artistic' effects, 

Heffner wrote:

Thanks.

I'm not exactly against oval shapes - but frankly the more oval/natural shapes sold me to G-master. I love this lens and really there is nothing that would undo this feeling

(This pics looks kinda "stretched" contrast/quality wise cuz I shot them with post in mind and when I got back home - it turned out I shot in medium quality JPEGs - so it's rather saving what I can :< )

But what exactly make a cat's eye on the lens side? I saw comparisons Batis vs GM and definitely G-Master had rounder out of focus lights. Is it aperture blades?

I'm asking because I'm curious if this is copy dependent or maybe I just got these type of lights in the background that gave me cat's eye

This is a perfect example - blue lights on top of a stadium.

Very very nice and expressive photo !!! What makes cat's eyes? It is my understanding, that it is the lens barrel. Need a very very wide barrel to make it perfectly round wide open. For what it's worth: the degree of "ovality" in this photo is just perfect to my eyes and gives a 3-dimensional effect to the background.

Did you use off-camera flash here?

Add another cheap UV filter you may even get some lens flare too, LOL call it " artistic' effects,

Nope, apples and oranges. One is different geometric rendering, the other is purposeful degradation of the image. There is nothing intrinsically better or worse in circular versus oval shapes. Remember the pentagonal Hasselblad Zeiss OOF highlights? Didn't make anyone think Hasselblad's to be inferior lenses.

Very very nice and expressive photo !!! What makes cat's eyes? It is my understanding, that it is the lens barrel. Need a very very wide barrel to make it perfectly round wide open. For what it's worth: the degree of "ovality" in this photo is just perfect to my eyes and gives a 3-dimensional effect to the background.

Thanks!

Lens barrel plus aperture rings - ok, that makes sense, my imagination worked and now I'm pretty sure that it's probably impossible to make perfect round shape all the time Than's why the only way to make it round is to crop from the middle OR make other shapes - like hexagonal (I think) I sometimes see in movies.

Did you use off-camera flash here?

Natural light only, not even a reflector - I didn't have an assistant and it was rather busy moment of the night so it was like "that looks nice, let's shoot some pics"

Roses wrote:

You shoot wide open on any lens wider than f2, you'll likely get cat's eye bokeh, especially around the edges and corners. It's the physical shape of the aperture being shaded.

If you want perfect roundness, stop down to about f2.5 or f2.8 on your 85GM, and you should get round bokeh even to the corners of the frame.

On the Batis 85 stopped down to about f3.2 the bokeh becomes round to the corners.

Thanks for the tip - I'll try that next time

alextardif wrote:

Looks fine to me, expected really, given the light conditions in the background and proximity to those lights along with the framing. Batis has this effect in spades (plenty more on my couple pages of portraits I recently shot on the street here: STREET 1 & 2). Aesthetically wise it's so subjective that you'll have opinions from love it to hate it and everything in between...

My one and only "issue" with cat eyes is in post: if you have something nasty/distracting in the background that you want to clone out, etc. the cat eye are a bit more difficult to manage as you need to keep the shape of the bokeh universal to not draw attention to your retouch. It's manageable, but need to keep that in mind when editing.

Interesting point. I wish the GM wasn't so expensive compared to the Batis. I don't mind the f1.8 aperture but really want the smoother bokeh (and less cateye/swirl) rendering of the GM. The Batis is perfect in every other way but I'm not a huge fan of the bokeh on many backgrounds I frequently shoot (foliage, specular highlights, etc)