is RF 35’s bokeh that bad??

[David Hwang]

Now I’m considering of purchasing RP and RF 35 mainly for portraits of my young daughter, but I’ve seen posts here saying that it has a severely busy bokeh.

It seems bad to me as well, but there are not many 35mm prime with super smooth bokeh anyway. I don’t know.

So would you not recommend RF35 for portrait?

 

[iRanN]

It's funky for sure but nice classic rendering isn't always wanted.

 

[gsmayes]

What kind of portraits are you talking about? I'd be more concerned about working distance and distortion. I'm new to FF was have only used the RF 35 for street photography so far, but I felt it was too wide. I have to try my EF 50mm 1.8 stm next time.

I was a little disappointed with the construction materials. The fujifilm and older EF lenses feel much nicer.

 

[David Franklin]

I'm not able to comment on the bokeh of the RF 35mm, but I can say that the 35mm angle of view is not a "portrait" lens view by any stretch, except perhaps for a near full-body shot or one where some slight apparent perspective "distortion" is acceptable to otherwise get an otherwise excellent picture. To do a natural looking head and shoulder to very tight head shot, at least a 50 mm or, preferably, an 85mm to 180mm focal range will yield the best results. Too short a lens renders the front of the face too big in comparison to the rear most portions, and too long a lens renders those rear portions (ears) too big in comparison to the front of the face (nose). The happy medium for these shots that look most "normal" to the human brain happen when the focal length increases as the overall size of the face in the image area increases. I've been doing this for a living for 40 years, and i can tell you this is true. Yes, you can get a fantastic portrait with a 35mm lens, but it is harder to do and to artfully avoid the perspective from detracting from the positive overall look of the image. Finally, 35mm is the widest lens I'd ever use to shoot any "portrait of a person, if the person is all that you want to consider as the subject of the image. For environmental portraits, where you want to include many things around the person, in order to make some point about that person, then all such rules about focal length are null and void, and very wide angles often work best.

So, what to do? Well, here's one thought for you. I'd go with one of the EF to RF adapters, and shoot an inexpensive lens like the "nifty 50" or the inexpensive 85mm f/1.8 instead. But, of course, YMMV, especially if you don't currently own either one of those, or you'd rather not invest in any other EF lenses, new or used, right now.

 

[sobrien]

Have you seen the YouTube review by The Daniel Life? Plenty of sample portraits there (mostly full body, as you’d expect) to help you decide if it would meet your requirements. Reviewer compared it favourably to the Sigma 35 in that regard.

 

[David Hwang]

It's funky for sure but nice classic rendering isn't always wanted.

It seems to me that the focus is too close to show its funkiness.

 

[David Hwang]

What kind of portraits are you talking about? I'd be more concerned about working distance and distortion. I'm new to FF was have only used the RF 35 for street photography so far, but I felt it was too wide. I have to try my EF 50mm 1.8 stm next time.

I was a little disappointed with the construction materials. The fujifilm and older EF lenses feel much nicer.

I should've mentioned that more clearly.

I was just talking about casual family photos. I like to shoot casual portraits with 24mm 50mm primes at a fast aperture. In that regards, I have a little concern about RF 35's bokeh.

 

[David Hwang]

I'm not able to comment on the bokeh of the RF 35mm, but I can say that the 35mm angle of view is not a "portrait" lens view by any stretch, except perhaps for a near full-body shot or one where some slight apparent perspective "distortion" is acceptable to otherwise get an otherwise excellent picture. To do a natural looking head and shoulder to very tight head shot, at least a 50 mm or, preferably, an 85mm to 180mm focal range will yield the best results. Too short a lens renders the front of the face too big in comparison to the rear most portions, and too long a lens renders those rear portions (ears) too big in comparison to the front of the face (nose). The happy medium for these shots that look most "normal" to the human brain happen when the focal length increases as the overall size of the face in the image area increases. I've been doing this for a living for 40 years, and i can tell you this is true. Yes, you can get a fantastic portrait with a 35mm lens, but it is harder to do and to artfully avoid the perspective from detracting from the positive overall look of the image. Finally, 35mm is the widest lens I'd ever use to shoot any "portrait of a person, if the person is all that you want to consider as the subject of the image. For environmental portraits, where you want to include many things around the person, in order to make some point about that person, then all such rules about focal length are null and void, and very wide angles often work best.

So, what to do? Well, here's one thought for you. I'd go with one of the EF to RF adapters, and shoot an inexpensive lens like the "nifty 50" or the inexpensive 85mm f/1.8 instead. But, of course, YMMV, especially if you don't currently own either one of those, or you'd rather not invest in any other EF lenses, new or used, right now.

Thank you for your comment and sorry about the vagueness of what I said.

What I meant by 'portraits' was just about casual photos of my daughter with moderate wide or standard primes at a fast aperture. It would have been better if I had avoided the term 'portrait' for clearer communication.

So my concern is purely about the quality of bokeh, not the focal length since I know the limitation of 35mm when it comes to the classic portrait.

If the bokeh is too busy, there may be some occasions when the photo would be spoiled, especially when I need decent isolation from the background.

 

[David Hwang]

Have you seen the YouTube review by The Daniel Life? Plenty of sample portraits there (mostly full body, as you’d expect) to help you decide if it would meet your requirements. Reviewer compared it favourably to the Sigma 35 in that regard.

Thank you for the information. I should check that.

 

[Sittatunga]

Now I’m considering of purchasing RP and RF 35 mainly for portraits of my young daughter, but I’ve seen posts here saying that it has a severely busy bokeh.

It seems bad to me as well, but there are not many 35mm prime with super smooth bokeh anyway. I don’t know.

So would you not recommend RF35 for portrait?

I wouldn't use a 35mm lens to try for a thin depth of field for portraits. I tried the RF 35mm very briefly before deciding it was not the lens for astrophotography. One thing I did notice looking through the magnified viewfinder was bubble bokeh in the foreground with smoother bokeh behind. It should be great stopped down a bit so that the surroundings are sharp and it's less than half the price of the 24-105mm. I'd prefer the long end of that lens for close up portraits though or a 100mm or 85mm prime. A couple of 85mm RF primes are rumoured before the end of the year but they won't be cheap.

 

[iRanN]

It's funky for sure but nice classic rendering isn't always wanted.

It seems to me that the focus is too close to show its funkiness.

Even at f8 and at close distance you can see it isn’t super smooth

 

[csxfan]

if your rp was part of the free adapter promotion, i would get the ef 40 f2.8. for the money, its a great lense and its nice and sharp. i have with my rp, and i like theresults i get with it.

 

[Ed Rizk]

In my experience, the closer the focus, the better the bokeh.

 

[David Hwang]

if your rp was part of the free adapter promotion, i would get the ef 40 f2.8. for the money, its a great lense and its nice and sharp. i have with my rp, and i like theresults i get with it.

I like how tiny ef 40 f.28 is with EOS DSLRs, but its pancakeness would disappear with RP, which I don't like.

 

[David Hwang]

In my experience, the closer the focus, the better the bokeh.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

But that is the usual behavior of many lenses.

What I'm wondering about is the quality of bokeh at medium distances where I would take photos of people.

 

[Rock and Rollei]

35mm is a classic focal length for portraiture, but it's almost exclusively used for environmental portraits - showing the subject and their surroundings. As such, the surroundings need to be identifiable, so for this usage, bokeh isn't really an issue.

Frame-filling portraits, particularly of children, will end up with perspective distortion due to being shot at short working distances. That cam be used as a deldeliber effect, but generally looks unnatural.

In short, if you're wanting to shoot portraits with bokeh, 35mm is probably the wrong focal length to be doing it with, regardless of the qualities of this particular lens; you likely be better served with a 50mm.

And my use of this lens has been for a bit of that environmental portraiture, some close-up work where the bokeh looks fine to me, and as a walkabout lens, and bokeh hasn't been a problem for me yet.

 

[nizarnoor]

Here are a couple of examples from my RF 35mm f/1.8


f/1.8


f/2.0

The bokeh isn't as smooth as the ones from something like EF 85mm f/1.2 (obviously) but it's not bad at all, in my opinion.

 

[User5942872967]

i was just about to buy the rf35... but after seeing these pictures, i think i'm going to keep my 40mm 2.8 and my 28 1.8 instead.

the 35mm to me was going to be my macro, street photography, portrait and night pictures.

But after seeing the bokeh on the 35 it's pretty bad. The best bokeh i've seen are when the subject is several feet away from you and doesn't take up 70% of your VF and you can still melt the background. I can get almost any lens to have good bokeh up close.

I guess the 1.8 in this case the 35mm would be a good candidate for night photography since it also has IS.

Going back to striving to get the 70-200 to complete the trinity then ...

Sid

 

[Hoka Hey]

Now I’m considering of purchasing RP and RF 35 mainly for portraits of my young daughter, but I’ve seen posts here saying that it has a severely busy bokeh.

It seems bad to me as well, but there are not many 35mm prime with super smooth bokeh anyway. I don’t know.

So would you not recommend RF35 for portrait?

That is an off-putting way to ask about the bokeh.

The RF 35 is a fine lens for head and torso portraits. See the image below. Just crop to taste. It's also fine for head only if you put the head in the center of the frame and crop.

Also look at the truly nice RF 35 portraits of children that RLight has posted on this forum.

If you want to get the best, you can get the EF 35 1.4 ii at more than 3 times the price, much heavier and you have the additional weight and bulk of the adapter. It will give you better bokeh if you are shooting with pine branches or similar objects in the near background that tend to cause nervous bokeh in 35s. Otherwise, the RF 35 will be just fine.

If you read Through the threads in this forum, you will find that there are a lot of us who think very highly of this lens. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty special.

--
Joe

 

[David Hwang]

35mm is a classic focal length for portraiture, but it's almost exclusively used for environmental portraits - showing the subject and their surroundings. As such, the surroundings need to be identifiable, so for this usage, bokeh isn't really an issue.

Frame-filling portraits, particularly of children, will end up with perspective distortion due to being shot at short working distances. That cam be used as a deldeliber effect, but generally looks unnatural.

In short, if you're wanting to shoot portraits with bokeh, 35mm is probably the wrong focal length to be doing it with, regardless of the qualities of this particular lens; you likely be better served with a 50mm.

And my use of this lens has been for a bit of that environmental portraiture, some close-up work where the bokeh looks fine to me, and as a walkabout lens, and bokeh hasn't been a problem for me yet.

That's a good point. Thanks.

If I choose RF 35, it would be mostly used for environmental portraits. It would be a casual use, so I may not have to worry about its bokeh too seriously.