50mm 1.4 vs 1.8 revisted.. surprising conclusion

[booggerg]

I had made a post earlier of my realization of the ugly bokeh i get from my 50mm f1.8. My conclusion(preamture?) was based on this test image I made:
http://www.pbase.com/booggerg/image/42536833.jpg

No argument, the bokeh is rather ugly there. However, during my intense research on other alternative portrait lens, I came across this comparison review of the 1.4 vs 1.8.
f/1.4
http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/bokeh-2-14.jpg
f/1.8
http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/bokeh-2-18.jpg

No doubt, the bokeh on he 1.4 is a bit softer, but not by much... I actually got the two confused at first glance. They're eqaully ugly IMHO. So interpolating the difference between the two lenses we determined in the above example and apply that to the test image at the top of the post, I don't think the 1.4 lens WOULD have farred that much better. Thus this brings us to my conclusion that the nature of the background plays a much much more important role in improving the bokeh than the 2 extra aperature blades you get with the 1.4. My test image had sunlight filtered through an evergreen. In a situation like that, I'm sure you can imagine the many sharp points of light the optics had to resolve. Then, I reminded myself the portraits I took with my 50mm 1.8 in the old film days..
http://www.pbase.com/booggerg/image/33915098.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/booggerg/image/33915103.jpg
And one from more recent days..
http://www.pbase.com/booggerg/image/33231778.jpg

Bokeh looks pretty good no?

[schmoelzel]

Bokeh is very subjective........the highlights in the last shot definitely have the 5-sided shapes to them which many feel is 'harsh' or distracting. But the shot is nice and doesn't bother me a bit!! (other than the person on the left who is cut in half)

[booggerg]

Bokeh is very subjective......

Yes.. took me a while to realize that.. When I made that test image, i had mistakently believed that with a different lens, that bokeh could have been buttery smooth. I don't believe that is possible with any lens(From the distance I was standing at), short of one with a 1.0 or 1.2 f-stop.

[FlyingPete]

Testing of bokeh on my 50/1.8 showed that I didn't get the pentagons when the lens was wide open, as the aperture is round at that point, unfortunately that lens is not sharp until stopped down, so two choice, sharp images and bad bokeh, or soft images and not so bad bokeh (notice I avoided using the words good bokeh, as there seems more to bokeh that the number of aperture blades).

[wilflee]

Could the ugly looking bokeh in the first picture be caused by flaring? Afterall, you are shooting into the sun and there is a bright reflected highlight spot on the horizontal rail near bottom left hand corner. Looks like a lot of internal reflections of burned out highlights.

Have you tried shooting the same scene without the sun?

[Keiffer]

The bright light will kill it most of the times. When theres no bright light or refected light it looks good to me.