I'm an absolute slut for bokeh. I own three different f/0.95 lenses and I shoot wide open far more than I probably should. But despite years of bokehlicious shooting, I've never seen the kind of bokeh balls produced by this new lens.
I've just reviewed the Zhongyi Optics Mitakon 55mm 1-5x Macro – a brilliant $399 lens that not only offers up to 5:1 reproduction ratio, but does it with a medium format image circle (though it's available for everything from Fujifilm APS-C cameras to Canon and Nikon DSLRs to Hasselblad and Fujifilm medium format cameras).
Something I didn't really notice until pixel peeping the images was the unique – at least, to my eyes – bokeh balls. They're unlike anything I've ever seen before. Take a look for yourself:
Firstly, just to get the pedantry out of the way, many people use "bokeh" as a synonym for "blurry background" – but the term is far more nuanced than that. Bokeh describes, specifically, the characteristics and the rendering of out-of-focus areas of an image, both foreground and background.
This would include, for example, the smoothness or noisiness of the transition between defocused elements. Is it smooth and "creamy", or jagged and "noisy"? This is what bokeh refers to, not merely the overall blurriness of the background.
Anyway, one of the key characteristics we can examine are the "bokeh balls" – the rendition of out-of-focus points of light. While these typically appear as solid circular orbs, there is actually a lot of nuance in how different lenses render them.
Terms like "cats eye bokeh" (where the orbs are longer and thinner, rather than round), "soap bubble bokeh" (denoted by a bright, thin ring around a pale center) and "onion ring bokeh" (with concentric circles of texture) are common characteristics.
Which brings me to the bokeh balls in this sample shot, taken on the Mitakon 55mm 1-5x Macro using the Hasselblad X2D II. At first I assumed that the lens produced "donut bokeh" as seen in the lower, darker image. Like soap bubble bokeh, this is where the circular orbs are hollow, but have a thick ring surrounding a dark center.
However, as you can see in the top image, this bokeh also expresses itself as a thick ring of light surrounding a second orb in the middle – and I don't recall ever seeing bokeh balls like this before.
If we're to follow the naming conventions, based on what this characteristic looks like, perhaps it's fair to call this "mushroom bokeh" or "thumbtack bokeh". Heck, it almost looks like a hydrogen atom, so maybe it's "hydrogen bokeh" (given the choice, I'd call it "Manhattan bokeh" after the superhero in Watchmen who chose the hydrogen symbol).
Point being, I need your help. If you've seen this kind of bokeh before and / or you know what it's called, please leave a comment or email me – I'm dying to know more about it and see what other lenses produce it!
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Read my full Zhongyi Mitakon 55mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro review to see what else this lens can do, and take a look at the best macro lenses across all brands and manufacturers.
