Someone mentioned strange bokeh... this is something that I rarely see (only once) and should not be a reason disregard the lens. If you shoot straight into the sun, you will see the fresnel lens bokeh, but the 500PF is much better at handling this artifact than is the 300PF (I have one of these too). The bokeh is smooth and pleasing so long as the background is not cluttered
i could not agree more. I also own both lenses and the 500pf is very resistant to fresnel artefacts even heavily backlit but the 300pf is way more sensitive - far more in line with what I experienced with the canon 400DO first generation. With the 300pf, the light source doesn’t need to be in the frame, even right outside of it, and the effect will appear starting with a massive drop in contrast. The 500pf doesn’t mind one bit if the light source is in the frame; you really need to hit that one specific angle to see any kind of artefact. The good news is that the pictures are salvageable for the most part, but you can’t get the micro contrast you’d get out of a non fresnel lens when you get that “effect”
Here is a backlit picture with the 500pf
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And for “contrast” one with the 300pf - sorry, I don’t have a wildlife shot handy, so my son will do, he’s as wild as it gets anyway
same camera, very similar lighting scenarios (actually the source for the 300pf was slightly further out of frame).
in this case the 300pf came out with a 1900 sepia look that’s interesting if not what I was after
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I deleted the shots with true fresnel artefacts in the bokeh but I’ll post some if I produce them again. This just shows the dramatic drop in contrast with the light source outside if the frame - very 1970’s.
