DSMC - Cut-Off Bokah

Based on lens construction and a camera’s optical pathway, certain lenses may exhibit clipped bokeh at wide apertures as seen below:

Best Practices

This issue is most present when the aperture is wide open (lowest f stop / t stop). If you need to reduce or eliminate this characteristic, decrease the aperture (increase f stop / t stop). 

Other Factors to Consider

• Different lenses exhibit different characteristics
• Some lenses do not exhibit this issue at all
• If you have the same lenses at different focal lengths, a wider lens may reduce the clipped bokeh
• For some lenses, this issue may only occur at close or infinity focus
• Placement of lights in the frame may affect the characteristic 
• Cutoff bokeh can occur on other still photography and cinema cameras
• Cutoff bokeh can occur on both cropped and full frame sensors