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Post by peterob on Jan 17, 2023 12:00:05 GMT
The two EOS EF lenses 28-80 and 70-300 I bought as a kit with my Canon 50E were awful but I didn’t know it. I was mightily impressed when I went to a 6x6 SLR and compared the 9x9” prints with 6x9“ prints. Absolutely no contest. Medium format was streets ahead as expected. Then I bought a 5D with 24-105 L and made the same comparison. No difference to the 6x6 really so thereafter I only bought L lenses. Back then, Canon had 3 ranges of lenses - kit level, enthusiast, and L series. The kit level lenses were basically designed for enprints or 7x5 prints, whereas the enthusiast lenses were much better, certainly when stopped down. The 50E's predecessor, the 100, came with the original 28-80mm USM, which was one of the intermediate level lenses, and really quite good - it's actually part of the same family as the 24-105L, albeit not as good. The Mk II onwards were kit level lenses, and not great. Still, better than the 28-90... Canon learned a lesson with the first EF-S 18-55 for digital - suddenly, purchasers were pixel peeping, so wanted much better. Kit lenses ever since have been a lot better, and the enthusiast level basically became pointless. I should have said "bundle" rather than "kit". I was very pleased to get the then Jessops (good shop in its time) to meet the best prices advertised in AP for the 50E body and the two lenses as a bundle. They were definitely budget lenses. Pixel peeping hasn't gone away (after all it is rather fun). There is lots of angst being expressed in the Fuji X-forums over the 'adequacy' of lenses for use with the 40 MP sensor in the new X-T5 and X- H2, stirred up by Fuji's list of "lenses compatible with the new sensor". As if anyone is going to produce an end result big enough for anything to show what might be deemed "less than fully sharp" viewed at 200% (100% is apparently not enough) on a monitor. The only attention I have really paid to reports of "less than sharp" lenses was in Canon days when I got more interested in telephoto lenses for wildlife. I went for 300 F4 and 400 F5.6 mm primes over zooms because, back in the day, zoom lenses were said not to be so hot at the long end. That is no longer generally true. The Canon 100-400 II L is as good as the 400 F5.6 at the long end, although much heavier. |
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Post by nickr on Jan 17, 2023 12:23:46 GMT
I have two EF-M 15-45mm IS lenses, one that came with the EOS M and one that came with the EOS M6 mk2, the older one that came with the EOS M is much sharper and needs less work in Photo Shop. That said neither lens is un usable. I've had 5 of the 15-45s, and they've all been pretty decent - to the extent that I'm never bothered which one I use. (I've 3 left, sold one, gave one away.) I use this/these a fair bit for personal use. One does feel a bit looser than the others, but absolutely no discernible difference in use. OTOH, I've had 3 18-55s, and only one is really reasonable - and then not to the level of any of the 15-45s. I've got rid of the other 2. Decentering the issue with this lens. I keep it mainly for IR work, where it shines. Or rather doesn't...  |
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Post by andy on Jan 17, 2023 12:46:59 GMT
I have two EF-M 15-45mm IS lenses, one that came with the EOS M and one that came with the EOS M6 mk2, the older one that came with the EOS M is much sharper and needs less work in Photo Shop. That said neither lens is un usable. My LTM 50mm f/1.4 Canon is quite badly scratched on the front element and can be quite soft particularly when used wide open against the light on a film camera, much of this character can be hidden when used on a digital camera. Quite the opposite to my LTM 35mm color skopar which is great on a film camera but falls off / focus shifts at the corners on a digital camera, I can understand the fall off of illumination at the edges but not the focus shift. Generally I think that a lot of what we would have called bad lenses for film use are saved either by lens profiling in camera or by the end user in software these days. Even a scanned negative can be corrected for geometric distortion, sharpness and vignetting, though perhaps not CA, so we now have tools to help us with bad lenses. The focus shift sounds like it could be field curvature. My 50/1.4 does it too, particularly noticeable on extension tubes....  |
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Post by geoffr on Jan 17, 2023 13:38:24 GMT
What one person calls a “bad” lens another calls “good” or more likely “good enough”. There is no such thing as a perfect lens, they all suffer from aberrations of one sort or another. With digital imaging many can be corrected but, as far as I know, out of focus remains out of focus. What little I learned of optics is, unfortunately, long forgotten but I recall some of the faults that afflict lenses, astigmatism, chromatic aberration etc. some of which can be accepted as “characteristics” if they aren’t too extreme. A lens used on a surveillance camera looking through a 2mm diameter hole may not produce crystal clear images but if they result in a conviction they are good enough.
Almost every lens produced for use on a camera, by which I really mean interchangeable lens, will be the best the designer could achieve, coupled with the best the technicians could produce, within the limitations of imposed upon them. Single element lenses are a different story, they are designed to a price and limitations are accepted but they are still the best that can be achieved for the money. Older lenses may not reach the same standards as modern computer designed ad manufactured ones but that doesn’t make them “bad”. As far as I can see the only bad lens is one that isn’t properly aligned or polished but that doesn’t mean all lenses of the same design are bad.
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Post by Chester PB on Jan 19, 2023 13:27:07 GMT
There is a lot of stuff written about 'chromatic aberrations' and 'colour fringes' when using older lenses with digital cameras, but I suspect the problem is really the difference between the thickness of the analogue sensor (film emulsion) and digital sensor and how each handles light rays striking it at various angles. I have a 36x24 inch Cibachrome print printed by Jessops in Leicester over 20 years ago, produced from a Kodachrome 200 slide shot with a Tamron 'Adaptall' 28-200 lens at the short end of the zoom, probably at F8 or F11. There are some white buildings on dark hillsides at the sides of the image, which is exactly where I would expect colour fringes if shot on digital using the same lens, However, there are no visible colour fringes on this large print. I also have another Cibachrome print of the same size, shot with Ektachrome 200 and the same lens (but at about 40-50 mm this time), of part of the Grand Canal in Venice. The roofline has the usual ugly TV aerials against a bright sky, at the sides of the image, and again there are no colour fringes.
When I read posts about one lens being better than another lens, I often ask what size prints the user wants to do from the images. If none (so only viewed handheld devices or PC monitors), or perhaps only printed A4 or A3 size, I suspect the difference in the quality of the lenses may not be visible. When I have noticed differences in image quality, it has been when comparing shots taken with the same 'superzoom' lens at the long end of the zoom with those at shorter focal lengths. However, this difference is well known and not a surprise. For example, the short end of my Tamron 18-250 is good enough for prints at 40x60 cm, but at 250 mm prints at 20x30 are about as far as I would go.
Optically, the best lens I own is a Sigma 30 mm F 1.4 'prime', which also has a simpler optical construction than a zoom.
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Post by peterob on Jan 19, 2023 17:35:16 GMT
When I read posts about one lens being better than another lens, I often ask what size prints the user wants to do from the images. If none (so only viewed handheld devices or PC monitors), or perhaps only printed A4 or A3 size, I suspect the difference in the quality of the lenses may not be visible. I think a lot of it is folk using gigantic monitors and pixel peeping so they have some A3 or bigger section of photo 2 foot in front of them when they should be viewing from a room width away to appreciate what they have got. There is a similar thread running on Fuji X-forum asking why modern cameras/lenses give too clinical a result and I expect it is the same root cause - too big (100 % view) on the screen viewed too closely. |
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Post by squeamishossifrage on Jan 19, 2023 19:28:52 GMT
When I read posts about one lens being better than another lens, I often ask what size prints the user wants to do from the images. If none (so only viewed handheld devices or PC monitors), or perhaps only printed A4 or A3 size, I suspect the difference in the quality of the lenses may not be visible. I think a lot of it is folk using gigantic monitors and pixel peeping so they have some A3 or bigger section of photo 2 foot in front of them when they should be viewing from a room width away to appreciate what they have got. There is a similar thread running on Fuji X-forum asking why modern cameras/lenses give too clinical a result and I expect it is the same root cause - too big (100 % view) on the screen viewed too closely. I agree. I don't have a particular large or high resolution screen, but if I want to know how sharp an A3+ print will be, then I back off the screen resolution to 50% of pixel-peeping, and that gives a pretty good idea. |
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Post by JohnY on Jan 19, 2023 20:03:15 GMT
What one person calls a “bad” lens another calls “good” or more likely “good enough”... One person can change their opinion. In its day it was a triumph of design. It was certainly good enough and had a very useful range of focal length. I changed my mind shortly after the 24-120 f4 zoom was introduced. I bought the latter, still for film and continued using it for digital until Nikon introduced the 16-85 DX lens. I changed my mind about that when the DX16-80 lens was released. I also used the F4 24-120 on a D800. I still consider it good enough on the D800. The difference between the the first and second versions of the 24-120 is obvious with only the most casual pixel peeping. The difference between the DX 16-85 and 16-80 is not very significant to me.
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pentaxpete
Junior Member
Old FILM Bloke but 'Gone a Bit Digital ' sometimes
Posts: 83
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Post by pentaxpete on Jan 19, 2023 20:13:45 GMT
I got a SMC-Takumar 35mm f2 from David S.H.Leung dealer of Goodmayes here in Essex brought over from Hong Kong for me -- it was terrible !! I wanted to use it for Professional Local Press work -- no resolution until stopped down to f11 f16 !! I think in that era PENTAX could not keep up with DEMAND and the Quality Control was bad . I had bought a BLACK SPOTMATIC with 55mm f1.8 Super Takumar equally BAD ! Years later I was GIVEN an Asahi Pentax SV with 55mm f1.8 Super-Takumar and the HUGE 35mm f2 Super Takumar -- much sharper even at f2 and I used it on my K10D at full aperture NO PROBS !!
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Post by zou on Jan 19, 2023 20:27:54 GMT
I've seen that some Fuji folk are now using softening filters (designed for cinematic applications) for stills shooting.
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Post by Chester PB on Jan 20, 2023 21:35:48 GMT
When I read posts about one lens being better than another lens, I often ask what size prints the user wants to do from the images. If none (so only viewed handheld devices or PC monitors), or perhaps only printed A4 or A3 size, I suspect the difference in the quality of the lenses may not be visible. I think a lot of it is folk using gigantic monitors and pixel peeping so they have some A3 or bigger section of photo 2 foot in front of them when they should be viewing from a room width away to appreciate what they have got. There is a similar thread running on Fuji X-forum asking why modern cameras/lenses give too clinical a result and I expect it is the same root cause - too big (100 % view) on the screen viewed too closely. There was a thread on the AP Forum about this sort of thing. I described how I once had a chance to very closely examine a large Canaletto hanging in a gallery. It was about 6 feet / 2metres wide, and from a sensible viewing distance the clarity and detail of the many windows on a building was very impressive. But when viewed from only 6 inches / 15 cm each window was revealed to be just two brush strokes in a darker shade of the colour of the masonry of the building- one at the top and one at one side only, to represent shadows to match the direction of the light in the painting. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/canaletto |
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Post by daves on Jan 21, 2023 9:55:00 GMT
I got a SMC-Takumar 35mm f2 from David S.H.Leung dealer of Goodmayes here in Essex brought over from Hong Kong for me -- it was terrible !! I wanted to use it for Professional Local Press work -- no resolution until stopped down to f11 f16 !! I think in that era PENTAX could not keep up with DEMAND and the Quality Control was bad . I had bought a BLACK SPOTMATIC with 55mm f1.8 Super Takumar equally BAD ! Years later I was GIVEN an Asahi Pentax SV with 55mm f1.8 Super-Takumar and the HUGE 35mm f2 Super Takumar -- much sharper even at f2 and I used it on my K10D at full aperture NO PROBS !! I have a 35 mm f/2.0 SMC Takumar that may be the sharpest camera lens in my collection but the glass has turned yellow due to the radiation from the thorium in the last element. But perhaps an astrophotographer isn't the best person to ask about good or bad optics. Nobody pixel peeps like an astrophotographer. |
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Post by geoffr on Jan 21, 2023 19:06:17 GMT
When I read posts about one lens being better than another lens, I often ask what size prints the user wants to do from the images. If none (so only viewed handheld devices or PC monitors), or perhaps only printed A4 or A3 size, I suspect the difference in the quality of the lenses may not be visible. You may be right but I consider the print size irrelevant, what matters is that the print, or screen, is viewed from an appropriate distance. A 4x6 print viewed through a loupe is every bit as capable of showing up lens limitations as is a 4m x 6m print viewed from rather further away. The Canaletto painting, linked above, perfectly demonstrated the need to view from a suitable distance. Some years ago I was asked for a photograph of a flower growing through a crack in some concrete. I arranged a daisy in a crack in my drive and photographed it with a 4MP camera. Not, one might think, suitable for a big enlargement but at 4m x 3m viewed from 30m it was fine, the projector was only XGA anyway. |
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Post by pixelpuffin on Jan 24, 2023 0:38:56 GMT
Agree with most
But also think if your subject matter is dull and boring it really doesn’t matter if you used a Zeiss or Summicron it will still be dull and boring.
As much as the sigma ART series are supposedly amazing who the hell wants to trudge round with a brick weighing you down, giving you grief?? Not I !!
Maybe it’s the reason why both my plastic fantastic nifty fifty and pancake forty are my most used lenses these days whilst the L’s stay behind gathering dust.
I like the way how many are waking up to realising that good glass doesn’t always equal good pictures.
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Post by peterob on Jan 24, 2023 9:58:37 GMT
Agree with most But also think if your subject matter is dull and boring it really doesn’t matter if you used a Zeiss or Summicron it will still be dull and boring. As much as the sigma ART series are supposedly amazing who the hell wants to trudge round with a brick weighing you down, giving you grief?? Not I !! Maybe it’s the reason why both my plastic fantastic nifty fifty and pancake forty are my most used lenses these days whilst the L’s stay behind gathering dust. I like the way how many are waking up to realising that good glass doesn’t always equal good pictures. It is true that there are good pictures and poor pictures by choice of subject, composition, lighting and technical stuff like focus and exposure. I agree that the state of "the glass" is largely immaterial when a picture is poor for these reasons. I wouldn't go so far as to infer that the state of "the glass" is generally unimportant. |
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