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I also had a modern plastic 18-55 mm kit lens, high f (starting at 3.5).
But the colors on the modern zoom lens were so much better. Hard to explain, but they just looked better, kind of like a DSLR photo has "better" colors than a phone photo.
It was very confusing, I was expecting differences in sharpness maybe, but not in colors.
I have a bunch of full frame lenses. Recently I looked at some very old ones I haven't used in a long time. I thought they are faulty (soft). After some diagnosing I found that it is not the fault of lenses but rather in the meantime I have started looking at images at 1:1 in Lightroom and gotten used to ridiculously sharp images from new cameras. Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it…
>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
It's a shame there is no 1080p HDR content. 35mm movies would benefit a lot more of higher color bit depth that higher resolution. Anyone knows if this is a codec limitation?
I had an old metal very well regarded 50 mm prime, 1.4 f. I also had a modern plastic 18-55 mm kit lens, high f (starting at 3.5). But the colors on the modern zoom lens were so much better. Hard to explain, but they just looked better, kind of like a DSLR photo has "better" colors than a phone photo. It was very confusing, I was expecting differences in sharpness maybe, but not in colors.
It really is incredible how much a lens affects the final image.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
Turn off motion smoothing on your TV. It's also called the "Soap Opera Effect".
Every time I go back visiting parents, which have TV with this on, anything on TV feels surreal and not in a good way. Which isn't bad, watching TV instead of interacting with my parents is stupid waste of time anyway and TV itself actively helps with that
My Nikkor 50mm 1.8G is one of my favorite lenses. When I had a cropped sensor DSLR I used it as my portrait lens, and when I upgraded to a full frame I started using it as a general purpose lens. It creates beautiful images. I've always been curious about the versions with a lower f-stop, but the price always makes me think twice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
Turn off motion smoothing on your TV. It's also called the "Soap Opera Effect".
I only use it at about 10-20% though, not at 100% which I think is the default setting and I agree is vomitive.
How are these lens systems designed? Do they use "black box" optimization methods like gradient descent, simulated annealing or even genetic algorithms to find the optimal configuration of lenses?
Super-experienced people backed up by a small army of people doing ray-tracing by hand.
Wikipedia might give you starting points to find modern answers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_lens_design#Lens_optim... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_d...
And if you want to get a general feel for how the modern designs work, Bill Claffs optical bench is a nice starting point: https://www.photonstophotos.net/GeneralTopics/Lenses/Optical...
(tbh it sounds a lot like the EDA space, and CAE in general)
Examples of flaws include swirly bokeh in the background, a glow around high-contrast edges, and flares from lights.