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Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

dpreview.com

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Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#41

Post by robotastronaut »

ajross wrote: post #24

What I don't understand isn't the design of the lenses, which are chasing ever-tightening windows of precision in a competetive market with high margins and discriminating consumers. Of course they're going to be overdesigned. What gets me is that lens distortion is a fully reversible convolution. It's not lossy, at all. Or rather, it's only lossy in the sense that the existing quantization in the sensor is already l…

That market — the one that would be happy with a mediocre lens and great image processing - likely overlaps with people using top tier mobile devices for their work. After all, acceptable lenses with amazing image processing is basically what the flagship iPhones and android devices bring to the table, and their use case tends to overlap with that of a 50mm prime.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#42

Post by Wowfunhappy »

patorjk wrote: post #15

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.

I came so close to buying this lens when I got a Nikon D750 last fall. I'm not really a photographer, but I was unsatisfied with the images coming out of my phone, and if I was going to get a dedicated camera, I wanted to go "all the way", so to speak.

But the problem with 50mm prime lenses is they all seem to lack image stabilization. (The one exception I could find, a 45mm from Tamron[1], has bad chromatic aberration which really bothered me when I tried it out.) Maybe OS isn't essential in all situations, but not having it just seems like a needless downgrade for no benefit.

1: https://www.tamron-usa.com/product/lenses/f013.html

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#43

Post by tachion »

Miraste wrote: post #33
tachion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But of course they have - every major smartphone manufacturer is eating the whole consumer camera market alive for quite few years now.

Nobody has done this with a full frame sensor, as far as I know. I'd be interested to see smartphone image processing with a sensor that size.

There is fairly new Zeiss camera that implemented the whole "camera OS" with Android and even included mobile Lightroom editing capabilities. I guess it's as close as it gets right now. My theory is that the main Japanese companies are extremely conservative and they don't pick up such changes easily - see how Canon and Nikon completely missed mirrorless and suffered huge market loss to Sony.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#44

Post by tyho »

I recently got back into photography after a decade break. Brought a nice mirrorless camera and a few good lenses (Sony A7iii, 24-105 f/4, 35mm f/1.8). I was truly blown away at the progress that has been made in handheld imaging. The difference between my old Cannon EOS 450d and my current equipment is immense.

What has happened to the iPhone camera in the last 10 years has also happened to handheld cameras too, but they were starting from a much better place, most people just haven't realised as the iPhone is good enough for almost everything.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#46

Post by meowzero »

Miraste wrote: post #33
tachion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But of course they have - every major smartphone manufacturer is eating the whole consumer camera market alive for quite few years now.

Nobody has done this with a full frame sensor, as far as I know. I'd be interested to see smartphone image processing with a sensor that size.

Most image processing has to do with imitating full frame sensors (better low light photography, DOF, etc.) So I'm not sure if full frame/APSC/Med-format cameras need the same image processing that camera phones have. Also, most people who use the bigger sensor cameras are probably pros. Most of them would prefer a "blank slate" and use RAWs.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#47

Post by vladvasiliu »

jdjkckfkrrn wrote: post #11

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.

I've also had this "shock" with lenses much closer in generation.

I had a Canon 40D a while ago, and at first I was using a 17-40/4. I absolutely loved the colors I would get. Gradients would have a certain "creaminess" to them.

Then I figured I'd change it for a 17-55/2.8, to get some extra light at night. That was pretty much when I stopped going out taking pictures altogether. I just wasn't getting the pictures I wanted anymore. Everything looked just... weird and unsatisfactory. I then sold everything a when I realized I hadn't touched the camera in a year.

A few years later I got to do a similar comparison again, between the Olympus 17/1.8 and the Panasonic 20/1.7 on a Pen-F. The panny was OK, sharp, etc. But there was just something missing that the oly had. A kind of delicate rendering of gradients that just appealed to me.

This was when I realized what had happened with the Canon change earlier. I had believed that I had just lost interest in photography or that for some reason I just "didn't have it" anymore. I had never thought that a lens that was rated better in practically every aspect would actually be so uninspiring to me.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#48

Post by cratermoon »

ben7799 wrote: post #37

I love 50mm lenses but a lot of this stuff is ridiculously academic since photography is artistic & creative in nature. DPreview largely seems to write for the crowd that doesn't even care about the art aspect and just wants validation that they have better photo gear than others. These new 50mm lenses often defeat the point cause they're enormous, heavy, very expensive, and have little benefit over the slower versio…

> DPReview largely seems to write for the crowd that doesn't even care about the art aspect and just wants validation that they have better photo gear than others.

DPReview, FStoppers, PetaPixel, and back in before the web the Popular Photography and Modern Photography magazines. There's a big market for prosumer gear that costs a lot, has ideal technical specs, and hangs around the owner's neck like a prize. Of course these outlets, and the magazines before them, get almost all their money from advertisers, and run lots of review articles (totally objective of course /s) and are of almost zero interest to anyone working in the industry.

Great photographs can be taken with any camera.

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#49

Post by azhenley »

tyho wrote: post #44

I recently got back into photography after a decade break. Brought a nice mirrorless camera and a few good lenses (Sony A7iii, 24-105 f/4, 35mm f/1.8). I was truly blown away at the progress that has been made in handheld imaging. The difference between my old Cannon EOS 450d and my current equipment is immense. What has happened to the iPhone camera in the last 10 years has also happened to handheld cameras too, but…

Great camera. Don't discount the 3rd party E-mount lens makers, such as Samyang.

If you are unsure what to get next, I suggest looking at this list of every E-mount full-frame lens:

https://briansmith.com/sony-a7-a7r-a7s-lens-guide/

Re: Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

#50

Post by fudged71 »

tyho wrote: post #44

I recently got back into photography after a decade break. Brought a nice mirrorless camera and a few good lenses (Sony A7iii, 24-105 f/4, 35mm f/1.8). I was truly blown away at the progress that has been made in handheld imaging. The difference between my old Cannon EOS 450d and my current equipment is immense. What has happened to the iPhone camera in the last 10 years has also happened to handheld cameras too, but…

Sony really set the bar and lit a fire under their competitors to move faster
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