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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?

#101

Post by pier25 »

dylan604 wrote: post #54
pier25 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 4K HDR fanboy, but IMO most movies shot in 35mm film should remain in 1080p. 70mm film looks great in 4K though (2001, Nolan movies, etc). 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 think 35mm->4k scans can look amazing. There's a lot going on though with film to digital scanning. The film stock itself has a lot to do with it. From the condition it has been stored as well as the actual type of film stock. The choice in a physical scanner also makes a difference. Single pass realtime captures vs slow speed triple flashed scans. Single pass is usually on a CMOS type sensor, where the triple flas…

35mm -> 4K can look amazing in terms of color, but I've yet to see a film where the added detail is not mostly film grain (exaggerated by sharpening). Do you have a good example?

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

#102

Post by randy909 »

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #84
cratermoon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cour…

A while ago I read a comment that was really eye opener: most big YouTube photography channels out there are mostly about gear, not about "taking pictures". It shows how much money the industry moves (or how prevalent GAS is).

Same situation with my hobby, making electronic music. While there are a ton of amazing tutorials for how to write music there are way more gear review videos with orders of magnitude more views. Its fun to shop for new toys, learning new things is work.

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

#103

Post by liminal »

reader_mode wrote: post #4
lmilcin wrote: post #3

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…

I'm reminded of Scott McCloud's abstract vs realistic dimension in Understanding Comics. Basically, abstraction allows us to focus on the relevant details, while realism adds a lot of details that aren't relevant to the use case (in this case, it's following the story/emotions). Here's a write up of that section of the book here (but the whole book is amazing!): https://theteachingtree.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/comics-and-...

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

#104

Post by agloeregrets »

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…

I have the older f1/4 EF that I use adapted to an M6. It's way soft under 2.2 or so and basically unusable for any non-flat objects under 30 feet at wide-open as the shallow DoF will blur a cheek if the nose is in focus.

That said, it works magic at night.

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

#105

Post by hrktb »

ben7799 wrote: post #81
hrktb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you make the same line of comment on a anandtech chipset review, arguing it's ridiculously technical and doesn't take into account the art of progamming ? I am pretty glad dpreview does these kind of technical reviews, it nicely completes other photographer reviews who'll dig more on the experience and real world impact side of things.

The think with an Anandtech chipset review is the faster chipset doesn't have big negatives unless power consumption is a major concern. The excessive weight of these modern 50mm lens can be a real detriment to getting better photographs. It makes you less mobile, and you can only carry so much weight. If you're carring 10x more weight for your 50mm lens than an older design that is 95% as high quality you inevitably…

Chipsets have all sort of properties, including the instruction set, the consumption as you mention, their physical size and heat profile (related to consumption, but can be influenced by other factors) that make them better or worse for some applications.

Your point on lens weight is valid, but I don't see it as something that should be in every single lens optic review, all the more so the use case of 50mm lenses are not just street snaps for instance.

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

#106

Post by vgeek »

cratermoon wrote: post #48
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 cour…

Seconded.

Kai W (& Lok) was solid when he was there, since he would trash things that deserved it and his juvenile objectivity was humorous. Now they seem more generic in the "this marginally better camera is 100% worth buying" sense.

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

#107

Post by agloeregrets »

diarrhea wrote: post #59
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…

Yes, pretty much. I loved my low-range Canon gear (100D, Sigma lenses). When the Sony a7R3 came out, I got it alongside an array of GM lenses. My God do they blow everything out of the water. It's an insane kit. The best part is the great autofocus of the body; even in low light, even in rapid movement, even in burst shots. Among 1000 shots, I can count focus misses on one hand. However , the entire thing feels artif…

I had this feeling coming from a Canon DSLR (at the time) to my friend's A7RIII, something was...lost in it. Every shot looked perfect and it felt like there was no art really to it. I'm sure that to a portrait photographer they feel as it it lets them just focus on comp but wow.

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

#108

Post by Fronzie »

ticklemyelmo wrote: post #70
proudfoot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not capturing the rays, you only get where they strike. You can't fix it all computationally. Secondly, we already do correct distortion and chromatic aberration in software, but this doesn't really make up for loss of resolution that you can't fix. Information is being lost.

Isn't the location that a ray strikes entirely a function of angle of incidence, its frequency, and the particular lens? Why couldn't that function be determined and inverted?

The phase matters as well if some parts are captured out of the focal plane.

Even if reconstruction is possible, it might amplify the noise by a substantial amount.

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

#109

Post by dekoruotas »

dheera wrote: post #86
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…

I love my Contax Zeiss Planar 50/1.4. It's small and compact, feels like a precision instrument, has lovely rendition, is sharp as a tack in the center at f/2 and sharp corner-to-corner at f/4, built like a tank, has a super long focus throw for precision focusing, and cheaper than most equivalent modern lenses. It's perhaps my second most frequently used lens, after the 28/2 "Hollywood" Distagon (which isn't really…

Unfortunately these are now nearly impossible to find without spending silly money... Where did you acquire yours?

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

#110

Post by gowld »

diarrhea wrote: post #59
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…

Yes, pretty much. I loved my low-range Canon gear (100D, Sigma lenses). When the Sony a7R3 came out, I got it alongside an array of GM lenses. My God do they blow everything out of the water. It's an insane kit. The best part is the great autofocus of the body; even in low light, even in rapid movement, even in burst shots. Among 1000 shots, I can count focus misses on one hand. However , the entire thing feels artif…

To me, "artificial" is going out of your way to make the job harder so you can have a more "handmade" feeling. By rejecting the "artificial" camera, you are coosing a more artificial photo shoot.

I like good pictures, so I find it more rewarding when a shot succeeds and I can move on to other shots or try a harder shot for a better picture. I can play video games when I need extra fake challenge because life is too easy.

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