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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?

#171

Post by FredPret »

magicalhippo wrote: post #126
diarrhea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 watched a couple of movies back to back this weekend, and it was so striking the difference in quality. One was a middle-budget movie from the 70s, the other a recent lower-budget indie (well I imagine, three actors and one location). The movie from the 70s had so many out of focus shots, tracking shots were a bit hit or miss and colors were rather poor (mostly just flat but also color balance issues between scenes…

One day we’ll be watching personalised auto-generated content and it’ll blow everything else out of the water.

Imagine if content can be generated, real-time, by an AI that monitors your brain for signs of engagement. Holy shit, what if that’s what this life actually is!

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

#173

Post by realityking »

xgulfie wrote: post #158
reader_mode wrote: post #4

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…

I was watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. in HD and there is the occasional out-of-focus shot you would never have noticed at the intended resolution

Same with early seasons of House. Really interesting to see what you used to be able to get away with.

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

#174

Post by petepete »

Matrixik wrote: post #77
azhenley wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

And Tamron. Everyone remembering Tamron from 10 years ago looks at me as if I'm insane for using Tamron zooms (that was all released in last 2-3 years) on Sony A7 III. Then I show them end results and they are making big eyes. They are sharp and looking really good. As good as best Sony zooms or Sigma? No, but really close and cheaper. I'm looking now to buy Tamron 28-200 that is basically best super zoom available o…

People used to give Sigma such a hard time over quality, but they (and Tamron, Tokina, Venus Optics, etc) have come such a long way.

Sigma have been top of DXOMARK's scores for the last five years.

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

#175

Post by dukeofdoom »

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…

People that are just getting started get suckered into buying expensive niche gear. You can quickly go down the rabbit hole, and listen to people that talk about the size shape of their Bokeh balls, from radio active lenses they keep in their bedroom dresser all day long on youtube.

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

#176

Post by lostlogin »

91aintprime wrote: post #129
jclardy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this experience watching the Hobbit in high frame rate - it felt like I was watching a play, a bunch of actors on a stage.

The same effect can be great for sports, animal videos, and documentaries. I would describe the effect of HFR as pushing immersion past suspension of disbelief into reality. You can no longer see them as characters, you see them as you would as if it wasn't through a screen - as you said, like watching actors on a stage. Fortunately(?), humans may get used to HFR as we have with previous advancements in video technol…

Is 3D still a thing? It really wasn’t for me.

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

#177

Post by petepete »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #42
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 aberrati…

Unless you're really shaky I wouldn't think you'd need VR in a 50mm lens, especially with a D750 where you can push the iso quite aggressively without much impact.

You can get a 50mm f/1.8 for about £90 used, you can find the 50mm f/1.4 D for a similar price too.

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

#178

Post by ben7799 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #79
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…

DPReview seems to have rather balanced reporting (I'm not a regular reader), so they do seem to be at least somewhat independent of being directly sponsored by whoever they're reviewing at the time. Compare this to pretty much every photo-vlogger/blogger/grammer out there, which have massive audiences while making unclear claims of independence and un-biasedness while shilling very hard.

DPreview was owned by Amazon last time I looked. They exist mostly to pump up the camera market and generate sales.

Their writing is very much in the vein of "your gear is inadequate if a new version has come out."

They are really the bottom of the barrel. They continually write about how some new piece of gear is so revolutionary because it allows you to take a particular photo and it was impossible before, as long as you didn't know about the 50-100 year old technique to get around the issue that actually works better even if you have the brand new camera.

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

#179

Post by pier25 »

4ad wrote: post #140
pier25 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not quite what you ask, but very related: http://yedlin.net/ResDemo/

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

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

#180

Post by ben7799 »

breischl wrote: post #150
kergonath wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it were the case, what is wrong with that? I mean, we can buy fancy cars without having a background in engineering, right? All the sneering about people being bad photographers and not needing the latest gear is out of touch. Average photographers benefit immensely from fast autofocus with full frame coverage, better sensors and better optics that make taking pictures in difficult conditions easier. Besides,…

Average photographers can certainly benefit from better gear to a degree. But for many people (myself included) a $300 lens will work as well (or even better) than a $3000 one. Which I think is the point the original commenter was making. The sneering is pretty typical for any hobby that lumps practitioners and collectors under the same heading. The former group tends to see the gear as mere tools, to be used as need…

Yah I should have called out that there are different interests and Photography is very much composed of:

- Photographers - Modern Gear collectors - Vintage Gear collectors

You can have a little bit of each of these 3 you're interested in, and you won't necessarily always have the same interest in each area.

But people who are 100% interested in one of the gear collecting aspects are pretty common and are very far from the artistic side.

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