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Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?

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211–220 of 291 posts

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

#211

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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!

If that’s the case the AI needs some work. :P

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

#212
post #148

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I think a lot of this must be psychological. Anyone can generate an extremely high res image nowadays by using a longer focal length and stitching four images together with a consumer grade SLR. Expensive bits of gear can be superior to that method in terms of the workflow (and sometimes results, given the limitations of stitching) but they aren’t magical. I know some will vociferously disagree with this statement, b…

Are you saying that the medium format look isn't real?

Light rays don't know the size of the sensor that they're headed for. So clearly the size of the format can't affect the 'rendering' or whatever other subjective property people want to attribute to MF. Imagine masking off the sides of a MF sensor with tape: you now have a full frame camera which must necessarily retain the 'medium format look'. Or similarly, imagine mounting an MF lens on a full frame camera (which you can in fact do). Aside from the crop, the rendering of the image must be the same.

The preceding considerations show that the medium format look, if it exists, must be a property that goes away as soon as you crop the photo. But none of the candidates for this alleged look (e.g. 'rendering' of out of focus regions) has that property.

In principle, medium format should offer shallower depth of field. However, in practice, medium format lenses rarely go beyond f2.8 whereas crazy ~f1 lenses are available for full frame. So if you really want ludicrously shallow depth of field you're probably better off with full frame.

All this being said, it's obviously the case that any given medium format lens might look different from any given full frame or crop sensor lens. Perhaps there are even generalisations about the 'look' of commonly used MF lenses vs. commonly used FF lenses (though I have never seen any evidence for this).

In-lens leaf shutters can also make a real difference, and are more common on medium format cameras.

On an anecdotal level, I'd add that I shoot a bit of 4x5 film as a hobby and the photos 'look' the same as the photos I take on my phone with its tiny sensor (apart from the expected differences such as resolution, grain, depth of field).

This site has some side-by-side comparisons of FF and MF: https://srussenschuck.com/review-fujifilm-gfx-50s/

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

#213
There are a couple of other big reasons related to differences between film and digital sensors.

First film is much less sensitive to the angle at which light strikes it. There are some great, sharp old lens designs from leica, zeiss and others that show heavy light fall off in the corners on digital sensors. This is a big part of why even f1.8 or 2 lenses need to be more complicated.

Next film grain itself has sharp edges which effectively sharpens images a bit and also limits the resolution and generally has a pleasing effect when viewed at high magnification. With digital you don't get that and lens flaws get a lot more obvious.

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

#214
post #199

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Half of reason I even bother with full frame is wide open. Any smartphone these days can give perfectly good sharp photos. I lug the beast around to get shots you can't get with a smartphone.

Shooting wide open is fashionable because it’s a sign of expensive gear. Once artificial bokeh is perfected I expect people will stop obsessing over blurry backgrounds.

I can't speak for lmilcin, but wide open is also critical in low light to minimize ISO noise or to even have a stop or 2 down from the widest to have a little width in the focal plane while still capturing action.

Agreed on the shots where you're at 1.4 and pushing the limits of your shutter speed.

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

#215
post #196

These modern 50mm lenses are certainly marvels of optical engineering. But the future seem to belong to simpler, cheaper and lighter lens designs with optical imperfections corrected digitally. Modern phones take stunning images (in good light) with optically inferior lenses.

Until we have metamaterials to make super flat lenses, smartphones will suck compared to full frame or MF cameras. Especially when it comes to low light performance.

Modern mirrorless cameras paired with fast 1.2 lenses basically have night vision. No smartphone comes close.

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

#216
post #146

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His lens tests are excellent. The lens rentals blog is the best place to find them [0]. If you're in market for high quality lenses, lens rental blog is a great resource. I also like cameralabs' lens tests [1]. Not as scientific as lensrentals, however, it has real samples and images of charts for comparison, so you can get a sense for what the different resolution means in image resolution. It also tests things beyo…

He does break down technical stuff is average Joe language. But, one this that does tick me off is his lens analysis does not consider larger formats.

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

#217
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His lens tests are excellent. The lens rentals blog is the best place to find them [0]. If you're in market for high quality lenses, lens rental blog is a great resource. I also like cameralabs' lens tests [1]. Not as scientific as lensrentals, however, it has real samples and images of charts for comparison, so you can get a sense for what the different resolution means in image resolution. It also tests things beyo…

He does break down technical stuff is average Joe language. But, one this that does tick me off is his lens analysis does not consider larger formats.

[deleted]

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

#218

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 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.

Yeah if you're using the camera as a tool to make money, the perfection of the recent Sony Alpha full frame cameras is exactly what you want.

I recommend analog to people who want fulfillment from the process itself.

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

#219
post #81
post #78

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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…

There are modern 50s that don't weigh as much, but they're also not super-fast f/1.2 glass.

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

#220
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of reason I even bother with full frame is wide open. Any smartphone these days can give perfectly good sharp photos. I lug the beast around to get shots you can't get with a smartphone.

Shooting wide open is fashionable because it’s a sign of expensive gear. Once artificial bokeh is perfected I expect people will stop obsessing over blurry backgrounds.

I hope not. My Nikkor 135mm dc is quadrupled in value since I bought it :)

DC stands for “defocus control", as distorting the bokeh forward of backward.

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