Home

Please support mflenses.com if you need any graphic related work order it from us, click on above banner to order!
SearchSearch MemberlistMemberlist RegisterRegister ProfileProfile Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages Log inLog in

What is the gold standard for sharpness?
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
View previous topic :: View next topic  


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:52 pm    Post subject: What is the gold standard for sharpness? Reply with quote
What is the gold standard for sharpness, untouched? I would love to see samples. I am wondering if my idea of perfection is unattainable.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Use the search link top of this web page to search the forum for "sharp" (without the quote characters), I get 45 matches for topics regarding sharp lenses.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I don't understand the question, but I know the answer Cool


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Close down a decent 50/1.4 lens to F5.6, at center, there's the definition of sharp. Good sharp lens attain that sharpness at larger aperture and across the field.

Also, check out this:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2009/08/how-to-get-sharp-telephoto-images

User error is more to blame than lens, in my humble experience.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
What sharpness got to do with it? Go with character!


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:
I don't understand the question, but I know the answer Cool


+1 Cool

greets leo


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
T* Wink


PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I understand your question perfectly, and while I don't know if there is a definitive gold standard, or sharpest lens, there are certainly some that are considered sharp enough - so much so that it likely doesn't matter if there are sharper lenses. I appreciate overall IQ, but I do also very much like a lens to be tack sharp. I have collected certain lenses for both IQ and sharpness, including one considered one of the sharpest ever produced; Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Series 1 Macro. That and others I've found to meet or exceed my sharpness standards are following with the examples you requested.

Vivitar Close Focus 28mm


Zeiss Flektogon 35mm


Rokkor 50mm f/1.4


Vivitar Series 1 90mm f2.5 Macro


Vivitar Series 1 200mm f/3.0


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
That Vivitar Series 1 200mm f/3.0 is seriously sharp, I'm liking that for a long lens. Cool


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
"Sharpness is a bourgeois conceit."
-- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Therefore, the gold standard for optical sharpness is... money. Cool


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
RioRico, you can call me Bourge for short.

Lloydy: I just happen to have another Series 1 200mm in M42 mount for sale. Smile I have it listed in the marketplace, but that might have expired.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I'll vote for my Helios 200mm f3.5 and EBC Fujinon 55mm f1.8

Both have exceptional IQ , IMO


Helios 200mm f3.5



EBC Fujinon 55mm f1.8



EBC Fujinon 55mm f1.8



PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 3:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
If I were to express a "gold standard" in terms of resolution, I'd say something in the neighborhood of 70 lppmm in the center and 60 lppmm in the corners would be good enough for a gold standard. And APO of course. Smile

Way back in 1976, Zeiss published an article on sharpness and contrast that was a real eye-opener for me the first time I read it several years ago. It can be found here, and I highly recommend that you take the time to read through it also:

http://www.zeisscamera.com/doc_ResContrast.shtml


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 7:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
When it comes to mere sharpness, Zeiss lenses play in a league of their own, perhaps only some modern top-class AF-lenses can compete.
But as some have already mentioned: sharpness is not everything!


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 7:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
cooltouch wrote:
Way back in 1976, Zeiss published an article on sharpness and contrast that was a real eye-opener for me the first time I read it several years ago. It can be found here, and I highly recommend that you take the time to read through it also:

http://www.zeisscamera.com/doc_ResContrast.shtml

Thanks! I printed it, and I'll take a look.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
GOLD STANDARD LENS... and camera (photo from PentaxLife)



[/end]


K.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I feel sick all of a sudden! Laughing

Rodney, get the van! Luvely jubbly!


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Remember those pictures from a few months ago? The raid on a druglord's compound, and all the mountains of cash in many currencies, and all the precious-metal-plated jewel-encrusted automatic weapons? This Pentax came from that stash, right? It's cocaine bling, right?


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
RioRico wrote:
This Pentax came from that stash, right? It's cocaine bling, right?

I don't know, there are no diamonds on the cam. Wink


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
In answer to the original question...It is the sharpest lens you own at the present. For me that would be the Pentax F 50mm f/1.7 at f/5.6-f/8.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
cooltouch wrote:
If I were to express a "gold standard" in terms of resolution, I'd say something in the neighborhood of 70 lppmm in the center and 60 lppmm in the corners would be good enough for a gold standard. And APO of course. Smile

Way back in 1976, Zeiss published an article on sharpness and contrast that was a real eye-opener for me the first time I read it several years ago. It can be found here, and I highly recommend that you take the time to read through it also:

http://www.zeisscamera.com/doc_ResContrast.shtml


Although good reading, that article strikes me as very dated. First, they are comparing b&W, prints, and apparently nothing other than resolution and contrast. They talk about increasing contrast through use of more contrasty paper. While all of this was true at the time, the issue has changed to a great deal with today's digital images, almost mandatory post processing, and the multi-dimensions of image quality.

While back in 1976 all of that would have been true, some could have been managed better through the printing process, but it would have been more meaningful when using slide film where what you took was what you got.

Today, we are very able to make the post processing adjustments to correct for contrast deficiencies. We now, maybe to a greater degree, look at IQ with greater criteria in mind. CA is perhaps a greater concern than in 1976, especially if B&W was the chosen film then. Bokeh was not mentioned in the study, and I'm not sure to what degree it was considered back then. I do know that I was heavily into photography then, but never heard the term bokeh and don't recall giving it much attention.

Today, I'll take that sharper lens every time and make it better in post processing. But with all of that aside, I will say that sharpness is not the whole game to me - certainly an important criterion, but I do look for more. I have owned lenses that are generally considered by many in these forums to be excellent, and sharp lenses, but they have left me wanting. Other lenses, perhaps not as highly touted have been much more pleasing to my tastes. In summary, I believe sharpness is more important today than when that article was written.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, yes, it is a dated article, of course. But what impressed me the most was the discussion about the inter-relationship between sharpness and contrast, and how contrast tends to affect the perception of sharpness more than sharpness itself does. This is something that I would think is basic to optics itself.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
cooltouch wrote:
Well, yes, it is a dated article, of course. But what impressed me the most was the discussion about the inter-relationship between sharpness and contrast, and how contrast tends to affect the perception of sharpness more than sharpness itself does. This is something that I would think is basic to optics itself.

What you're talking about here is the difference between resolution and acutance (edge contrast). The term sharpness includes both these aspects, but it's not really a scientific quantity.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
woodrim wrote:
there are certainly some that are considered sharp enough - so much so that it likely doesn't matter if there are sharper lenses.


I agree - beyond a point, sharpness stops being that relevant. Almost any macro lens will satisfy the need for sharpness.

A crop from Tamron adaptall 90 macro:

Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Manual Focus Lenses
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2