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Should I really care about large aperture lens?
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:42 pm    Post subject: Re: stopping down a click.... Reply with quote
mfkita wrote:
I have found that with F1.4-F2 lenses, stopping down just one f-stop is enough to remove a lot of the "gauzy" haze around contrasting tones....2 F-stops from wide open and it's completely gone with the better lenses..."my" stop-down 1 F-stop rule is (perhaps even more) true for zooms too, AF and MF varieties...it makes me more confident shooing with them...

....however, with my (early edition) 35/2 and 24/2.8 MF Nikkors even stopped down to F5.6-8 flare and "haze" were never fully eliminated, and that the more modern 35/2 by Canon and the basic Canon 18-55IS kit lens were significantly better...I've not tried other 24mm lenses but I've seen excellent results from the Olympus Zuiko 24/2.8.

....and...1 F-stop smaller than wide open doesn't add very much DoF, usually just enough to get the shot in focus. Very Happy

....and has been been said...Some of the fastest lenses were designed with center sharpness and for use when wide-open....with the compromised design to be best at the center at the expense of edge sharpness, and sharpness doesn't improve either at the center or at the edge when stopped down...hence the "value" of getting a 1.4 lens designed for better OVERALL sharpness from edge-to-edge


Did you read the article?


PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:32 pm    Post subject: Re: stopping down a click.... Reply with quote
FluffPuppy wrote:
mfkita wrote:
I have found that with F1.4-F2 lenses, stopping down just one f-stop is enough to remove a lot of the "gauzy" haze around contrasting tones....2 F-stops from wide open and it's completely gone with the better lenses..."my" stop-down 1 F-stop rule is (perhaps even more) true for zooms too, AF and MF varieties...it makes me more confident shooing with them...

....however, with my (early edition) 35/2 and 24/2.8 MF Nikkors even stopped down to F5.6-8 flare and "haze" were never fully eliminated, and that the more modern 35/2 by Canon and the basic Canon 18-55IS kit lens were significantly better...I've not tried other 24mm lenses but I've seen excellent results from the Olympus Zuiko 24/2.8.

....and...1 F-stop smaller than wide open doesn't add very much DoF, usually just enough to get the shot in focus. Very Happy

....and has been been said...Some of the fastest lenses were designed with center sharpness and for use when wide-open....with the compromised design to be best at the center at the expense of edge sharpness, and sharpness doesn't improve either at the center or at the edge when stopped down...hence the "value" of getting a 1.4 lens designed for better OVERALL sharpness from edge-to-edge


Did you read the article?


You mean with this summary....?
I guess I must have or just others' similar comments and conclusions...or my own experience with the 50/1.2 and the 1.4 Nikkors

"Most Japanese designs go for an overall balance at the expense of the best wide-open performance, making their designs useful as general-purpose lenses. The Leica designs were often biased to deliver good wide-open performance, but with some lowering of the stopped down image quality...."


PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:46 pm    Post subject: Re: stopping down a click.... Reply with quote
mfkita wrote:
FluffPuppy wrote:
mfkita wrote:
I have found that with F1.4-F2 lenses, stopping down just one f-stop is enough to remove a lot of the "gauzy" haze around contrasting tones....2 F-stops from wide open and it's completely gone with the better lenses..."my" stop-down 1 F-stop rule is (perhaps even more) true for zooms too, AF and MF varieties...it makes me more confident shooing with them...

....however, with my (early edition) 35/2 and 24/2.8 MF Nikkors even stopped down to F5.6-8 flare and "haze" were never fully eliminated, and that the more modern 35/2 by Canon and the basic Canon 18-55IS kit lens were significantly better...I've not tried other 24mm lenses but I've seen excellent results from the Olympus Zuiko 24/2.8.

....and...1 F-stop smaller than wide open doesn't add very much DoF, usually just enough to get the shot in focus. Very Happy

....and has been been said...Some of the fastest lenses were designed with center sharpness and for use when wide-open....with the compromised design to be best at the center at the expense of edge sharpness, and sharpness doesn't improve either at the center or at the edge when stopped down...hence the "value" of getting a 1.4 lens designed for better OVERALL sharpness from edge-to-edge


Did you read the article?


You mean with this summary....?
I guess I must have or just others' similar comments and conclusions...or my own experience with the 50/1.2 and the 1.4 Nikkors

"Most Japanese designs go for an overall balance at the expense of the best wide-open performance, making their designs useful as general-purpose lenses. The Leica designs were often biased to deliver good wide-open performance, but with some lowering of the stopped down image quality...."


Please don't conclude though that the Japanese 'more balanced' approach means that the lenses from the Leica stable were inferior to the Japanese ones; on the contrary, it means, rather, that they were better wide open than the Japanese ones were. Stopped down the differences tend to diminish. Anybody can make a lens that looks decent at f/8. What Leica did was to design their lenses to get the most quality possible wide open or near wide open. After all, why make a fast lens just for show? And of course you have to compare lenses from the same era for this to be meaningful. If you compare a Leica reflex 50mm f/1.4 from 1970 to Canon or Nikon or Pentax lenses from the same period, you'll see this quite clearly.

Leica's later designs, using even more advanced glasses and design techniques, established even higher standards of quality. It sometimes takes a while for them to get around to it (redesigning a given lens), but when they do it usually represents a significant improvement. Compromises that were unavoidable in the 60s and 70s were less necessary in the 90s and later.
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