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Planar 1.7/50 and the "what is the best" issue
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Carsten wrote:
It is almost as good as a Leica Summicron 2/50 for half of the price

where do you read that? everybody know that the planar 50 1.7 is the best 50 mm ever build (for resolution)


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:
Carsten wrote:
It is almost as good as a Leica Summicron 2/50 for half of the price

where do you read that? everybody know that the planar 50 1.7 is the best 50 mm ever build (for resolution)


Er, I have to confess I didn't actually know that, so it's good to be educated. Was there a massive lens comparison test with every different lens ever made done somewhere? Love to see the results, are they internet accessible?


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Stephen wrote:
I have to confess I didn't actually know that

it is ok, I still learn everyday

one know source is photodo, here is a list where the contax get 4.6 and the leica 4.5

http://lists.tako.de/Olympus-OM/2000-06/msg00111.html


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:
Carsten wrote:
It is almost as good as a Leica Summicron 2/50 for half of the price

where do you read that? everybody know that the planar 50 1.7 is the best 50 mm ever build (for resolution)


Ah, everybody knows that? Who said so? Zeiss? OK, think again.
The federal state I live in also pretends to have eductaion on the priority agenda, so they say. But is is not true just because they claim it.

When we talk about lenses of this quality, it is extremely hard to state which one is "better". So, I chose a "soft" formulation.

And, "highest resolution" does not equal "best", does it?


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 3:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Frankly said: I couldn't care less about any sharpness-tests or whatsoever. I want to see pictures taken with lenses, and if - as I just read in an interview - Steve McCurry nowadays takes his pictures with a D700 and a Hasselblad for middle-format and thinks that the pictures of a 28-70 Nikkor AF Zoom are sharp enough for him that is enough information for me.

Thomas

His interview can be found here:

http://www.fotoflock.com/index.php/features/feature-interviews/30/2723


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
Ah, everybody knows that? Who said so? Zeiss? OK, think again.

I wouldn't want to get in to a my-lens-is-better-than-your-lens pillow fight, but I don't think the Photodo site is a Zeiss mouthpiece. Zeiss lenses are supplied with individual performance charts, so unless one is going to suggest that Zeiss measurements, MTF data etc, are demonstrably misleading or rigged, I see no reason to discount any measures of performance given by Zeiss 'just because Zeiss said so'. One may equally discount Leica or Nikon or anyone else for that matter, on such a basis.

As has been observed, there are few practical tests quite as useful to the average photographer as seeing what a lens does when it's connected to the camera. When I chose to follow the Zeiss line, it wasn't because of what I read on Photodo, or a Zeiss web site, or a photo forum pillow-fight, or anywhere else for that matter. It was because I bought a camera that had one on the front, an almost casual buy, and was astonished at the difference over what I'd been using till then.

If someone said that the 50mm Planar was the best 50mm ever made, the most I could say is that I've never had a better for any purpose I've ever had ; but I'd add that I've never used a Summicron.

Perhaps it's worth remembering that 'best' isn't always an easy concept to define.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's simple: "best" is where your heart is.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
It's simple: "best" is where your heart is.

That is the definition my wife likes best, when I tell her she is the best.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
alex wrote:
Orio wrote:
It's simple: "best" is where your heart is.

That is the definition my wife likes best, when I tell her she is the best.


And yet, it's true Smile
The relationship between a photographer and his tools is not limited to a technical sheet. Human factor plays a key role.

There is a couple of things I have learned:

1) Most of the times, the lens does not really make the difference to your photograph. There are surely lenses that give us more than others. But it has more to do with our own style, and how the lens fits to it, than to objective qualities of a lens. In the night, a saying says, all cats look grey. So when you put a big number of negatives, made with different cameras and lenses, cheap or dear, on the table near to your enlarger, the differences are zeroed. Everything becomes the same: the raw matter of an art.

2) We must realize, we are a small group of lens freaks. In the big world, outside there, at the exhibitions, at the fashion houses, at the customers of a simple province wedding photographer, no one, I repeat, no one gives a f*ck about what lens we used for which shot. They look at the results, they like it or not, and not even for a second a question mark crosses their minds about this type of technicalities.
So we must admit that yes, we like the specs, and analizying the performances of the lenses, pixel peeping et c., because this is our hobby, or one could say, our perversion. The world of real photography is distant miles from us. There's nothing bad to that. We just have to keep our identity in mind and not let us distort the parameters of the real world because of our passion.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have split this part of the thread from the Marketplace forum because it made no sense there.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
no one gives a f*ck about what lens we used for which shot

who care if our lens are plastic or metal; nobody?... we care
who care the pillow I sleep on; nobody? I care and I can understand that nobody else care
I didn't choice my pillow based on exhibitions and fashion houses, I tried many until I found the best
last week I took my pillow with me on travel ... and I took also my Zeiss lenses Laughing


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think the brand itself has also an important part of the legendary lens. Since years i wanted to have and see what a Zeiss lens is capable of, and i'm not disseapointed with the Planar or the Tessar.

That said, and i mentioned it in another thread, i bought also a Yashica ML 1.7/50mm and i can't spot the difference between the Planar, pictures are equally sharp and the rendition is superb. I'm happy so far.

Now some may say a Summicron is the best lens, for some its a Canon a Pentax a .. whatever. What's important is the pleasure we have to use them and the final result : a good image quality.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have one and its NOT the sharpest 50mm lens by a long shot...My Canon FL 55mm f1.2 is sharper. Wink I only bought it because of its steller 4.6 MTF score but I fail to see how they arrived at this unless the guy testing it was totally drunk and was seeing double figures!


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
DSG wrote:
I have one and its NOT the sharpest 50mm lens by a long shot...My Canon FL 55mm f1.2 is sharper. Wink I only bought it because of its steller 4.6 MTF score but I fail to see how they arrived at this unless the guy testing it was totally drunk and was seeing double figures!

it is possible that your planar copy is out of spec or that your canon is very good
please send me your canon and I will sort it out Rolling Eyes


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
hexi wrote:
i bought also a Yashica ML 1.7/50mm and i can't spot the difference between the Planar, pictures are equally sharp and the rendition is superb. I'm happy so far.

It used to be that, when I saw a remark like this, I'd say, only slightly tongue in cheek, that I wished people wouldn't. Now, however, I've got almost all the Yashica lenses I want, I don't mind so much. It wouldn't do to be pushing up the demand and prices of ML lenses until I'd got mine as cheaply as I could.

It's much easier to tell the difference between a good lens and a bad one, than to tell the difference between two very good lenses. I've often wondered how people would fare in a 'blind' test of half a dozen identical photographs made with half a dozen top lenses of the same type. I'm sure there might be some who had that kind of optical intimacy, but I'm not sure I'm one. For years, I had used a Yashica DSB, then bought a Planar, and the difference was immediate. It was only then that I learned how well the Pareto principle was exemplified by the ML lenses, and I started getting these as alternatives for the Zeisses in situations where the risk of loss or damage was higher.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:

who care if our lens are plastic or metal; nobody?... we care


Yes and that is exactly my point: percentually, a lens is much more important to the owner than to the result.

There are of course exceptions like the specialistic lenses.
But speaking of normal lenses in typical everyday use, that is what happens in my opinion.

We are like Gourmets in a restaurant. People eat the dishes and like or dislike. But we, we are full into the almost alchemical process of bringing the food to life.

-


PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
My experience with planar 1,7/50 was very short, but I found it an excelent lens.

And the summicron R 50 is very good too. (The summicron M 50 is the best of all, but M equipment isn't analized here).

And Nikon 1,4/50 is fantastic.

And Pancolar 1,8/50 is sharper than the planar at F/5,6-8-11 (as I remember the planar pics).

And now my S-M-C 1,4 seems to me to be excelent plus. Shocked . And I fall in love with it. And sure I will find another lens that will be better for my.

But all this situation is only mine, my prefer lens is a inside question. Outside? The message, the impact of my pic. No more.

Rino.
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