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Why is performance wide open important?
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wide open performance may have been important to me because, when doing portraits, I liked (and still like) the effect that generates to the viewer a very blurred background, and maybe because I tended to believe that if I had a 50 f1.2, then just maybe there will be portraits that another photographer will not be able to do with a more common 50 f1.8 o f2. That's why, I think, when I just bought my first 50 f1.2 I used it at f1.2 o f1.4 all the time. I was doing wrong, because almost all of my subjects had one eye in focus and not the other one, or had the eyebrows in focus but not the eye. Even when I nailed the focus sharpness wasn't great.
Then, I realised that the portrait itself is made much more of the creativity, knowledge of composition and the light reaching the subject. Then, I started to think that, wide open or not, sharp or not, it's a decision that the photographer has to do with a particular portrait, subject or situation, not based on choosing always the sharpest wide open, or always the fastest lens. Wide open performance is now a wider concept to me, and it's not about getting the optically best in one lens (no aberrations, great sharpness, great colours, no vignetting, etc, all in one). It's about having a lens that does something special wide open (for example, soft out of focus areas and good sharpness at f1.8 with the pancolar 50 1.8, swirly bokeh on an Helios 44 at f2, soft glow and fine detail on the center of an Oreston 50 f1.8 ), because there are portraits that just don't need to be taken with the most optically perfect lens, nor even with the best diaphragm in terms of general behavior of each lens.
That's why to me it's important to know how a lens works wide open, where lenses can be pretty diferent from each other and generally shortening the distances when closing diafragm, and not if it's the optically best wide open performance I can get.


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but last Wednesday Lloyd Chambers wrote an article about Otus: "Otus Zeiss 55mm f / 1.4 APO-Distagon: It Has the Magic No Other Normal Lens has":

http://diglloyd.com/blog/2015/20151118_0000-ZeissOtus55f1_4-FrostedPeak.html

"Magic No Other Normal Lens has"? Hmmm… Let's try to find that magic. Twisted Evil

In the article Lloyd presents 5 pictures that he thinks would prove his point. However, IMHO, the pictures fail completely to show that they could only be taken with an Otus. Sad

Picture #1 and #2
Static landscapes with intense lighting, but why the hell Lloyd used the Otus at F1.4 and F2? For what purpose? A reasonably competent photographer would use F8. Any decent normal lens performs better than the Otus wide open.

Picture #3
Otus wide open, scene without details or fine textures. Almost a monochromatic drawing. Any normal lens would give a similar result.

Picture #4
Otus at F8, scene without details outside the central region.
Any decent normal lens would give a similar result.

Picture #5
Otus at F13… F13 ?? Give me a break! Even a Domiplan is sharp at F13!

In summary, all the pictures could have been taken, for example, with a Pentacon 50mm or a Helios 44 with the same results. Honestly, I did not see the magic that Lloyd Chamber talked about. Razz


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
jrsilva wrote:
Interesting topic.
I mostly shoot wide open for a reason;
95% of my photos are portraits and I shoot with micro 4/3 cameras, that as you may know (because of the 2x crop factor) does not offer a shallower DOF as a FF or even as a APS camera.
I like to isolate my subjects as much as I can (I'm really a shallow DOF addicted) and the native micro 4/3 fast prime lenses are very very good performers wide open. So I'm able to get that nice subject isolation.
When I've starting looking for old MF old glass my goal was to be able to find an old fast prime that could perform as good as possible wide open (or only a little bit stopped down), as I want to keep shallow DOF.
I'm very happy with my copy of the Helios 44-2 58mm f/2, because it's very acceptable at f/2 and very sharp only a little bit stopped down to f2.8 (more or less - the reversed aperture system on this preset lenses does allow to know exactly).
The Helios 44-2 made me change my thinking about the performance of old fast primes.
It proved that there are a few old lenses that are good performers even wide open.

Why did I pick up an old Helios having good modern sharp primes on my bag? (including the Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 )
Because I wanted to try the gorgeous bokeh of these old lenses, but without compromising sharpness and contrast.


I have always wondered how the Fujinon 75mm f/1.8 (c-mount), which is a fantastic lens would stand up against a very good performer as the Zuiko 75mm... Rolling Eyes


PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 11:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
That Fujinon-TV 1.8/75 is truly wonderful. I have the 1.4/24, 1.7/35, 1.4/50 Fujinon-TVs plus another 6 or 7 Fujinon-TVs for smaller sensors to use on my Pentax Q7. They are all superb imho.


PostPosted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
A good and honest article that compares a classic Double Gauss lens designed 50 years ago with a state-of-the-art modern lens. If the Minolta MC is replaced by a Canon 50mm F1.8, or a Pentacon, or Helios 44, and the Sony FE 55mm is replaced by the Otus 55mm, the results are likely to be the same, confirming what I said in a previous post, i.e. the difference in performance is negligible for apertures equal or smaller than F5.6~8.

http://phillipreeve.net/blog/test-20-minolta-mc-1-755-vs-1000-zeiss-1-855/#more-929
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