Fast film and super-sharp lenses

Speaking from experience with Contax G lenses on Neopan 400 in Rodinal: even though the resolving power of the film is the limiting factor, the sharpness and 'micro-contrast' of the lenses still shine through, somehow. Use poorer lenses with the same film, same everything, and yes, you will see a difference in print. Don't ask me why, please :confused:.

Lets not forget that cameras and lenses don't take pictures, people do.

Grain is obviously tied to resolution but I don't think they're the same thing.

cliveh said:

Lets not forget that cameras and lenses don't take pictures, people do.

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In September last year I printed a negative my dad had taken in 1963 with one of the Miranda Orion cameras.
http://www.mirandacamera.com/_modelid/modelid.htm
Not exactly the last word in resolution, but the print looked nice. Adox film processed in whatever the lab was using.

I made 11x14" prints from this negative, and I didn't lack anything compared to the pictures I make today with modern film and a Leica lens.
This scan is from an Ilford MG Art 300 print where the texture of the paper shows up very irritatingly, and for that I apologize.

I don't think this picture would have been any better had he used a Leica high resolution lens and some whizzbango mega-resolution film.

This is just my opinion.

Cameras lenses and film, each can and does contribute to image quality, and sharpness. Under ideal conditions most cameras will produce equal quality of images with the same lens and film. Some cameras particular middle format 6 X 6 SLR's can lose the focus adjustment between the film plane and the reflex viewed ground glass. This will result in images that simply are not in focus.
Under less than ideal conditions the front standards and the rear standards of some 4 x 5 cameras may not be parallel and this will produce unsharp images.
But like these two situations, all three contribute to sharpness, Film, Camera and Lens even though the film is not capable of rendering the number of lines per millimeters as the lens it will appear sharper, when a sharper lens is used, even though it appears to be complete overkill.
Digital cameras make this very apparent, the Leica M-9 produces better imaged with 18 million pixels, than some other cameras with many more pixels, two reasons for this is no blurring filter, with the M-9 and the super sharp Leica Lenses.
I shoot several different formats, the majority of my images are taken with a Leica M-9, and a 75 mm 2.0 Leica lens. If the shot is personal I use a Leica MP camera and a 75 mm 2.0 lens or a 90 mm 2.0 lens. I also use wide angles, My favorite film is Fuji Astia, I still have a few rolls in 35 mm.

The glass used to make Leica lenses comes from the center of the Earth. The glass there, of course, is molten and has a consistency of creamy nougat. After mining it is aged and cooled in barrels made from Black Forest oak trees and then formed by hand into circular blanks resembling cheese rounds. Finally, it is ground into lens elements using special blue-diamond-laced grinding tools made especially for Leitz by De Beers.

In 1971 I used a Leica lens to photograph the entire cast of the first-ever stage production of the rock opera Tommy at the Moore theater in Seattle. These were group photos, of course. The images were so sharp I could see the dust mites in Bette Midler's eyebrows.

Leica lenses are so superior to those from other makers that if you place a Leica lens and, for example, a Nikon lens side by side on a table, the Nikon lens will, all on its own, begin to roll toward the edge of the table in an apparent attempt to end its own life.

LOL that's pretty funny



Honestly though, If you're that concerned about sharpness and clarity, why waste your time with 35mm?

best reply ever on this subject

I crack up a lot on the internet because people chase super sharp lenses as if that is the goal of photography. Usually discussion of lenses only seems to support the size of the ego of the owner. Firstly, if you print in the darkroom the most important lens you own is your enlarging lens. Secondly on the importance scale is how you develop your film. Thirdly is the lens you use to take the image. Past a certain point (which is somewhat illustrated by Thomas' post above) there is very little difference between lenses unless you want to tie the camera to a tripod and grain peep on your computer. As far as I am concerned that takes all the fun out of photography. If the grain is sharp then the print will look fine. I am more than happy to print a fuzzy image because no one that really matters will care as long as the image is good.

FWIW one of my favorite combos on my Leica is the Zeiss 35mm Biogon with Foma 400 film. The lack of anti-halation in the film rounds off the sharpness nicely.

p.s.- Bob, that gave me a good laugh!

At the end of the day, something is going to limit the quality of your photos: your ability, your glass, or your capture. Using better glass than your capture can handle just means that you're getting all out of your capture that you can.

I'm guessing a really top quality film like Velvia 50 or Ektar 100 is still going to exceed the resolution of these lenses, so personally I'd rather glass that was too good. You can always downgrade an image if you really have to, but you can't really upgrade it if you didn't capture the detail.

Sound and Fury

Thomas, considerably up-thread, has very close to the last word here: 'Just go take the best images you can and print them to the best of your ability.' Any lens can deal with low light. Fast lenses were designed to deal with hand holding slow film, and I am thankful for the work there. I did a little pixel peeping yesterday with my 50mm f/2 Nikkor Ai and, dear oh dear oh dear, it's a rude awakening to realize the biggest impediment to my lenses is me. Hand-holding, low shutter speeds, warm developer, experimentation. All those things I do that lessen that lens's performance. Just take the shot. If it sucks it's not the camera's fault. I was also struck by the sight of a 35mm camera on a tripod. Helpful, yes, but what would dear Oskar have thought?

Of course it's always nice to have the line pairs that let you spot the enemy trenches from ten thousand feet, or count the mesh in aunt Edna's sup hose if you need to, but don't let it get in the way. (I fight this a lot myself.) Digital ISO will be almost unlimited in future and that negates the need for that f/$ Noctilux and its brethren. Focusing will be off a digital viewfinder screen. With this, a diffraction-limited f/3.5 prime will be small, light and cheap. Good-bye f/1.0 beauty.

And don't go overboard with the brand loyalty. There's enough heat between the Leica and Zeiss camps alone that this whole argument could be resolved if we could only get them to cross the streams.

s-snaphappy-a

Pixel peeping might be useless, but so is photography generally speaking. It's totally natural, in a photographer, to dig into every little grain of a negative. It's even the leit Motiv of a film by Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow-up. If we really were rational people, we probably wouldn't be doing photography at all. I suppose fishers can test and buy their canes and threads to support shark fishing and then using them for anchovies. It's human nature. We are fascinated by technical achievements, by the potential of the materials we use. We like technology. People who can buy Ferraris to drive to the newspaper kiosk because they are charmed by the potential, the technical content.

That said, I think the question is not properly asked. Final resolution is the result of, so to speak, the "product" of factors.
It's as if you had a "lens resolution factor" and a "film resolution factor" and you multiply the two to obtain the "total resolution product". If you keep one factor the same, and raise the other factor, the resulting product will be higher in any case (in support to post #27).

Regarding the Leica difference, or the Zeiss difference, what I read during my early young years (I'm still young but it's many, many years I've been young, so I say that to avoid misunderstandings ) is that it's not really resolution that makes the difference between good and bad lenses, it's more a question of acutance. Zeiss and Leica/Leitz lenses have/had a reputation of high acutance. Acutance is more difficult to obtain than resolution, but ultimately, for the human eye, acutance is a very important factor in the sharpness impression, in a sense more than resolution. Cheap and ultimately disappointing lenses can sport very high resolution figures. "Perceived sharpness" is the question, and "resolution" is not the answer.

As far as I know, there is no standard or objective measure for acutance. Resolution can be "measured", but acutance cannot. Sharpness being the combined effect of resolution and acutance, there is no objective or scientific measure for sharpness. The various tests that laboratories never cease creating never really manage to measure acutance.

Grain can increase the perception of sharpness because it can increase acutance.

Resolution, and acutance, and MTF. Oh, my .......

Lots of things get mixed up when people talk about 'sharpness'; sharpness is a visual response and 'perceived sharpness' is a combination of both resolution and acutance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance ).

What counts (and can be measured) is the system MTF or Modulation Transfer Function which really describes the system performance (lens, film, etc.)

I'm getting dizzy.

A clear explanation of how the (perceived) sharpness is a result of both resolution and acutance:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sharpness.htm

Fabrizio

F/1.4 said:

Honestly though, If you're that concerned about sharpness and clarity, why waste your time with 35mm?

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This.

I shoot a Leica MP with fast film. My favorite is Tri-X pushed to 5000 in my own developer mix. Sharp, contrasty and grainy but that is the look I want for the subjects I shoot with that camera. Usually earthy, urban street shots.

raucousimages said:

This.

I shoot a Leica MP with fast film. My favorite is Tri-X pushed to 5000 in my own developer mix. Sharp, contrasty and grainy but that is the look I want for the subjects I shoot with that camera. Usually earthy, urban street shots.

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Would love to see some examples. Anything posted anywhere? Which lenses do you usually use?