High end lenses

For those who need, or believe they need (basically the same thing), I am glad that these lenses are out there and available.

For those who can use these lenses in pursuit of their vision and produce beautiful photographs that achieve the lofty standards these lenses are capable of, I am double glad they are available. Your images inspire me.

Finally, for those who really don't need these lenses and can't make them work properly anyway (I fit into this group), I am still glad you are buying them. Without you no one else would have these lenses to enjoy. It is the lens-a-holics and gear collectors who generate the churn and the cash needed to interest the manufacturers in producing these marvels.

EDIT - For those who may be spending the grocery money on these lenses...you know who you are...STOP IT!

jjphoto said:

Shooting people, I do however have strong attachments to certain lenses because of the way they render but this comes from their imperfections rather than any kind of clnical clarity.

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I think you mean photographing people.

Ai Print said:

I think you mean photographing people.

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Lets not quibble over who shot who. But yes, you're quite right.

In the glory days of the ‘50s through the ‘70s even most Leica users recognized the superiority of Zeiss lenses for 35 mm photography. Of course Leica inherited the crown after the demise of Zeiss Ikon in 1973. But Nikon, Canon and Minolta lenses were never slouches in terms of quality and build quality.

To the OP, you didn't say what your intended use is, and I think that matters. I'm a photography enthusiast, not a pro. Accordingly I don't seek "the best" equipment, but the best I can afford. I have found the Sigma Art series to be outstanding on my DSLR's and I have no doubt that they wouldn't work well for film. Unfortunately I have a mixed format - all of my film cameras are Minolta and my DSLR's are Nikon - so I can't use my modern lens with my film cameras.

In my opinion, there are two types of lenses. One type are lenses adequate for the job, and the other is those which are not. I've taken pictures which were ruined because they weren't adequately sharp, but I haven't taken pictures which were good simply because they were sharp.

I think it's important to note that in designing lenses, compromises must always be made. Typically, lenses that are super sharp in the corners, don't offer good contrast and have unpleasing bokeh. Fast lenses are usually very large and heavy. Zoom lenses usually have bad distortions. The list goes on and on. The reason why is because lenses are bound by the laws of physics. Using ultra expensive glass doesn't change the laws of physics. Using super high tech manufacturing equipment doesn't alter the way light works. There are no fancy coatings out there that can coax a photon into new behaviors. So there's no such thing as a perfect lens. Even the idea of one lens being better than another is purely subjective speculation. Better for what? How?

Certainly different lenses offer different strengths and weaknesses. But at the end of the day, it's not the lens, but the photographer that makes a photo special. A good photographer doesn't need a good lens. A good photographer knows how to make the best use of the lens he/she has. If a particular lens is soft in the corners, a good photographer knows how to compose so that corner sharpness isn't an issue. A great photographer may even know how to use that corner softness to their advantage. Blaming your gear is what mediocre photographers do.

. But at the end of the day, it's not the lens, but the photographer that makes a photo special. A good photographer doesn't need a good lens. A good photographer knows how to make the best use of the lens he/she has.

This would have been news to Ansel Adams, Eugene Smith, Margret Brook White, Robert Cappa, just to name a few. Most pro get the best gear and lens they can afford. A lens in and of itself does not make a photograph, but it sure helps.

The length of the day or the end of the day or even the beginning of the day have nothing to do with lenses.
A great lens will not improve a poor composition or help a poor photographer. Ansel Adams said "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
A great lens can be an effective tool in the hands of a good photographer. It will certainly not hold him back.
A poorer lens will not help a good photographer and may hold the photographer from utilizing his potential.

When I was younger the difference between a pricey Leica or Nikon lens for 35mm cameras and some of the less expensive lenses was not so much the glass, but rather the mounts. The mounts of the better lenses were constructed of better materials at closer tolerances, hence tougher and more durable than cheaper lenses. Also, quality control inspection costs something.
Not particularly related to photography, but a large part of the demise of American consumer spending turned away from American products when Harvard business school advocated that quality control was an unnecessary expense and consumers could just return faulty merchandise.

Sirius Glass said:

The length of the day or the end of the day or even the beginning of the day have nothing to do with lenses.
A great lens will not improve a poor composition or help a poor photographer. Ansel Adams said "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
A great lens can be an effective tool in the hands of a good photographer. It will certainly not hold him back.
A poorer lens will not help a good photographer and may hold the photographer from utilizing his potential.

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Actually, i rely on high end fast glass to mask my incompetence. Works for me. On a slightly more serious note, fast glass and shallow dof are extremely effective at obliterating cluttered and distracting backgrounds so this has the effect of focusing interest where it should be compared to an equivalent image shot at f16 with all the distraction in the background. Horses for courses, there are times when everything in an image could or should be sharp too, eg architecture or landscape.

What do you need to lens for? What is your style of shooting? How fast do you want the lens to be?

There is not always a clear correlation between all image quality aspects and price. Better to do research on each individual lens.

1. Sharpness is an overrated property shooting 35mm film. The resolution is so low (and with most scanners even worse), that all lenses regardless of price are equally sharp in the center, stopped down to say f/4, f/5.6 or f/8.

2. Many complain about corner or edge sharpness wide open. Most of the time you when you shoot wide open you expect the corners and edges to be out of focus anyways. If you shoot landscapes, then you would probably stop down to at least f/5.6 and then all lenses are more or less equally sharp (compare 1.)

3. The quality of bokeh or how the out of focus areas appear vary between lenses and does not correlate completely with price or high/low end. If this is important to you, you should do your research

4. Do research on CA (impossible to correct on film), vignetting, distortion and how it handles flare, depending on what is important for your photography

5. Other things to consider can be minimum focus distance (if you are interested in getting close), how easy it is to manually focus (if not AF) and filter size (large filters or many different sizes makes it expensive)

On my manual focus Nikon's I use the 28/2.8 AI-s, 50/1.2 AI-s and 105/2.5 AI-s. These were probably considered high-end in the days, but they are quite affordable nowadays.

The 28/2.8 is interesting because it focuses very close, almost like a macro lens. I have taken many photographs that I like with this lens.

I would not recommend the 50/1.2. I think a 50/1.4 or 50/1.8 are better overall at a significantly lower price. The f/1.2 look cool with it's large from element though.

The 105/2.5 is a fantastic lens. Great for portraits with a superb bokeh and it does not loose it's bite wide open.

All the lenses take 52mm filter which I find quite practical.

Using a modern Carl Zeiss lens on a 35mm film camera is like throwing pearls to swine... ;-)

guangong said:

By a “high end” lens what is meant is an expensive lens. An expensive lens is expensive because of better materials used for glass and mechanical components and especially the expense of lens assembly for highest uniform quality for all of a particular production. For example, years ago a friend who worked at Leitz in Germany told me that a large part of expense for Leica binoculars manufacture was the precise matching of both telescopes to make a pair. For this reason I could sit in balcony at the Metropolitan Opera with my eyes glued to my binoculars for a performance of Gotterdamerung with no eye strain at all. There is no free lunch. However, probably Nikon, Minolta, Canon, rationalized the process to achieve excellent results more economically.

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Guangong has the best (most realistic) answer for the performance of top-line optics: Quality control in manufacturing is primary factor, lens material types are distant second factor. QC equates to touch labor, which is expensive. Name brand (profit) partially drives the cost. Everything else is relatively the same.