This is a funny thread I must say. It starts off with "is there a better (lens) than ..." then one poster makes a "sterile" comment and gets chastised (for reasons unbeknown to me, as then someone else calls another lens a "nice" one, getting no nuclear responses at all), then some actual photos from lenses start to flow in, proving only the fact that they are all capable of projecting image on the film. And this is not meant as a jab at shown photographs, just that none show any "betterness" over another. It is what it is, having a discussion on any subject matter can be fun.
Having said all that, there are some differences in lens' character, although mostly very sublime, and hardly ever an agreeable commodity anyways. So, if a lens produces "sterile" image for that user, then he has it right within realms of his own evaluation standard. Same goes for another who just claims to own a "nice" one. None of this could be shown/proven with photographs as none of it is objective, Neither are photographs themselves trying to show such a point, especially so in the scanned world.
Some parts of this thread remind me of a book "Controls in Black and White Photography" by Henry. Great read, even better my own conclusion - why bother? It showed succinctly there is way too many variables, many beyond precise control, to worry about the minutia of processing details explored within. Yet ultimately, if one wants to go on a "tirade" about superiority of one thing over another, there is no better way, but to indeed bother. Mr. Henry was not exactly doing that, he spent countless hours going through all that testing. And while it proved to me something unintended by all that work, it might have shown something else to another.
