Sigma or Panasonic macro lens for scanning film

[runswithsizzers]

But surely it has to be possible to arrive to a conclusion? Wouldn't it be possible to 'fact check' those claims - I assume they cant be both right?

My conclusions would be:
a. either lens should produce acceptable results, and,
b. once the goal of acceptable has been achieved, then any additional time spent searching for better-than-acceptable would probably be better spent actually digitizing your negatives.

So my recommendation would to pick one of these two lenses, and get to work. Only after you have digitized several hundred negatives and done the post-processing on them will you have the experience needed to know the strengths and weakness of your process. What I am trying to say is, only after you have copied a lot of negatives will you know what is acceptable for you, and only then will you be able to make an informed decision about what part of your process is the weakest link. I'm guessing it will not be the lens, no matter which one of these two you choose.

But if at some point you do decide your process needs a better lens, then that is the price of your education. I started out with a decent, but far-from-exotic Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 100mm enlarging lens on a bellows. Later I upgraded to a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon D 75mm duplicating lens. I can see a small improvement in sharpness and detail, but honestly, the modestly priced enlarger lens was probably good enough for my purposes. But only after I was able to try them both was I able to learn what "good enough" means to me.

 

[pkr1979]

It is possible to fact check claims, but doing so requires you to do the research.

Right now there are some technical, or at least technically inclined, tests of the Sigma lens, but there are none of the Panasonic.

So you could ask different ai agents all day, but you could never possibly get an answer because there is no data to compare.

A lot of the data we do have. And the one thats missing is software uncorrected distortion in the Panasonic. Which Panasonic says needs to be applied. One can assume then that its not very different from the Sigma. For film scanning purposes there is then a significant chance the Sigma is the best suited.

My conclusions would be:
a. either lens should produce acceptable results, and,
b. once the goal of acceptable has been achieved, then any additional time spent searching for better-than-acceptable would probably be better spent actually digitizing your negatives.

So my recommendation would to pick one of these two lenses, and get to work. Only after you have digitized several hundred negatives and done the post-processing on them will you have the experience needed to know the strengths and weakness of your process. What I am trying to say is, only after you have copied a lot of negatives will you know what is acceptable for you, and only then will you be able to make an informed decision about what part of your process is the weakest link. I'm guessing it will not be the lens, no matter which one of these two you choose.

But if at some point you do decide your process needs a better lens, then that is the price of your education. I started out with a decent, but far-from-exotic Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 100mm enlarging lens on a bellows. Later I upgraded to a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon D 75mm duplicating lens. I can see a small improvement in sharpness and detail, but honestly, the modestly priced enlarger lens was probably good enough for my purposes. But only after I was able to try them both was I able to learn what "good enough" means to me.

I agree - theres a pretty big chance I would not be able to tell them apart. And I suspect that I would go for the Panasonic for general photography. But as said - for scanning Im probably going for the Sigma (its also cheaper).