Why do we talk such rubbish about lenses?

Alan Johnson · Apr 7, 2014

For a long time I have read the lens test reviews in "Amateur Photographer" as a lunchtime pastime.
At one time they were done by photographing a test chart on T-Max 100 developed in Acutol and the results given in line-pairs/mm. This was the easiest to understand.Although it had the downside that the best lenses outresolved the film at mid apertures and their true excellence was not recorded it was a good guide to the best that could be done with "ordinary" black and white film.
Later, when Geoffrey Crawley took over he measured a value similar to the mtf, versus f-stop. In theory this this gave more information but I don't think the results were as memorable.
Nowadays the method is different still, it's no wonder the subject is not entirely clear.
I believe that in the US , Pop Photo magazine had a "subjective image quality " they reported.

benjiboy · Apr 7, 2014

How is it that all the photographers I have ever known who spend a large majority of their time glued to lens tests, who talk constantly about line pairs per millimeter, Modulatory transfer function, and testing their lenses when you look at their work it's usually very sharp, but often completely meaningless because they are in love with the technology not making meaningful pictures.
I think that if you buy good condition lenses made by the leading marque camera manufacturers they will be better lenses than you are a photographer as I know mine are, and you can get on and concentrate on making pictures end of story.

blockend · Apr 7, 2014

It's easier to blame the lens than admit we lack the dedication and talent to be good photographers. And when we finally get that Summilux or whatever, we realise it wasn't the glass that was holding us back after all.

benjiboy · Apr 7, 2014

blockend said:
It's easier to blame the lens than admit we lack the dedication and talent to be good photographers. And when we finally get that Summilux or whatever, we realise it wasn't the glass that was holding us back after all.

Very true, photographic excellence can't be achieved by throwing money at it, and great photographers in the past became legends with equipment that even most beginners these days would scoff at as being inadequate.

Thomas Bertilsson · Apr 7, 2014

blockend said:
It's easier to blame the lens than admit we lack the dedication and talent to be good photographers. And when we finally get that Summilux or whatever, we realise it wasn't the glass that was holding us back after all.

A lot of truth in this statement. For general photography this is absolutely true, a category I belong to. I make prints no bigger than 16x20 inches in my darkroom, and use film that some would say look terrible at 16x20, but I don't care. Making photographs for ourselves or artistic purposes, there is no right or wrong. Resolution, fine grain, and such, is even reduced to a matter of taste. Some prefer to use technically terrible lenses from over 100 years ago, just because they like what the prints/plates look like. And nobody can say they are wrong. For my purposes there isn't enough difference between a 50mm f/1.4 super takumar and a 50mm f/2 Summicron for me to care. I don't even look for it, because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

But, if you are a photographer who shoots more technical photography, for creating catalogs, posters, or billboards even, with subject matter that requires a lot of correction, like architecture and so on, the lenses can be absolutely imperative in making/breaking the photograph. Every step of the process becomes exponentially more exposed as the size of the output grows.

If you're a little nuts (in a most wonderful way, of course - I much prefer nuts of normal) and make 4x6 foot sized prints from 35mm negatives, then the lens quality is going to be obvious like night and day. That's where film choice, developer choice, technique, shake blur, etc is going to show up and be blatantly obvious.

It is not possible to make a blanket statement about how lenses affect our photography without giving the arguments some proper context first. The truth is how much we need the best lenses depends greatly what our goals and output are.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 7, 2014

benjiboy said:
How is it that all the photographers I have ever known who spend a large majority of their time glued to lens tests, who talk constantly about line pairs per millimeter, Modulatory transfer function, and testing their lenses when you look at their work it's usually very sharp, but often completely meaningless because they are in love with the technology not making meaningful pictures.
I think that if you buy good condition lenses made by the leading marque camera manufacturers they will be better lenses than you are a photographer as I know mine are, and you can get on and concentrate on making pictures end of story.

I've never made a bad photograph due to the lens. But- when you're using a negative with one and a half square inches of storage area, resolution does become more meaningful.
Beyond a certain point though comparing equipment becomes a form of masturbation.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 7, 2014

Alan Johnson said:
For a long time I have read the lens test reviews in "Amateur Photographer" as a lunchtime pastime.
At one time they were done by photographing a test chart on T-Max 100 developed in Acutol and the results given in line-pairs/mm. This was the easiest to understand.Although it had the downside that the best lenses outresolved the film at mid apertures and their true excellence was not recorded it was a good guide to the best that could be done with "ordinary" black and white film.
Later, when Geoffrey Crawley took over he measured a value similar to the mtf, versus f-stop. In theory this this gave more information but I don't think the results were as memorable.
Nowadays the method is different still, it's no wonder the subject is not entirely clear.
I believe that in the US , Pop Photo magazine had a "subjective image quality " they reported.

I test lenses by photographing something with a good deal of fine detail. I've used distant trees, newsprint, currency, lots of test targets. If the lens reproduces the detail adequately for the dgree of enlargement I will be using, with useful contrast, why then it's a good lens.

I like fine detail in most (not all) of my pictures, it's how I "see" things. So I value lenses capable of rendering fine detail. I don't think I've ever seen a modern prime lens incapable of satisfactory performance. I do not use zooms, ever.

ntenny · Apr 7, 2014

E. von Hoegh said:
I've never made a bad photograph due to the lens. But- when you're using a negative with one and a half square inches of storage area, resolution does become more meaningful.

Yeah, to be fair, people who shoot small and print big, and want to preserve a lot of fine detail, need to---well, they need to switch to large format, is what they really need to do, but let's say they really love Kleinbildformat for whatever reason; in that case they need to fine-tune lots of stages of their process, including the lens, but also including all those other annoying things like tripod stability and enlarger alignment.

Obviously the people shooting really well in that style are doing those things; but I bet a hat that most people *trying* to shoot small and print big are more limited by those other issues than by their lenses. However, you can't really review enlarger alignment, and there just isn't the same competitive cachet to saying "My tripod is more stable than yours!"

Beyond a certain point though comparing equipment becomes a form of masturbation.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...or that it's an activity you wouldn't expect the internet to foster.

-NT

E. von Hoegh · Apr 7, 2014

ntenny said:
Yeah, to be fair, people who shoot small and print big, and want to preserve a lot of fine detail, need to---well, they need to switch to large format, is what they really need to do, but let's say they really love Kleinbildformat for whatever reason; in that case they need to fine-tune lots of stages of their process, including the lens, but also including all those other annoying things like tripod stability and enlarger alignment.

Obviously the people shooting really well in that style are doing those things; but I bet a hat that most people *trying* to shoot small and print big are more limited by those other issues than by their lenses. However, you can't really review enlarger alignment, and there just isn't the same competitive cachet to saying "My tripod is more stable than yours!"

Not that there's anything wrong with that...or that it's an activity you wouldn't expect the internet to foster.

-NT

Agreed.
Why so many of us need glasses.
But there is something wrong with calling it photography.

I like my old mechanical miniatures, I've lately got back into rangefinders to the tune of a Kiev and a Canon IIb. I didn't appreciate just what a good job 35mm could do until I started using large format. I can make stunning 8x12 enlargements from 35, but that's about the limit for me; as you enlarge the negative you seem to divide the tones, even though it's sharp.

benjiboy · Apr 7, 2014

E. von Hoegh said:
I've never made a bad photograph due to the lens. But- when you're using a negative with one and a half square inches of storage area, resolution does become more meaningful.
Beyond a certain point though comparing equipment becomes a form of masturbation.

I agree with the former entirely, I've done a lot of both of the latter in the past and can attest to it's truth

TheFlyingCamera · Apr 7, 2014

I think the critical question here is not "how sharp is the lens" but "does the lens support my photographic vision". If the qualities of the lens support making images that you want to make, all else about it from the brand name on the barrel to the number of elements to MTF chart performance are secondary. If you NEED a lens that has 0% distortion because you're photographing ultra-fine detail that needs to be kept perfectly rectilinear throughout the image area, then buy THAT lens. If you NEED a lens that produces a pleasing rendition of skin tones, buy THAT lens. DON'T use the first lens for the task the second lens is better suited to. Everything else is, as others have already stated, an exercise in gratuitous public masturbation.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 7, 2014

TheFlyingCamera said:
I think the critical question here is not "how sharp is the lens" but "does the lens support my photographic vision". If the qualities of the lens support making images that you want to make, all else about it from the brand name on the barrel to the number of elements to MTF chart performance are secondary. If you NEED a lens that has 0% distortion because you're photographing ultra-fine detail that needs to be kept perfectly rectilinear throughout the image area, then buy THAT lens. If you NEED a lens that produces a pleasing rendition of skin tones, buy THAT lens. DON'T use the first lens for the task the second lens is better suited to. Everything else is, as others have already stated, an exercise in gratuitous public masturbation.

That's about it right there.
I remember reading photo magazines, car magazines, gun/hunting mags... "Is the 30/30 adequate for deer?" was a perennial (literally). Guess what? shoot a deer in the leg with a 16" naval rifle, you've still got a wounded deer to follow. All the magazines indulged in the same thing, and many of the readers bought into it. Now we have the internet where any imbecile can bloviate to his or her heart's content. "bokeh"... a prime example. I like my out-of-focus-areas to be out of focus.

Ian Grant · Apr 7, 2014

E. von Hoegh said:
I've never made a bad photograph due to the lens. But- when you're using a negative with one and a half square inches of storage area, resolution does become more meaningful.
Beyond a certain point though comparing equipment becomes a form of masturbation.

benjiboy said:
I agree with the former entirely, I've done a lot of both of the latter in the past and can attest to it's truth

I've had quite a few images ruined by poor lenses, to be fair that was a a few years ago. Two brands were the worst Hoya and Sigma, I had a Sigma lense fall apart, the replacement had no Infinity focus, and the next replacement was faulty as well, needless to say I won't touch Sigma. I had Pentax K mount Hoya28mm and a Sigma 24mm lenses useless due to flare,

If I'd paid less for East Gearman lenses I'd have saved money and had excellent performers but at that time they were only screw mount.

The major problem is and always was that Lens tests in many magazines can't be trusted.

Ian

blockend · Apr 7, 2014

ntenny said:
Yeah, to be fair, people who shoot small and print big, and want to preserve a lot of fine detail, need to---well, they need to switch to large format

That sums it up. I worked for a photographer back in the 1970s and 85% of what he did was medium format. 35mm and large format filled the rest. He was a good darkroom printer, you had to be back then or you didn't survive, commercial work needed to be turned around within the day, sometimes in the hour. Under those conditions it was easier to make a good print from a larger negative, and advertisers demanded it.

I later worked alongside master printers who knew every trick in the book, and could do it all under commercial time constraints. They couldn't afford to be divas and gurus or throw hissy fits, they had to produce gallery standard work for top clients, day in, day out. It left me with a great respect for their skills and a realistic appreciation of my more modest abilities. As I said before, making large prints from 35mm negatives is really hard work whatever camera lens you're using. Easier to stick to 12 x 8" in which case most lenses are equal, or opt for a bigger format.

Bruce Robbins · Apr 7, 2014

E. von Hoegh said:
Agreed.
Why so many of us need glasses.
But there is something wrong with calling it photography.

I like my old mechanical miniatures, I've lately got back into rangefinders to the tune of a Kiev and a Canon IIb. I didn't appreciate just what a good job 35mm could do until I started using large format. I can make stunning 8x12 enlargements from 35, but that's about the limit for me; as you enlarge the negative you seem to divide the tones, even though it's sharp.

12x8 is about my limit as well for the same reason. A 12x8 on 16x20 paper looks very impressive.

Bruce Robbins · Apr 7, 2014

Ian Grant said:
I've had quite a few images ruined by poor lenses, to be fair that was a a few years ago. Two brands were the worst Hoya and Sigma, I had a Sigma lense fall apart, the replacement had no Infinity focus, and the next replacement was faulty as well, needless to say I won't touch Sigma. I had Pentax K mount Hoya28mm and a Sigma 24mm lenses useless due to flare,

If I'd paid less for East Gearman lenses I'd have saved money and had excellent performers but at that time they were only screw mount.

The major problem is and always was that Lens tests in many magazines can't be trusted.

Ian

Funny you should say that, Ian. I was looking through an old magazine yesterday and it had a review of some Hoya lenses. The three primes were rated very highly for sharpness and the zooms were OK but not great. That test might well have tempted me to buy a Hoya prime or two if I'd been looking at that time. But I think we need to remember that the cleverer lens makers/marketers would test their own lenses until, through sample variation, they found some crackers and it was these they would send out to the magazines for review purposes. I suppose it's naive of us to expect them all to reach the same heights but then some of us are more willing to believe than others.

Ian Grant · Apr 8, 2014

Bruce Robbins said:
Funny you should say that, Ian. I was looking through an old magazine yesterday and it had a review of some Hoya lenses. The three primes were rated very highly for sharpness and the zooms were OK but not great. That test might well have tempted me to buy a Hoya prime or two if I'd been looking at that time. But I think we need to remember that the cleverer lens makers/marketers would test their own lenses until, through sample variation, they found some crackers and it was these they would send out to the magazines for review purposes. I suppose it's naive of us to expect them all to reach the same heights but then some of us are more willing to believe than others.

Not long after the Hoya lens range was withdrawn, and replaced by an entirely new range of Tokina lenses (same owners), there was also some criticism of biased testing in some magazines in the UK in favour of their advertisers products, personally I found Camera magazine to have the most objective test reports at the time.

In the 60's, 70's & 80's there were some awful lenses made for 35mm SLRs by 3rd party manufacturers and we relied on the magazines to help us when we couldn't afford the major camera manufacturers own lenses. Wide angle lenses were the worst usually suffering from flare, or having barrel distortion. Vivitar were the first independent company with their Series One lenses to sell a range that rivalled the major manufacturers in terms of overall performance, Tamron soon followed with their SP range (I have 4 or 5).

With larger formats there seemed to be fewer issues and even lenses from the 60's onwards are capable of excellent results today. (I've shot MF & LF since the mid 70's).

Ian

Xmas · Apr 8, 2014

Well I've had about 30 Cosina lenses pass through my hands and they have all been very good, some of my friends ditto.

But on the web you would (could) be lynched for saying they were indistinguishable from Leica or Nikon lenses.

I have learnt to use a lens that fits my hand and gbag.

I test lenses eg with a venier calliper.

The Cosina Voeightlander 5cm LTM is 2.5 mm larger than the post 94 Elmar 5cm with mini hoods fitted but that is with the Elmar collapsed...

If you take landscapes on a solid tripod may be you might detect differences - used to use a contax IIa of a tripod with k chrome 25 and you could see the grain structure on axis with a loupe. Projected or printed no.

zanxion72 · Apr 8, 2014

Funny that there is talk about the sharpness of lenses of which their samples have been scanned and therefore the quality of the outcome is quite limited by the performance of the scanner.
Don't know, it might be just me, but the scans on that site look like this is the case.
For me, at least for my DSLR, it makes a big difference say using my Nikon Micro 40mm 2.8 compared to the zoom kit lens (18-105) that came with my D90. It is a hell sharper and produces a lot better results. Plus it can focus from 3.5cm to infinity. The later might seem of no major importance, but besides ordinary photography this is what use to scan my negatives.

blockend · Apr 8, 2014

zanxion72 said:
For me, at least for my DSLR, it makes a big difference say using my Nikon Micro 40mm 2.8 compared to the zoom kit lens (18-105) that came with my D90. It is a hell sharper and produces a lot better results. Plus it can focus from 3.5cm to infinity. The later might seem of no major importance, but besides ordinary photography this is what use to scan my negatives.

You can certainly make a case that zooms, especially kit varieties, are less sharp than prime lenses. The question here is whether the difference between a Nikon, Minolta, Canon, Pentax, 50mm or 28mm of equivalent maximum aperture is perceivable in practice. It may be, slightly, at large magnifications, but not sufficiently to worry about in my experience.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 8, 2014

Ian Grant said:
Not long after the Hoya lens range was withdrawn, and replaced by an entirely new range of Tokina lenses (same owners), there was also some criticism of biased testing in some magazines in the UK in favour of their advertisers products, personally I found Camera magazine to have the most objective test reports at the time.

In the 60's, 70's & 80's there were some awful lenses made for 35mm SLRs by 3rd party manufacturers and we relied on the magazines to help us when we couldn't afford the major camera manufacturers own lenses. Wide angle lenses were the worst usually suffering from flare, or having barrel distortion. Vivitar were the first independent company with their Series One lenses to sell a range that rivalled the major manufacturers in terms of overall performance, Tamron soon followed with their SP range (I have 4 or 5).

With larger formats there seemed to be fewer issues and even lenses from the 60's onwards are capable of excellent results today. (I've shot MF & LF since the mid 70's).

Ian

Yes, the 1860s if you know how to use them.

That's a big part right there, knowing what the lens does well. I'm lately playing with a couple of J-8s, a screwmount from 1975 and a Contax mount from 1959. As many will know, these are Soviet Sonnars, and both of mine behave very much like coated versions of the prewar collapsible Sonnar I had on a Contax II. If you were to take either of these lenses and compare them with say the 50/2 Nikkor H, the Jupiters wouldn't look very good at f:2. At f: 5.6 or 8, you'd have a deal of trouble telling the difference for most any practical uses. The Nikkor is a double Gauss, the Sonnar is most closely related to the Tessar. The Sonnar's design is also about 30 years older than the Nikkor. For practical use, the Sonnars give delightful results around 2.8, especially existing light with B&W CN400, much more character and smoothness than the Nikkors.

Kyle M. · Apr 8, 2014

All I'll say on this matter is I switched from a Canon AE-1 Program and FD lenses, to a Nikon F2 and Nikkor lenses because I wasn't happy with my results ie. sharpness/contrast. Now I am more than happy, I am even happier yet with my RB67.

irvd2x · Apr 8, 2014

Trask said:
So even though the consensus seems to be that it's the photographer, not the lens, I'll bite -- what lens did you use?

A 20 f3.5 Nikkor ( 52mm filter ) deemed excellent at its closest focus range ( true ) but so-so at infinity and the corners...abit of barrel distortion as well.Still, I love this lens.There is a saying:"I LIKE because, I LOVE in spite of". True!

Sent from my LG-P509 using Tapatalk 2

benjiboy · Apr 8, 2014

Ian Grant said:
I've had quite a few images ruined by poor lenses, to be fair that was a a few years ago. Two brands were the worst Hoya and Sigma, I had a Sigma lense fall apart, the replacement had no Infinity focus, and the next replacement was faulty as well, needless to say I won't touch Sigma. I had Pentax K mount Hoya28mm and a Sigma 24mm lenses useless due to flare,

If I'd paid less for East Gearman lenses I'd have saved money and had excellent performers but at that time they were only screw mount.

The major problem is and always was that Lens tests in many magazines can't be trusted.

Ian

Third party lenses might be O.K optically and some of them are pretty good but where the majority of them fall down is in the construction materials and engineering quality of the mechanics because they are made for cheapness, for example East German Lenses Praktica/ Zeiss lenses have lens barrels made of aluminium which isn't too bad in itself, but so are the internal focusing helicoids which is why with wear they jam up.

Ian Grant · Apr 8, 2014

benjiboy said:
Third party lenses might be O.K optically and some of them are pretty good but where the majority of them fall down is in the construction materials and engineering quality of the mechanics because they are made for cheapness, for example East German Lenses Praktica/ Zeiss lenses have lens barrels made of aluminium which isn't too bad in itself, but so are the internal focusing helicoids which is why with wear they jam up.

My experience of East German lenses is otically they are excellent (except the Domiplan), actually the mechanics aren't bad either but there lubricants were awful, Russian lenses are similar. I has an optically superb Pancolor on a Prakticamat (first TTL meter camera on sale in the UK) but the iris diaphragm was inconsistent and n ever stopped down to quite the same aperture as it was set at.

Aside from the East German Meyer & Zeiss lenses I was thinking of the poor quality of many cheaper Japanese lenses which despite often better build quality were optically way behing the East German lenses.

You worked in the retail trade and must have had quite a lot of customer feedback over the years, I know that the one dealer I used (my Ilford Professional supplier) was very particular about what lenses they sold, he'd been involved as an importer with a high end camera company. It was and still is a bit hit and miss unless you can road test a lens first. We were constantly loaned MF and sometimes LF equipment to try before we bought, I had an RB67 system to try for a month late 1970's and was allowed to try LF lenses before buying, or they were sold on a sale or return basis if we weren't happy when second-hand.

Ian

Why do we talk such rubbish about lenses?

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