A; I got a new lens the other day. It is an old one a friend had from their film camera.
B; Is it any good?
A; What do you mean?
B; Is it sharp wide open corner to corner, free of distortion, vignetting and “CA”?
A; Ah…don’t know, but I like the photos it takes!
B; Probably not worth bothering with. Best get your self an ART series Sigma or the like.
A; Will they make my photos better?
B; Sure they will. They are state of the art designs. None of the old stuff is any good for digital.
A Oh..ok, I will bin this one then. Shame. I really liked the images.
Common thinking, although thankfully, there is a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Perfection is as perfection does. If all was perfect, all would be ordinary and perfection would offer no variety, character or choice.
Cars, modern camera lenses and computers are all going this way, but people are not (Gattaca anyone?). People come in all shapes and sizes. We vary greatly in capabilities, some excelling at some things and not at others, many just being ok at a lot of things, but the important thing is, we are all different.
Imperfection is the basis for variety. Once perfecting something is possible and full control of it’s creation process is gained, then we loose the desire for imperfection, but loose so much in the process. Even gross imperfection has it’s charm and occasional uses (penicillin came from poor cleanliness).
When selecting lenses we all tend to use the same criteria.;
a recommendation from a trusted source,
duplicating the results of another who uses said lens (or one like it),
a need to fill a range or capability short fall, sometimes limited by the options available,
convenience.
fashion (seriously).
Sharpness and other objective characteristics are the measure used, usually to allow us to move on happy that we have made a sound choice.
Bokeh has become a popular characteristic of lenses in the last twenty or so years, even though it is sometimes miss understood and hard to measure. This is probably the first time in modern history that a character type has been singled out as a qualitative measure.
From early on, I was drawn to M43 for the quality of the lenses. They are sharp thanks to the design freedom the makers have and the sharp (especially for their time) sensors. When the new, no or low AA filter sensors emerged around 2012, they came as a revelation in a in a period where the major makers were applying ever stronger filtering on their cameras to combat the pixel count they felt compelled to increase. I remember running a budget 1000D Canon on a multi thousand dollar Tilt and shift lens (for multi stitched images) because the puny 10mp sensor had very light filtering compared to the 15-18mp models they were doing at the time.
In hindsight, I was very quick to jump on to the band wagon of sharp over all else. For the next couple of years, especially before I got on top of the EM5 sensor, the struggle was to get back some of the smooth, lushness that I had lost moving from Canon.
(Miss tagged originally as an image taken on an old Zeiss 50mm), this was actually taken using the Canon 85mm on a full frame, but the point remains. This depth and smoothness was what I missed.
And with a little processing finness, I found it.
Very early on, I was more satisfied with my camera choice as my lens arsenal included a clutch of ancient Zeiss glass from Contax, a couple of modern Panasonic Leica lenses, a couple of Sigma’s and some old (to very old) Nikon Ai/Ai-S glass. They added both distraction and fixes.
What I had was variety, warts and all.
Then came the clean out. I sold the Zeiss to a friend for his Fuji, the Panasonic lenses went for a variety of reasons (mostly not thought through, minor Oly/Pana niggles) and the other bits and pieces all found homes. I remember a feeling of unease as the Leica 25mm went. A feeling I had “lost a foot”.
What I gained was a clean and logical kit, with matching, consistent rendering. What I lost was choice. I lost character outside of the one character type I had chosen. Don’t get me wrong, I like my brand of choice for the most part, but no one brand is perfect at everything.
Terribly over processed as a reaction to the lenses lower native contrast and my tastes at the time (the original is lost to the great crash of 2012), but taken on a Canon with a legacy 70’s era 200mm Nikon lens.
The future of photography, I believe, is going to be less about pure quality and more about subjective “qualities”. The lens adapter will become common place as serious shooters look for any difference, a way of standing out from the pack. I strongly feel that the modern shooter will be as loyal to a camera brand as needs allow, but will be lens brand agnostic.
Adapters will rule!
No longer the ugly necessity, adapters will become the smart shooters magic bullet. Why limit your self to one brand or even one generation of glass? I have a feeling, the value of older glass is about to go up as these ancient jewels start to show their value as the difference to trend, not the conforming same.
A blast from the 60’s. This is my only legacy lens now, an original Pen 25mm. Love that five bladed aperture.
Might look up that friend with the Zeiss lenses.