Lens analysis: true COLOR v. sharpness

Drive-By-Shooter

No longer a newbie, moving up!
Joined
Sep 8, 2016
Messages
191
Reaction score
52
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.flickr.com
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
NLV_3566.jpg
I admit to having seller's remorse about my 25+ year old Nikkor 300mm f4 ED to replace it and my old 70-200 f4 with a 70-200 VR-II 2.8 & 1.7X teleconverter.

Now, I see that the color from the old lens was better: BGD_3414

So, as I prepare to sell the Nikkor 70-200 to buy a Sigma ART 85, I am concerned that the many elements used to make it super sharp, may not give the color I want from a prime that I enjoyed in the 90's.

See attached photo from my Sigma 150-600 as comparison.
Sorry, I did not post an example from the 70-200 VR-II with teleconverter about which i discuss here. here is an example of that combo: GEO_0743.
My current coverage for 300mm is my sigma 150-60o.

So many tests, but such little discussion about color rendition.

All discussion welcome. this post is not so much meant as a request for help as a foundation for discussion of lens color being compromised for other trendy aspects, like sharpness
 
Last edited:
I understand your point regarding lens comparison, but to me, the only real test of color rendition involves comparing the recorded image to the original. Unfortunately, I can't do that from here. But I feel your pain.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk
 
YOUR WORRIES HAVE been addressed, in The Problem With Modern Optics, (The Problem with Modern Optics) and deep inside the YouTube channel of "The Angry photographer".

YES, the huge 17- to 24-element lenses do not render the same as simple, 5,6,7,8 element primes. Some believe the primes have vastly superior imaging nature, with more round, full, and "realistic" ,more three-dimensional renderings, where the newer, more perfectly-corrected lenses suffer from "FLAT" image renderings.

I believe there is a real issue here.

The videos The Angry Photographer has are offputting at first, and then you'll find the ones where he waxes rhapsoidc about th 135/3.5 and 2.8 AI-S,etc.
 
these are lovely renderings, but the notion of 'true' color seems a little strange to me.
 
YOUR WORRIES HAVE been addressed, in The Problem With Modern Optics, (The Problem with Modern Optics) and deep inside the YouTube channel of "The Angry photographer".

What a load of psuedoscience puke!

I love your sophisticated rebuttal! So, all lenses are IDENTICAL in the way they render, according to you. Right?

LOL.

13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 elements means the image is the SAME as the image created by lenses with 5,6,7,8 lens elements. Right? And there is NO loss of contrast, nor any loss, nor or improvement in micro contrast between older and the very-latest lens designs. Right?

Again, we gotta' love a five-word "rebuttal".

Every lens is identical. Right?

Lol. You do entertain us with your smart-alecky comments from out of nowhere, year after year. It's often difficult to tell if you are serious, or just flipping sh*+.

Maybe you'd like to write up some actual comments, after you've watched the videos AND read the article. As in, you know, actually becoming informed, and only THEN making an intelligent contribution?

"What a load of pseudoscience puke!". Hmmm, there's some ACTUAL "science" involved in optical designs. Maybe you need to get into that before replying?
 
Last edited:
There could be a points in lens design progression for photography where they went from B&W and then with the introduction of color photography looked to optimize the color rendition (as in an appealing look and not necessarily the exact reproduction of the original). All designed at a time when you made prototypes and looked at real images made by those lenses.

Now with digital cameras the colors can be processed more in the camera so there may be greater focus on lens sharpness and correcting aberrations. The transition to designing lenses in the computer where it is much easier to simulate complex lens designs, but not so much the "look" of an image made by that lens could have an affect on a final lens configuartion.

Overall I think that today we have a much lower percentage of "bad" lenses vs what you could have ended up with 30 years ago.

Right now I am halfway through the Marc Levoy lesson #3 on Optics, one of the books for reading with this lesson is Hecht - Optics. That seems like a good book to read for this discussion.
 
Regardless of what the lens does, digital cameras do not record colour. All the pixels in a Raw image are monochrome and stay that way until the Raw converter demosaics the Raw file. Any details of colour rendition by the lens is going to be compromised in that process, if not completely lost.
 
I use a colorchecker passport and the colours are quite spot on no matter what lens I use
 
I love your sophisticated rebuttal! So, all lenses are IDENTICAL in the way they render, according to you. Right?

Oh Derrel, you know full well that's not what I mean.

Of course not all lenses are identical, and certainly there is science involved in optical design. Come on, man. You KNOW that's not what I am saying here.

But nothing in that article reflects anything objective, just a bunch of delta charts with no actual data to back it up with in an attempt to make a wholly opinion-based analysis seem more analytic. Starting with the notion that a lens "captures reality". That assertion is *such* a load of crap, not the least of which is that "reality" cannot be measured objectively.

What optical design elements reflect 'reality' anyway? What metric are we using to define 'reality'?

Reality is *inherently* unscientific. You can say that "this lens design does that under this condition" but you cannot say "this lens design is more realistic" or "natural", at least not from a scientific perspective.
 
I love your sophisticated rebuttal! So, all lenses are IDENTICAL in the way they render, according to you. Right?

Oh Derrel, you know full well that's not what I mean.

Of course not all lenses are identical, and certainly there is science involved in optical design. Come on, man. You KNOW that's not what I am saying here.

But nothing in that article reflects anything objective, just a bunch of delta charts with no actual data to back it up with in an attempt to make a wholly opinion-based analysis seem more analytic. Starting with the notion that a lens "captures reality". That assertion is *such* a load of crap, not the least of which is that "reality" cannot be measured objectively.

What optical design elements reflect 'reality' anyway? What metric are we using to define 'reality'?

Reality is *inherently* unscientific. You can say that "this lens design does that under this condition" but you cannot say "this lens design is more realistic" or "natural", at least not from a scientific perspective.

Sean, I spoke about ONE web article, and some rather mathematically and scientifically complex topics discussed by The A.P.. Not JUST one brief web article, but two things, of which the videos are i heavily science oriented, and offer side-by-side comparisons of primes versus zooms.

But, honestly, it was unclear exactly what you meant, with your five-word dismissal. So please let me explain. There is plenty of science, and also some art in lens design. The assertion in the article by Yannick was simple: that newer lenses with huge element counts are over-corrected to the point of flat, sterile images that lack a sense of dimension in 3-Dimensional subjects. And that my TPF compadre, is easily observed. Look at a Helios 44-2's image, you know the old lens with the terriffically swirly bokeh; look at a Nikkor AF-S G 58mm f/1.4 and its photos (the NEW, $1600, G-series lens designed with high amounts of field curvature; and then look at the image at 50mm from a Tamron 24-70 Aspherical VC lens at 50mm zoom position. All three lenses have vastly different image character. Or, look at the example of the 50mm AF-D Nikkor versus the 13-element Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens...different. Obviously "different" interpretations of reality, from an old lens with terrible/terrific swirly bokeh; a new Nikon lens designed to look 3-Dimensional, and one designed for test chart scores to "beat Canon" and "beat Nikon" in the normal lens war that so many people want to get in on.

And so on,and so on, and so on. All one needs to do is to LOOK at images made by modern optics, those new-fangled, uber-corrected lenses, and then compare the pictures shot with older lens designs with 5,6,7,8, or 9 elements. The very-newest, HIGH-performance lenses shoot test charts quite well. And many give harsh, ugly bokeh because every last bit of spherical aberration has been corrected out, and in general the primary design emphasis with, as he calls them modern optics, is ultimate test chart resolution, and apparent sharpness or the sense of visual acuity. Not three-dimensional rendering, but test chart "scores" for selling in the age of the internet.

This post began with an OP lamenting selling off an old lens, the 300/4 non-AF-S Nikkor prime, and replacing it with one of these newer modern optics. Your position is pretty well summed up when you wrote about your feelings regarding lens drawing and lens renedering differences, quote " *such* a load of crap, not the least of which is that "reality" cannot be measured objectively."

Okay. That's your opinion.You'e free to believe that we cannot measure the way lenses show reality. (But we can, by measuring many factors like aberrations, distortions, light fall-off,and so on).

But if you cannot instantly look at a Petzval lens shot, or a Helios 44-2 shot, and recognize how those lenses differ from say, the flat, sterile, PERFECT image from a 60mm AF-S G Micro-Nikkor, then you're obviously not using the words "measure" or "reality" in any common use of those words. It's DEAD-EASY to measure chromatic aberration, spherical abberation, coma correction or lack of, contrast, lens resolution, and vignetting. That's why your flippant, 5-word comment made so little sense to me. The author's premise is that old lens designs and modern optics make different types of images. You call that idea a load of crap? And claim that we can NOT measure how lenses compare to reality? Maybe I missed something in your 5-word reply. If so, I apologize, I really do. But Yannick's premise makes a lot of sense to me. Compare two lenses: Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 Ai-S and Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART. Wayyyyyyyyyyyy different renderings of "reality". Wayyyy different. One design is from 1969, the other is less than half a decade of age.

Sorry, but I think the article The Trouble With Modern Optics carries a heavy dose of truth. Different lenses "capture reality" to use your words, in very different manners. The common words are lens drawing style, or lens rendering. The author has noted something that is plain to see: modern optics have for the most part, been engineered with emphasis on uber-high resolving power, and their perfected images are causing less of a sense of depth to 3-D objects. Pretty simple...strip out spherical aberration to make the test chart scores soar, buuuuuuut in doing so, make the slight out of focus differences and the background blurring look nervous,edgy, weird, and unappealing. I think the intent of the article about modern optics is to call attention to a shift that's becoming very widespread. TEST CHART scores for some makers (Sigma, Zeiss) at the expense of other makers who are still running with older designs.
 
Last edited:
we don't need a long article to examine the subjective difference between old and modern lenses. We don't need a bunch of garblygook sciency looking cahrts and graphs to elevate a position that older lenses are more "natural" than modern lenses - a position I do actually agree with.

I just get a little tired of these sorts of "technical" discussions that lack any technical substance - and I do believe that all of these qualities can be distilled into optical parameters. But if we're going to have a conversation about aesthetics, then have a conversation about aesthetics.
 
Drive-By-Shooter said:
So many tests, but such little discussion about color rendition.

Nikkor Lens Assessment by Thom Hogan

Excerpt: "
Every company that makes lenses has different design tendencies (goals) which often come from different decision making processes. Some of these things show up in ways that we can easily distinguish, some don’t. For example, Sigma lenses tend to use a glass that’s a little warmer in rendering colors than Nikon. Tokina lenses tend to be a little more magenta/cooler in rendering than Nikon glass. Yes, the color of the glass and coatings used in a lens is yet another factor we have to consider. Each company has its own sources for glass and its own recipe for coatings, and those factors influence what they can do in lens designs, too. One reason I don’t tend to use many third party lenses in my own kits is that they don’t always mix well color-wise. I once had a Tokina lens I really liked (it was wicked sharp), but I could spot every shot I took with it on the light table looking at slides simply from the color shift. Professional photographers use discipline to seek consistency, so I disciplined the Tokina by selling it into prosumer slavery somewhere in Michigan."
 

Most reactions

New Topics

Back
Top