Cost of High Quality Glass vs. Photos

[c.cloudwalker]

If you don't need a fast lens, why pay extra for one? I don't know what kind of photos you shoot but don't stop at what you do right now. Is there another type of photography that fascinates you, that you may get into later, that requires a faster lens? If that probability is very small, save your money. And 10 years down the road, if you do need a faster lens, get it then.

 

[Moglex]

So if I never shoot at 2.0 and prefer, say landscapes at f11, i should get the cheap one every time?

If you really do always shoot at less than, say, 5.6, then there is not a great deal of point in paying out for a very fast lens as it costs a great deal of money, both in design and manufacturing, to produce such glass.

Do bear in mind what cloudwalker said about what you will be doing further down the line.


Also, remember that there are reviews of just about every lens available somewhere on the 'net so read those avidly.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

If it helps, here is my buying strategy.

When I photographed for a living every piece of equipment I bought was for a booked job that was going to, at the very least, cover the cost of that new gear and I saw the potential for that gear to be used again and again.

When I left the commercial field and went to art, I never bought a piece of equipment again. I actually sold quite a bit of gear. I'll admit that at that time I had more than enough gear to cover whatever shoot I might want to do.

There were of course a couple exceptions to that. Aren't there always exceptions?

My very first kit. I was going pro and I bought what I decided was the minimum needed to do the job. I also stole my dad's Leica rangefinder (that's Ok, he didn't mind ...)

Later on, when I went to editorial/commercial photography, I bought 3 strobes while I was still an assistant. I had to make the investment to work on my portfolio.

Now, are you an amateur or a pro? If a pro, follow the above rule and you'll stay financially sound.

If an amateur, well, it depends a lot on your financial situation. But before you spend money on gear that might be better spent on something more important, think hard about whether or not you really need that new gear. For example, you like to do portraits and you only have a 50mm lens. True portraits are a bit more comfortable with, let's say, a 100mm. But do you really need it. No.

Hope that helps.

 

[Phranquey]

Read through this site. There are many threads about "Do I upgrade my camera or my lens?". The answer is always the lens. Many of today's dslr's, even the lowest end ones, are capable of taking great shots if they have a good piece of glass in front of it, and a good eye behind it.

No, it's not. Some very few people (myself included) don't ascribe to the "one answer for anything" philosophy, and there are cases when buying a new camera is CRITICAL and the glass is almost a trivial matter.

In addition, MANY sub-par lenses have sweet spots where you can get some reall good images out of them by just knowing what the strengths and weaknesses of the lense are and taking advantage of them.

You are right.....it is incorrect to say always, so lets say almost always. It is beneficial far more often to upgrade the lens rather than the camera.

And, yes, many lower end lenses do have very nice sweet spots. But, if the conditions are not right to hit that sweet spot, and you cannot modify the conditions, you are outta luck. A better (not necessarily the best) lens with a wider sweet range, rather than "spot", is going to be far more useful.

To roughly quote Big Mike from a thread a few months ago...We pay 50% for the first 90% of quality, and pay the other 50% for the last 10% of quality. You decide what you need.

 

[Aye-non Oh-non Imus]

I don't like variable apeture on zooms..... period. However, with your list of lenses:

A 14-42 mm f3.5-5.6 is $249
a 14-54 mm f2.8-3.5 is $799
A 14-35mm f. 2.0 is $2,299

... (without researching that particular lens) a constant f/2.0 zoom is almost unheard of, thus the price. The f/3.5-5.6 will be slow and as available light is reduced, so is the ability to get off a decent shot, drastically. The difference from f/3.5 to f/5.6 is 1-1/3 stops, significant. The difference between f/2.8 to f/3.5 is 2/3 stop, much less significant.... plus you get an additional 12mm in focal length. The wide angle lenses will also have a greater DoF by design, which means that at f/2.8 you should still be able to have a decent DoF, which means more useable images as available light falls off. IMO, $800 isn't that much for a good lens. You'll need to do your research for lab results/reviews on the 14-54mm to make sure it fits your needs, but I'm guessing that would be the more attractive lens for me.

Welcome to an expensive hobby.

 

[Moglex]

I don't like variable apeture on zooms.

Surely, if you have a fixed aperture what you really have is a variable aperture limited to the smallest wide open value.

Or is there some clever technique to design them so that they are natuarally that way?

 

[manaheim]

WOW... everybody started talking about glass quality when the main difference between the lenses mentioned in your original post is their speed.

A 14-42 mm f3.5-5.6 is $249
a 14-54 mm f2.8-3.5 is $799
A 14-35mm f. 2.0 is $2,299

The cheapest lens is the slowest. The most expensive one is the fastest. Faster lenses are always going to be more expensive.

Speed generally means better lense quality... not necessarily a direct correlation, but speed is usually considered critical and it costs more and requires higher quality components to make it happen... particularly constant speed across the focal range. Therefore, generally speed also means better optics, better mechanical design, better motion, etc.

 

[manaheim]

You are right.....it is incorrect to say always, so lets say almost always. It is beneficial far more often to upgrade the lens rather than the camera.

And, yes, many lower end lenses do have very nice sweet spots. But, if the conditions are not right to hit that sweet spot, and you cannot modify the conditions, you are outta luck. A better (not necessarily the best) lens with a wider sweet range, rather than "spot", is going to be far more useful.

To roughly quote Big Mike from a thread a few months ago...We pay 50% for the first 90% of quality, and pay the other 50% for the last 10% of quality. You decide what you need.

Yes, all that is true, but what I'm trying to avoid is people feeling like they have to absolutely go out and buy a $1500 2.8 lens or they are just utterly screwed.

If you spend more, you get better quality stuff, there is no question... but you don't need the top quality stuff to get good shots.

This is the SAME as the stupid D40/D300 style argument. D300 is a better camera and you get more capability there, and if you can afford it by all means buy it... but that doesn't mean you're have to buy that D300 or be a useless photographer.

aaaaargh... I get so frustrated with these discussions.

I give up.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

WOW... everybody started talking about glass quality when the main difference between the lenses mentioned in your original post is their speed.

A 14-42 mm f3.5-5.6 is $249
a 14-54 mm f2.8-3.5 is $799
A 14-35mm f. 2.0 is $2,299

The cheapest lens is the slowest. The most expensive one is the fastest. Faster lenses are always going to be more expensive.

Speed generally means better lense quality... not necessarily a direct correlation, but speed is usually considered critical and it costs more and requires higher quality components to make it happen... particularly constant speed across the focal range. Therefore, generally speed also means better optics, better mechanical design, better motion, etc.

Absolutely agree with you. But everybody went into discussing quality without mentioning that basic difference: speed, which in this case is the main reason for the price difference.

You could have two 14-42 mm lenses, both variable aperture of f3.5-5.6, and one priced at $250 while the other costs $500. In that case it would have been correct to talk of quality only.

So, I was just pointing out that in the case of this thread, it is only one part of the answer.

 

[JodieO]

If you are shooting for fun and not for clients or professionally than by all means, use the cheaper glass.

I would NEVER use cheap glass for my clients. There is a pretty huge difference in quality in my experience.

I don't suppose you have examples? I've tried looking online but I've never really seen a web site which says "OK this is the $200 olympus lens and it took this photo and here's the $2,000 lens and it took this photo" with both taking pictures of hte same scene.

I don't have any comparison samples, but my entire website is with good quality lenses. It's going to be hard for you to see the difference on smaller images that are optimized for the web.

 

[Aye-non Oh-non Imus]

I don't like variable apeture on zooms.

Surely, if you have a fixed aperture what you really have is a variable aperture limited to the smallest wide open value.

Or is there some clever technique to design them so that they are natuarally that way?

There is a difference between fixed and constant. There's plenty of information "out there" for you to decipher this for yourself.

 

[JodieO]

I don't suppose you have examples? I've tried looking online but I've never really seen a web site which says "OK this is the $200 olympus lens and it took this photo and here's the $2,000 lens and it took this photo" with both taking pictures of hte same scene.

Since you asked...

This shot was taken with my piece of crap lense...

Actually, this one was taken with an even worse lense than that one...

OK, now that you've shown us the "crap", lets see your good ones. I guess this really proves, it's not what you've got, but how you use it.

This honestly doesn't show me anything. The only way is going to be accurately showing the same images with both bad and good lenses. When I look at the flowers, I see a cheaper quality lens. It's hard to tell in the first image because it's a very contrasty image. These images are too small to REALLY get the fine details of the difference in lenses... and don't forget, images can be "doctored up" in photoshop. For instance, I coudl take your flower image and really make it pop in PhotoShop and at this smaller resolution, you probably won't be able to tell hugely the difference in the quality of lenses, but at higher rez, absolutely.

I do agree, there are sweet spots in lower quality lenses, but for consistancy in better color and quality, and speed of the lenses, the higher quality lenses are the way to go, hands down.

I'm at the point in my career where I wouldn't touch a cheap lens for clients. Ever. I also wouldn't go less than a D700 or D3 in the Nikon end of things for clients (however, I even just bought my first point and shoot and shared a few images on my blog with it - but it was for family vacation).... but everyone is different.

 

[Phranquey]

aaaaargh... I get so frustrated with these discussions.

I give up.

Don't do that, it is a good discussion...

 

[Stosh]

So if I never shoot at 2.0 and prefer, say landscapes at f11, i should get the cheap one every time?

If you always shoot at f/11 it will be almost impossible to tell the difference in the lenses because diffraction at that aperture will be the biggest reason for image degradation, not quality of glass. You will however have a brighter viewfinder with the faster glass.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

I don't like variable apeture on zooms.

Surely, if you have a fixed aperture what you really have is a variable aperture limited to the smallest wide open value.

Or is there some clever technique to design them so that they are natuarally that way?

There is a difference between fixed and constant. There's plenty of information "out there" for you to decipher this for yourself.

:thumbdown:

There's plenty of info out there about most everything discussed here. So why are we here?