As DSLRs are being released with higher and higher pixel counts, placing more demands on optics, are the camera manufacturers generally keeping up with quality control on their lenses?
If we pay hundreds or even thousands for a professional level lens, shouldn't we expect that it will have been individually tested to ensure it is a sharp copy before leaving the factory?
I am not aiming this question at any particular manufacturer, it just seems to me that now I hear more photographers debating about lens quality than I did during my time using film.
In our time using film, you couldn't pixel peep. Pixel peeping leads to questions about lens (and sensor) sharpness.
Be assured that every lens is individually tested before it leaves the factory. That's part of modern manufacturing process, especially among the Japanese. However, if the acceptable failure rate is 0.01%, that's one lens in 10,000 that might pass, but still be marginal in the hands of a pixel-peeping customer.
And remember that your idea of "a sharp copy" might not be the same as someone else's, or the factory's.
Don't worry about it until it actually affects your pictures. If your pictures are acceptably sharp to you, your lens is fine. Regardless of what some pixel peeper says.
Depending on when you started photography, internet might not have been invented yet or still in its infancy. No posting 100-200% crops for online measurebating. No blogs and online reviews to parrot. No forums where people can bitch and whine about how this camera body has 0.3 less dynamic range or that lens is 3 lw/ph less than the other one.
Also, keep in mind that often when someone says they got a "bad copy" of a lens, the lens itself is fine, but the autofocus isn't properly tuned to the camera and the same lens would work fine on a different body. The autofocus system in a camera can be off by a certain amount and still be considered "within spec". Same with a lens. If a camera and a lens are both off in the same direction, the lens is "soft wide-open". When stopped down, the lens does get sharper, but the autofocus error can also be covered up to a certain extent by the increased depth-of-field.
I have looked at photos that used to impress me back in the 70's when film and the old lenses were in use. Mostly in magazines and similar publications. They look terribly blurred and lacking in color depth and contrast when I look at them today. The images I can create with a high pixel slr with a high end prime are way way advanced technically. When I print a 20 x 30 inch photo and hang it on the wall I don't feel as much like I'm viewing a photo. Its more like I can walk right into the scene and be there. Pixel peeping is not measurebation when I am printing at 20 x 30 inch and I want to be able to walk right up to within a foot or two of the image and see the details. Of course a 20x30 inch is "supposed" to be viewed from a distance twice the diagonal measurement of the print. Thats nonsense. Nine out of ten people who look at my big prints get as close as they can to see the detail.
The cameras are getting better and the lenses are getting better. Some lenses are definitely keeping up better than others! Of course if you are photographing for web publication without cropping or you are shooting for magazine prints or any other small print size pixel peeping is indeed measurebation. An image that looks a little soft at 100% on the monitor can look tack sharp on an 8x10 print!
And there were and still are plenty of older lenses from the "film" age that are as good or better than many of the new lenses sold today, and if you get a hold of some TechPan, you'll see the potental for even higher resolution that the 21-24 mp cameras from Canon and Nikon.
I've drum scanned literally thousands of my old 35mm, 120 and 4x5 transparencies and black and white negs, going back to the early 1970's, and I'm not seeing any lack of sharpness, only some mild film grain and the type of oganic tonality that digital can only dream about. My absolute favorites are drum scans from 35mm Kodachrome 25 and 64. The prints, and I've made them up to four feet wide, are something else. If anything, I'm surprised by how well those old film images look compared to today's digital ones. It's also one of the reasons I still shoot a fair amount of film for myself, and having the luxury of in house drum scanners makes it all the more fun.
As far as pixel peeping is concerned, you can be obsessed with it or you can use it to "know" exactly how your lenses perform under every circumstance, allowing you to choose the right tool and setting to fulfill you ultimate vision. If all you do is pixelpeep for the sake of pixelpeeping and don't get out and make compelling images, then what's the point.
K64 with either a Nikon 18 or 24 in the middle of Wyoming:
Pixel peeping is not measurebation when I am printing at 20 x 30 inch and I want to be able to walk right up to within a foot or two of the image and see the details. Of course a 20x30 inch is "supposed" to be viewed from a distance twice the diagonal measurement of the print. Thats nonsense. Nine out of ten people who look at my big prints get as close as they can to see the detail.
Nobody was shooting 35mm film with the enlargement expectations we have today. The person who expected to routinely make 20x30 prints was shooting medium format or larger...and still hoping viewers didn't mozy too close.
Yet, the 5D2 has enabled me to retire my Mamiya RZ67 cameras for the portraits I do. I can hang a 5D2 30x40 group portrait beside one of my old Mamiya 30x40 group portraits with no concern about a direct comparison even at close observation.
The phenomenon I see today is that as sensors or other factors of the total system reduce one "unsharpness factor" after another, people are more able to discern specific lens aberrations and decide it's a problem--the lens resolution is "maxed out."
But sensors today are still only just reaching the resolution of our better films of yesterday (alas, I must say "yesterday" because Kodachrome is no more). If lenses weren't "maxed out" then--and they weren't--they aren't "maxed out" yet today.
Is this "more demand on the optics?" Well, not really, or I guess it depends on how you look at it. If a sharper sensor makes a lens aberration as a more discernible cause of much of the remaining blur, the fact is that the overall image is still sharper than it was before.
It's kind of like saying "having a better steak puts more demand on the wine."
"Nobody was shooting 35mm film with the enlargement expectations we have today. The person who expected to routinely make 20x30 prints was shooting medium format or larger...and still hoping viewers didn't mozy too close."
Ahh, maybe nobody you knew, but there were plenty of others. Ever stopped by Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, Ca.? Even though, in my opinion, he could have been making ever better quality prints, many of his are up to 32 x 48 from 35mm. To me, it's not just the sharpness and lack of grain that make the image appealing. There are other much more subtle factors at work, and even to this day, for the most part, I still prefer the look of film, even though I'm the first to admit that it's simply not practicle for commercial purposes any more. I do have 30 x 40s from drum scanned RZ chromes next to the same sized prints from my 1DsMKIII and even though they are comparable in sharpness, the film versions always have a better gut reaction.
I make a lot of large prints that live on the walls of my studio long enough for me to determine if they are just the current fad in my brain or if they have a longer purpose, and almost invariably, it's the film versions, no matter what size film they come from, that I like the best in the long run.
I'm pretty sure it's not just me being an old fart longing for the old days. After all, I'm one of the best digital post production persons out there. I really know how to get the most out of my digital captures and I suppose that same knowledge also lets me get even more out of my drum scans of film. Actually, I don't suppose, I know.
All that being said, there are areas where film just cannot compete in any way, shape or form. In the last year or so, I've shot a ton of live music stuff, mostly for my girlfriend and the different groups she plays in, and there's no way in hell I'd ever want to shoot film for that.
Ahh, maybe nobody you knew, but there were plenty of others. Ever stopped by Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, Ca.?
Well, the common expectation today is that the image should stand 50x-60x enlargement, which is greater than even 30x40--and this expectation is even from people who will never make a print larger than 16x20.
But, yes, nobody I personally knew. I admit I was running in an f/64 crowd in the late 70s and a portrait crowd since then.
"Well, the common expectation today is that the image should stand 50x-60x enlargement, which is greater than even 30x40--and this expectation is even from people who will never make a print larger than 16x20."
Very good point. What a lot of people also forget, especially those who don't have the practical experience of having made very large prints, with the largest for me being 48 X 72 from 35mm pre Velvia Fuji 50, is that up to a certain relatively small size, say 16 x 24, there is very little difference between film and digital, then as you move up from there, the digital starts to look better, but then as you go even larger there is another reversal, as the digital artifacts become more apparent, the analog film, even when maybe technically less sharp, just looks a hell of a lot better to almost everyone's eyes, especially up close.
"But, yes, nobody I personally knew. I admit I was running in an f/64 crowd in the late 70s and a portrait crowd since then."
Hmmm, me too. Back then I was hanging in Monterey and regularly seeing Adams, Brett Weston, Morley Baer, Henry Gilpin, and all the others in that crowd in and around the central Ca. coast. Funny that we now know that while f/64 is great for depth of field, even on 8 X 10, it was a detail killer back then.
