Cableaddict, will you do me the honor of being my second? Snowboarder, will you record the ceremony, so that the world can see that FMers live by their word?
[goes off to write his death poem]
Bravo Lotus! I think you proved that there is hardly any difference in plasticity between the two.
Philippe and Cableaddict, pls. send me all your ZE lenses before the ceremony!
Lotusm50 wrote:
Now. 2 points to those who correctly guessed that #2 was the 50/2 Makro-Planar. I would think the consensus here would be that #2 provides at least as much "plasticity" or "3D-ness" as #1, the 50/1.4 Planar.
Not a chance. You must have mixed them up. It happens.
I'm not kidding. #1 is slightly sharper. #1 has edgier bokeh. #1 has less plasticity.
That's the makro. There's just no doubt in my mind,as I won the same two lenses and have compared them carefully several times. In fact, with #1 being the makro, this is EXACTLY the kind of differences I've seen.
I must admit I thought the first one was the 50/2 MP because the vase/jug on the left is sharper in the first one and the black/white transitions on it look to be cleaner and makro should have less CA. Also, the marks on the right side of the neck of the botttle of wine are sharper in the first one. Also, since the depth of field in the 2nd one looks slightly less than the first, I thought that would be the 50/1.4.
And one more thing: Pic #2 shows a little bit of linear distortion in the sides. (look at the scatches, and the long white window-shade strings or whatever they are.
Is it possible that Lotus has a 50 Planar that is sharper, and has less distortion, and edgier bokeh, than a 50 Makro?
I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. He mixed them up.
My new test will be up in a few minutes. Should be interesting.
OK, I have accepted the gauntlet. Below is my newest test.
Sadly, what I thought would be a brilliant subject for this specific test turns out to be not so great. I will post the pics anyway, but plan to do more soon, with normal subjects. These are of a 3-D geometric (acoustic) wall. I figured, since there is nothing your brain would recognize, you would be forced to see purely in spatial ways. I did this for the folks that have a hard time seeing 3D, I didn't need it.
One thing before I continue: The fact that even I (yes, the God of plasticity himself ) have a hard time deciding with these pics, may tell us something about what cues really do give the effect. In these pics, there is very little color / tonal variance. I'm wondering if that is where the secret lies?
Regardless, the test follows. See if you can decide.
Both at f/5.6 since that's where Lotus did his test.
Light coming from left, right, and on-camera ETTL.
These were converted from raw with Optics Pro, with absolutely NO sharpening & no other corrections, just in case that could affect things.
With one lens, there is a small piece of blue tape in the top-left corner, so there is no way I could mix up the jpegs, like someone else around here probably did. (I won't say WHO, though! )
note: The Makro shoots a hair closer. If the Planar is 50mm, the Makro must really be around 52mm. I did crop the Planar pics to match the Makro's, and again that's what you see here. I suppose this also gives a slight disadvantage to the Planar, but I believe it's insignificant re this test.
================================================================
UPDATE: PICS DELETED DUE TO THIS BEING A LOUSY TEST AFTER ALL.
Both at f/5.6 since that's where Wayne did his test.
You mean Lotusm50.
I agree with you, I don't like this test scene, not enough fine detail and different colors
and at web size it it almost impossible to tell them apart.
wayne seltzer wrote:
at web size it it almost impossible to tell them apart.
Except from the distortion and the movement of the sensor dust due to cropping. Lighting and seem to be non-identical as well.
Doing proper apples-to-apples comparisons is really really hard.
Cableaddict wrote:
Not a chance. You must have mixed them up. It happens.
I'm not kidding. #1 is slightly sharper. #1 has edgier bokeh. #1 has less plasticity.
That's the makro. There's just no doubt in my mind,as I won the same two lenses and have compared them carefully several times. In fact, with #1 being the makro, this is EXACTLY the kind of differences I've seen.
wayne seltzer wrote:
I must admit I thought the first one was the 50/2 MP because the vase/jug on the left is sharper in the first one and the black/white transitions on it look to be cleaner and makro should have less CA. Also, the marks on the right side of the neck of the botttle of wine are sharper in the first one. Also, since the depth of field in the 2nd one looks slightly less than the first, I thought that would be the 50/1.4.
Remember my comments. There maybe small differences in the point of focus and there are differences in field curvature between the lenses. Objects to towards the edges of the frame may show differences in focus becuase of this. Accordingly, I would not draw conclusions from which one might appear slightly sharper on certain object. Again, this comparison was not designed to assess the differences in sharpness between the lenses. However it is more than adequate to show how the lenses render "plasticity".
Lotusm50 wrote:
Remember my comments. There maybe small differences in the point of focus and there are differences in field curvature between the lenses. Objects to towards the edges of the frame may show differences in focus becuase of this. Accordingly, I would not draw conclusions from which one might appear slightly sharper on certain object. Again, this comparison was not designed to assess the differences in sharpness between the lenses. However it is more than adequate to show how the lenses render "plasticity".
I agree. I know the test was aimed at showing plasticity being the same which I already felt were the same with my copies of the lenses so I was using sharpness and bokeh to try and determine which lens was which. Usually, pixelpeeping with the original unresized file I can tell the difference easier and can go around the picture checking sharpness and figure it out. Hard to do that with these downsized web shots. With the curvature of the field of the 1.4 and how those shots came out you really made the 50/1.4 look sharper than the 50/2 which we all know is not true. Somewhere Philippe is feeling great about his 1.4 and grinning.
It would be nice to have 100% crops in these comparisons as the differences in sharpness are small enough to be hard to tell at these web sizes.
I would like to see a landscape comparison of the two lenses.
OK, do you guys REALLY not see a difference in the two Buddah shots?
Really?
That's frightening to me. Here's a tip: Look only at the blue roll of tape. Or, look at the entire pic as a whole, and see which has more depth & "pop." If you don't see a difference, you need to find a new hobby!
) have a hard time deciding with these pics, may tell us something about what cues really do give the effect. In these pics, there is very little color / tonal variance. I'm wondering if that is where the secret lies?
)