gdanmitchell
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 p.21 #6 · Digital-Picture review ZE 100 MP lens | |
I'm sorry I cannot offer an accurate attribution this early in the morning, so I'm just going to mention a story I recall from a couple years back. Someone did a study in which they, IIRC, tested the ability of drinkers to assess the quality of wine. Now wine folks will tell you that there are objective differences between wines - and I would have to agree. However, the experiment went something like this - I'm making up the precise details but the idea was essentially the same. As I recall, test subjects included experienced wine connoisseurs and "normal" people. Drinkers were, I believe, offered a couple of glasses of wine to rate/compare. In some cases they were told that the wine was a modest and inexpensive vintage and in others they were told that it was a very expensive wine. The "trick" was that sometimes the wine described as expensive was actually the modest and inexpensive wine and sometimes the expensive wine was presented as being the modest and inexpensive one. By a vary large margin, no matter which wine the subjects were presented with, their was a very strong correlation between their judgment of the wines' quality and what they were told about its price.
This does not, of course, imply that more expensive things are never better than less expensive things or better than things with a lesser reputation. However, it does "prove" that there is a tendency to assume that the less expensive and exotic thing is not as good as the more expensive and exotic thing that is said to be very good.
I know of similar tests done with audio gear. A well-known test several decades ago asked test subjects including true audiophiles to differentiate among pairs of CD players. In these tests one was an extraordinarily expensive, high end system and the other was a regular consumer grade machine. The wrinkle in this test was that it was a so-called ABX test. Not only did subjects have to claim that they could detect a difference between two samples, but they also had to identify whether X was actually a second iteration of A or B. In the end, the results were essentially explainable by random probability - believed they sensed a "difference" but they could not match the "better" and "worse" samples to the unidentified third sample that matched the two the claimed to able to distinguish!
To think that this doesn't translate to areas such as photography would require quite a logical leap.
Several powerful forces are at work here. In the lineage of the "emperor's new clothes," few want to admit that they don't see the difference that everyone else sees, much less the difference that the really smart people claim to see. Sometimes though, especially in areas like wine and sound equipment and photographic equipment, where a certain percentage of people use the field as a way to demonstrate their superiority by acquiring "the best stuff," certain people are really, really invested in having the best stuff. And another issue is that once one invests (mentally and financially) in "the best," it is very, very difficult to see rationally when owning the best makes no discernible difference in the final product. Making things more complex is the fact that the quality of the stuff does matter - though not quite in the way that these folks imagine.
M Vers wrote:
In the end, both lenses are great in terms of optical performance. If you've got the additional cash, need f/2 and don't mind MF and the inability to shoot beyond 1:2 without tubes/TCs or if an extremely smooth MF operation and BQ is crucial then go with the Zeiss. If you favor versatility (IS, AF) without compromising IQ with the addition of weather sealing and don't feel like spending upwards of $1800 go with the Canon. Don't put any stock in what people see in the results regardless of your choice because the actual truth is 99.99999% of people will never be able to differentiate the two in print....Show more →
Oh, no! But that's common sense! :-)
If often seems to me that if the amount of energy focused on irrelevant obsession over impossibly small measured differences between lenses (the photographic effect of which is debatable in terms of whether a "better" or "worse" exists) and subjective impressions played out passionately in online forums were to be refocused on an equivalent obsession about and focus on producing stunning photographs that something both useful and wonderful might happen.
M Vers wrote:
Meanwhile actual legitimate comparison images (Aravind's) don't show much, if any, noticeable differentiation...then again real photography is about pixel peeping, over exaggeration of slight optical variations on MTF charts and other shoddy/skewed testing methods.
+1
PetKal wrote:
I am really getting into 3D photography now......didn't even realise that 400 DO can render depth so well. 
Yes, and its "drawing powers" are nothing less than ineffable. Colors and contrast are beyond superlatives. The bokeh is so creamy you can top your pumpkin pie with it.
Meanwhile back in the world of real photography... ;-)
Dan
A really useful exercise for some posters would be to adopt a discipline that they will only post in online forums on days when they also share a new photograph of theirs in a public place.
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 11:03 AM · View previous versions
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