jeffbuzz wrote:
There really is no such thing as a "straight out of camera" image. A JPEG goes through whatever processing pipeline is embedded in the camera. A raw file is not viewable until it has undergone some amount of post-processing and conversion to a viewable format. Sure you can always pump up certain values in photoshop to improve contrast. But how far you can take those enhancements depends on having a good clean file to start with.
That's true, but the point was that comparing this post-processed pic to another post-processed pic to find which lens has the most pop is not exactly a good comparison. You end up judging which pic is processed best.
shutterbug40 wrote:
That's true, but the point was that comparing this post-processed pic to another post-processed pic to find which lens has the most pop is not exactly a good comparison. You end up judging which pic is processed best.
Yeah, I agree. This whole 3D Pop thing does become an "angles on the head of a pin" type argument after a while. It is purely subjective unless you can agree on some quantitative value to compare. The MTF is only thing available for that comparison and those are hopelessly incomparable due to the ways different manufacturers provide them. Zeiss uses real measured valued which is highly respectable. Sony's are theoretical as far as I know.
The best way to generate "pop" in my experience has been backlighting and fill flash.
as soon as i see canon, nikon, sony, etc. referring to "microcontrast", i might believe that it actually exists you can certainly fake it with photoshop, and probably any other editor as well.
i've taken a couple of macro shots with that lens, where it looks like you can sink your entire arm into the monitor with ooc jpegs, but the effect was heavily amplified by on-board flash at longer background distances, aka fill lighting and particular shadow casts... probably any good macro would look like "3d pop" in that situation, although i've never actually seen it quite so distinctly with other lenses.
yes, fit women in the shot certainly counts for a bunch of those thumbs-up i didn't think that pic was that much better than the rest in the series, but people really went for it.
here is the same type of a shot, chris toth this time with the fe135 at f/1.8, but the background is light, his face is in shadow, and even tho i faked a bit of "microcontrast" in post, i wouldn't call it "3d pop"
you can certainly fake it with photoshop, and probably any other editor as well.
