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 p.9 #5 · Loxia 25mm f/2.4 Distagon Tests and Comparisons | |
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Focal lengths preferred are very personal and highly depending what one is shooting. For me the gigantic disappointment that new Loxia was 25mm, not 28mm. This is because 28mm is widest usable lens on most of shooting I do, even then I'm forced to crop 16:9 more often than I wish for. 28mm is also widest focal length, which sky is not totally ruined in 100% of photos when using polarizer (I need polarizer for my foregrounds, not for sky). If I could choose I would prefer slightly long 28mm  which would be more 29-30mm in focal length. I really like compositions which 28mm makes possible.
I really like to shoot with 50mm. As perspective of 50mm is very neutral (not wide, neither has tele compression), it's up to photographer to make images to stand out.
Then I need one or two longer lenses to support two previously mentioned. In perfect world I would combine 28-50-100 for majority of shooting, then add 100-300 zoom or 180-250 prime to these.
For me 21mm and 18mm are just "trick"-lenses, which rarely have any actual use. They are are so wide, that in environment I live in, there isn't really big enough hills to use it for any landscape stuff and for rarely there are any boke scenes I want to shoot with this wide lens (they show too much sky etc.) - these are useful in urban shots, but year by year I shoot less urban stuff, last few years mostly just testing new lenses when I don't have the energy to go to nature. What I see in Flickr and forum majority of photos shoot with these really wide lenses just scream wide wide wide, but are contextually and compositionally pretty bad, and would greatly be improved if photographer would have done more exclusion than inclusion - of course there are few exceptions, and when someone nails it with this wide lens photos look exceptional.
There are billion 35mm lenses, multiple fairly good as well in my opinion, but for me this focal length is just bad compromise; it doesn't have wide angle perspective, but it's wide enough to have compositional issues and due to focal length it's subject separation abiltiies are much worse than 50mm lenses.
But as we do not live in perfect world, there is (subjective opinions)
- no good 28mm (except Zeiss Otus and maybe Leica Summilux, both giganticly expensive)
- no really good 50mm either (I would love Leica APO-Summicron-M or Summilux-M ASPH, but I see them too expensive, Zeiss FE 1.4/50 has too modern rendering style with high contrast boke, otherwise seems great lens), to some extend I can replace this with Zeiss G45, but it's "only" f/2 and has hexaconal aperture closed down
- no good and fast 100mm (Zeiss ZE/ZF/Milvus has it's issues, C/Y Sonnar 100 is good but quite slow with f/3.5 maximum aperture and hexacon shape aperture closed down kills it for me)
So I have to settle for 25-xx-85 combo for marority of shooting. On this the xx would be 35mm compromise FOV (leaves "too large" gap to 85mm) or not optimal 50mm (leaves slightly larger than comformatable gap to 25mm). The gaps between focal lengths/field of views are not that important. To solve "xx"-problem I'm considering to get CV 1.2/40, but not really sure about it as the focal length is so close to 35mm, which I find very annoying.
Last summer I shoot in few days using just Contax G-lenses, the combo of 21-28-45-90 felt really good to shoot, but hexaconal aperture shape in G28 and G45 makes them much less useful.
On summer 2018 I really focus to find out can I live with Loxia 25's too wide field of view. Otherwise I'm already sure lens is perfect for me, the boke&transitions are wonderful and focus plane just the way I want it(high contrast, high microcontrast). It's really question do I learn to hide white sky in my forest shots well enough, the wide field of view makes it really difficult. This far it seems much more difficult than with 28mm lenses.
Samuli...Show more →
You should add the 40/1.2 Nokton to your kit: Lox25, CV40, Lox85 with superb resolution, contrast where it matters, smooth bokeh rendering and 10–point defined sunstars.
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