Pixelpuffin wrote:
I’ve actually stepped away from canon in the past few months because of this very issue.
On the one hand we have all these super fast, bulky and crazy expensive L lenses whereas on the other hand we’ve got still expensive but stupidly slow plastic consumer lenses…there’s no middle ground.
I also see this. The DSLR PDAF at least forced them to make consumer zooms end at f/5.6, but now this limit is gone.
Well, I already bought into EF lenses a lot, so I went to EOS R, but I just plan to use the EF consumer lenses until mine work or replacements are available. Don't have many reasons to use RF lenses, except perhaps 24-70L, 50L in the future, and 800/11 now. With the EF-RF adapter it is not optimal, but I guess the 3.5-4.5/5.6 consumer lenses are history so far.
Until perhaps the resolution rises on RF so high that the lenses ending at f/7.1 wouldn't have that much success anymore.
AmbientMike wrote:
I have no idea what rendering is, exactly…
You are not alone.
It is easy to say what it isn’t. It is not a singular, objective, measurable think like and MFT chart, a maximum aperture, the number of stops of corner fall-off at a particular aperture, the weight of the lens, maximum aperture, light transmission of the lens elements, and so on.
At best, it is a kind of subjective impression by a particular photographer about a particular lens that is weighted by their personal reaction to how they feel the lens performs. Those feelings can be the result of many things, ranging from somewhat describable things like how the lens handles out of focus background highlights or how much it vignettes… to completely non-objecive things like their feelings about using the lens. Oddly, in some cases claims of excellent “rendering” are tied to acknowledgements of objective deficiencies, such a vignetting.
The term is not completely without meaning, but it gets tossed around as if it carries some sort of objective meaning and authority.
To make a culinary analogy. It is sort of like saying “I think it tastes really good.” You might think that because the dish was well prepared, but you also might be influenced by things like how much you paid for it, your personal preference (or not) for the dish and its ingredients, the surroundings in which you ate it, and so on. Someone else — including someone with a discriminating palate — might taste the same dish and have a rather different reaction or even think that the difference that you perceive aren’t important or may even be negatives.
I like the super fast apertures for two reasons: they really draw you in especially in low light situation when the non-uniform light situations help; and for shooting handheld stars / aurora from airplanes. For this purpose I also fly with f1.8 lenses but the difference is real.
As for rendering - just look at the difference between the EF50L and RF50L and close the book on that topic.
Canon EOS R5RF50mm F1.2 L USM lens50mmf/1.21/2s5000 ISO-3.0 EV
Canon EOS R5RF50mm F1.2 L USM lens50mmf/1.21/2s6400 ISO0.0 EV
Canon EOS-1D XEF85mm f/1.2L II USM lens85mmf/1.21/80s3200 ISO-2.0 EV
rscheffler wrote:
Dan, probably best to avoid the Leica discussions over on the (formerly known as) Alt board.
Heh. I keep a ten-foot pole handy in case I’m ever tempted. ;-)
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stanj wrote:
I like the super fast apertures for two reasons: they really draw you in especially in low light situation when the non-uniform light situations help; and for shooting handheld stars / aurora from airplanes. For this purpose I also fly with f1.8 lenses but the difference is real.
These are reasonable purposes for such lenses. (Remember, that I own and use large aperture primes, too.) It also confirms — again — that the answer is “it depends.”
As for rendering - just look at the difference between the EF50L and RF50L and close the book on that topic.
Heh. Hope springs eternal, but I’m betting that the book remains open. ;-)
It is easy to say what it isn’t. It is not a singular, objective, measurable think like and MFT chart, a maximum aperture, the number of stops of corner fall-off at a particular aperture, the weight of the lens, maximum aperture, light transmission of the lens elements, and so on.
At best, it is a kind of subjective impression by a particular photographer about a particular lens that is weighted by their personal reaction to how they feel the lens performs. Those feelings can be the result of many things, ranging from somewhat describable things like how the lens handles out of focus background highlights or how much it vignettes… to completely non-objecive things like their feelings about using the lens. Oddly, in some cases claims of excellent “rendering” are tied to acknowledgements of objective deficiencies, such a vignetting.
The term is not completely without meaning, but it gets tossed around as if it carries some sort of objective meaning and authority.
To make a culinary analogy. It is sort of like saying “I think it tastes really good.” You might think that because the dish was well prepared, but you also might be influenced by things like how much you paid for it, your personal preference (or not) for the dish and its ingredients, the surroundings in which you ate it, and so on. Someone else — including someone with a discriminating palate — might taste the same dish and have a rather different reaction or even think that the difference that you perceive aren’t important or may even be negatives.
As for your food analogy, you can't tell the difference between the color of green pesto sauce and red marinara sauce? You can't tell the difference in shape or size between an oval egg and a round tangerine?
Color tone and bokeh balls are very measurable, it's not just something someone "likes". Flare is also measurable and the new RF 85 handles flare too well in some situations. It's measurable in color, shape, etc. When I try to induce flare with the RF85 it doesn't give as much ghosting and ring shaped flare as my old 85's. Sharpness and out of focus areas are also measurable. So is contrast. So are the bokeh characteristics. If you took the same shot on a tripod with different lenses you would see the difference of how each lens renders the scene. Someone already did this above and you are ignoring it? Do you understand what rendering is now? if not, do you realize you are making the claim that all lenses will give you the exact same output of the same scene and there are no measurable differences? I don't think anyone is that clueless.
Every lens has its own materials/design/coatings which are the physical characteristics that determine how it renders a scene.
AmbientMike wrote:
Sure, I'd rather have the option of 1.2, in case I need to get rid of a bad bg etc, but it is more of a head shot FL for me, and that leaves about 3 eyelashes in focus or one eye. most of the photos in the thread posted are further back.
I am at least a little surprised no one has mentioned it is generally a bad idea to pose people flat to the camera. Faces maybe OK, body almost never. Posing people flat to the camera one way to mitigate the shallow dof
I have no idea what rendering is, exactly, maybe some, is it bokeh, color etc (?) ,so I looked at a rendering thread. They didn't seem to have any idea, either, no definitive samples posted demonstrating it IIRC. If anyone has samples I'd be interested...Show more →
We know you can't be serious. If you are, then post up all your amazing portraits so you can teach all the photographers in the 85 1.2 thread how it's done. I'm sure they would really appreciate that.
Anyone wondering "Is f/1.2 or f/1.4 of any real use?" has never shot a very young child lit only by the candlelight of a birthday cake, or the same pre dawn on Christmas morn lit only by decorative lights, or... (fill in your preferred blank)... It is perhaps of "real use" only for those still captivated by the tired cliche of capturing the moment. With stabilization these days you can do it handheld at very low iso's. Piece of cake.
stanj wrote:
As for rendering - just look at the difference between the EF50L and RF50L and close the book on that topic.
IMO rendering was the only 'strength' of the EF 50/1.2L because of the under-corrected spherical aberration. I really liked it at around f/2 with subjects in the 1-1.5m distance with decent background separation. To me that alignment resulted in very 'creamy' Gaussian bokeh.
Everything else about the EF was sub-par for the price point - sharpness, focus shift (due to the strong SA despite the aspherical element), focus speed...
rscheffler wrote:
While the RF STM primes are generally (optically) better than the past non-L primes, there is still a considerable gap, IMO, between them and the f/1.2L options. For example, the RF 50/1.8 sharpens up decently around f/4, but IMO is relatively poor across the frame at wide apertures. Its 'draw' is also not that pleasant (the 28-70 at 50 is much better, IMO).
Sharpens up nicely is an understatement. By f/5.6 the RF 50/1.8 is better across the frame than the RF 50/1.2. But as you say, at large apertures the latter design is much better.
rscheffler wrote:
IMO rendering was the only 'strength' of the EF 50/1.2L because of the under-corrected spherical aberration. I really liked it at around f/2 with subjects in the 1-1.5m distance with decent background separation. To me that alignment resulted in very 'creamy' Gaussian bokeh.
Everything else about the EF was sub-par for the price point - sharpness, focus shift (due to the strong SA despite the aspherical element), focus speed...
Agreed. I loved the rendering (heh) of the EF 50 1.2L, and still owned what I considered to be a very good copy until recently.
Ultimately though, it was the focus shift that did it in for me after transitioning to mirrorless. Canon R bodies are seemingly unable to autofocus while stopped down (except for subsequent frames in a burst using AI servo), which made it impossible to get truly crisp results with this lens at say f/2.8 without manually focusing. (Apparently Sony bodies can do this, which is ironic for getting the most out of this particular lens.)
As for your food analogy, you can't tell the difference between the color of green pesto sauce and red marinara sauce? You can't tell the difference in shape or size between an oval egg and a round tangerine?
You managed to miss my point. Perhaps if you go back and read carefully and without a preexisting expectation of the point you imagine I am trying to make…
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rscheffler wrote:
IMO rendering was the only 'strength' of the EF 50/1.2L because of the under-corrected spherical aberration. I really liked it at around f/2 with subjects in the 1-1.5m distance with decent background separation. To me that alignment resulted in very 'creamy' Gaussian bokeh.
Everything else about the EF was sub-par for the price point - sharpness, focus shift (due to the strong SA despite the aspherical element), focus speed...
This reinforces part of what I’ve been saying. (I have no direct experience with that lens, so I won’t comment on its relative goodness, and that’s not my point.)
“Rendering,” as an extraordinarily general term, can mean almost anything, and “good rendering” is no different. Let’s accept that some photographers feel that this lens has “good rendering,” as in “rendering is” its “strength.” Let’s also assume (since I have no experience to confirm or disagree) that it has “under-corrected spherical aberration.”
As is often the case, the evaluation of “good rendering” is very subjective (how much spherical aberration is too much?) and sometimes I’ve read folks say that they like the “rendering” of lenses with objective faults. For example, you’ll somewhat frequently read someone extolling the “rendering” of some expensive old lens _because_ they like is extreme corner light fall-off, or they like the slight halation it produces.
Saying a lens has good rendering can mean anything or nothing. It is like saying it has “good quality” or “I like the way it looks.” Those things aren’t wrong from a personal subjective perspective, but they tell us little at all about the actual performance of the lens or the presence/absence/contribution of what others might call flaws.
You managed to miss my point. Perhaps if you go back and read carefully and without a preexisting expectation of the point you imagine I am trying to make…
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This reinforces part of what I’ve been saying. (I have no direct experience with that lens, so I won’t comment on its relative goodness, and that’s not my point.)
“Rendering,” as an extraordinarily general term, can mean almost anything, and “good rendering” is no different. Let’s accept that some photographers feel that this lens has “good rendering,” as in “rendering is” its “strength.” Let’s also assume (since I have no experience to confirm or disagree) that it has “under-corrected spherical aberration.”
As is often the case, the evaluation of “good rendering” is very subjective (how much spherical aberration is too much?) and sometimes I’ve read folks say that they like the “rendering” of lenses with objective faults. For example, you’ll somewhat frequently read someone extolling the “rendering” of some expensive old lens _because_ they like is extreme corner light fall-off, or they like the slight halation it produces.
Saying a lens has good rendering can mean anything or nothing. It is like saying it has “good quality” or “I like the way it looks.” Those things aren’t wrong from a personal subjective perspective, but they tell us little at all about the actual performance of the lens or the presence/absence/contribution of what others might call flaws. ...Show more →
Everyone has explained what rendering is, and examples have been provided to illustrate it. It's clear you are just trolling now..
artsupreme wrote:
We know you can't be serious. If you are, then post up all your amazing portraits so you can teach all the photographers in the 85 1.2 thread how it's done. I'm sure they would really appreciate that.
It's hard to take people seriously that push 1.2 hard, and don't even mention the issues of posing people flat to the camera.
It is easy to say what it isn’t. It is not a singular, objective, measurable think like and MFT chart, a maximum aperture, the number of stops of corner fall-off at a particular aperture, the weight of the lens, maximum aperture, light transmission of the lens elements, and so on.
At best, it is a kind of subjective impression by a particular photographer about a particular lens that is weighted by their personal reaction to how they feel the lens performs. Those feelings can be the result of many things, ranging from somewhat describable things like how the lens handles out of focus background highlights or how much it vignettes… to completely non-objecive things like their feelings about using the lens. Oddly, in some cases claims of excellent “rendering” are tied to acknowledgements of objective deficiencies, such a vignetting.
The term is not completely without meaning, but it gets tossed around as if it carries some sort of objective meaning and authority.
To make a culinary analogy. It is sort of like saying “I think it tastes really good.” You might think that because the dish was well prepared, but you also might be influenced by things like how much you paid for it, your personal preference (or not) for the dish and its ingredients, the surroundings in which you ate it, and so on. Someone else — including someone with a discriminating palate — might taste the same dish and have a rather different reaction or even think that the difference that you perceive aren’t important or may even be negatives.
Thinking about it more later, I think a good definition of rendering is more "I like the pictures my lens takes." vs something really definable. Actually not a bad reason to use a lens, though.
rrxjon wrote:
Anyone wondering "Is f/1.2 or f/1.4 of any real use?" has never shot a very young child lit only by the candlelight of a birthday cake, or the same pre dawn on Christmas morn lit only by decorative lights, or... (fill in your preferred blank)... It is perhaps of "real use" only for those still captivated by the tired cliche of capturing the moment. With stabilization these days you can do it handheld at very low iso's. Piece of cake.
I photographed my kids all the time with a 24-105 F/4L indoors. Even when I wanted a faster lens, f/2 was more than enough.
You managed to miss my point. Perhaps if you go back and read carefully and without a preexisting expectation of the point you imagine I am trying to make…
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This reinforces part of what I’ve been saying. (I have no direct experience with that lens, so I won’t comment on its relative goodness, and that’s not my point.)
“Rendering,” as an extraordinarily general term, can mean almost anything, and “good rendering” is no different. Let’s accept that some photographers feel that this lens has “good rendering,” as in “rendering is” its “strength.” Let’s also assume (since I have no experience to confirm or disagree) that it has “under-corrected spherical aberration.”
As is often the case, the evaluation of “good rendering” is very subjective (how much spherical aberration is too much?) and sometimes I’ve read folks say that they like the “rendering” of lenses with objective faults. For example, you’ll somewhat frequently read someone extolling the “rendering” of some expensive old lens _because_ they like is extreme corner light fall-off, or they like the slight halation it produces.
Saying a lens has good rendering can mean anything or nothing. It is like saying it has “good quality” or “I like the way it looks.” Those things aren’t wrong from a personal subjective perspective, but they tell us little at all about the actual performance of the lens or the presence/absence/contribution of what others might call flaws. ...Show more →
Theoretically you might have a point, however, this post was very clear to me: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1841833/2#16447870
Of course you can call it subjective if someone has the opinion the rendering from the L lens is better. The problem with that level op philosophy: using descriptors like "better" is always subjective. "I like bad (rendering) lenses" or "I don't like good (rendering) lenses" is a contradixio interminus. That's not the fault of the concept "rendering" though.
That said, there's a possibility some opinions are more common than others.
And what's wrong with a descriptor like "softer"? Or "more smooth"?
But whatever descriptor would be good (haha) enough for you (hoping your preference for descriptors is objective), these pictures speak for themself. Are those pics equally good to you? Rendering doesn't exist in your truth. Was any difference in the background being meaningful to you? That difference, that's what some people tend to call rendering. You like the nifty fifty better? That's o.k., nothing wrong with that. Don't spill your money. https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1841833/2#16447870
The price of a lens (or max aperture, or whatever measurable attribute) is not the same as intrinsic value of a lens, however, the fact Intrinsic value itself can't be measured is not enough to conclude intrinsic value doesn't exist.
Archive 2024 · Is f/1.2 or f/1.4 of any real use?
