nhmorgan
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 p.3 #8 · Why is the Nikon 35 1.2s and 50 1.2s so large compared to others? | |
I appreciate the Nikon approach more than the Sony approach. Nikon has a history that keeps it working in the tradition that test charts aren't the most important thing. Comparing something like the Nikon 35mm 1.4 to the Sony GM 35 1.4 is an apples to oranges comparison. One prioritizes sharpness and the other character and cost. I see many Sony fans often suggesting character is a lazy answer for lenses not being perfect, but it's not. Sony seems to pay very little attention to the unique look a lens creates (I also think this is why their camera's files can be so hard to work with; they think the colors are good enough, so don't put a lot of resources into color science). And yes, lenses absolutely contribute to the color of the image. Go shoot a gray card in a controlled lighting environment and switch lenses and see how colors can shift. How lenses respond to off axis light can also influence the color rendition.
Very few of the Sony lenses have character. All the newer GM lenses are sharp without exception, but very few of them render well. I think the 50mm 1.2 is one of the exceptions. I liked the images I got from the 50-150, too, surprisingly, even at the wide end. I also loved the 400mm GM, but that's one that I've read people complain isn't sharp enough. I thought it had nice character to it. For some applications, that pursuit of lab perfect lenses is great. If I'm shooting astro, I want a perfect lens. I've said it before, but I think the rise in popularity of bird photography has also produced a legion of pixel peepers, too, and has driven lens development toward birder lenses and away from quirky lenses like the amazing Nikon 200mm f2, another lens that strikes a perfect balance between class-leading sharpness and rendering, but it also weights literally twice as much as Sony's 300mm GM. The 300mm GM is a technical feat, but that lens makes tradeoffs. It has terrible aperture vignetting and cat's eye bokeh and the overall look of images lacks smoothness.
Nikon's 85mm 1.2s is a GOAT lens. It has a beautiful unique look to it, while keeping center sharpness that was F5.6 corner performance for the best lenses 20 years ago. But I think we've reached the point where chasing sharpness is not only pointless, it's bad for photography. The lenses are out resolving the sensors and I don't like that look. It creates images that look oversharp and details, edges, and textures start to behave in unpleasing ways. I liked the plena and owned it twice, but sold it both times because 1) I like natural lens vignette, and 2) I found it to be too sharp. When it comes to the 50mm range, I've gone back to using a 58mm 1.4G more than any of my other 50mm lenses. That lens absolutely sucks on a test chart. But in actual usage, its softness and massive field curvature makes unique and beautiful images. So, while I don't own them, I'm really glad that nikon makes the 50mm 1.4 and 35mm 1.4 lenses; they aren't supposed to perform like a GM lens, but that's not the point of them. Sony's philosophy seems to be to make technically very impressive lenses that are small, sharp, and contrasty, that also make compromises in focus breathing, vignetting and distortion that can be corrected without much penalty in software. That's fine, but I think that also speaks to Sony not being a photography company, but an electronics company. I liked Gerald Undone's description of the 85mm GMii as "the lensiest of lenses."
Lastly, I think using third party adapters as a tool for comparison is a fool's errand. The ETZ is an impressive piece of kit that works very well, especially for non-moving subjects, but it does effect corner performance (I assume the thickness is a tiny bit off) and the AF performance is about 70-80% of native glass, and is especially weak on fast moving subjects moving toward the camera. It does ok with fast moving subjects moving across the frame.
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