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 p.1 #14 · What decides which lens coatings Nikon Z lenses get? | |
Ripolini wrote:
As I have written in my previous post "I have never seen a technically sound comparison demonstrating the advantages—if any—of nano and ARNEO coatings"
Actually, Nikon compares an image "Taken using a lens without Nano Crystal Coat" to an image "Taken using a lens with Nano Crystal Coat". They do not say which lens was used for each picture. Why didn’t they make that clear? They most likely used two different lenses, therefore the comparison is meaningless.
When Zeiss technicians discuss the effect of AR coatings in the pdf I linked, they show pictures taken with two 21/2.8 Distagon lenses: one sample without AR coatings and the other one with T* coatings.
Again, as I have written above, "Nikon has NEVER shown images taken with the same lens but with different coatings (for example, SIC + nano/ARNEO versus SIC alone) ..."
Please do not confuse advertising with technology, nor promotional web pages for one’s own products with sound technical reports....Show more →
While they do not explicitly say the lens is the same with and without nano coating, they have obviously internally made such comparisons, to develop such technology would be quite pointless if it were not useful in real-world contexts, since there are many drawbacks (cost, and lack of ruggedness). They have also published images of the same lens showing the ghosting of non-nano-coated images vs. the nano-coated one but over 20 years after the publication I was not able to find this pair of images. I think the images I did link to are representative of the impact of nano coating in real-world lenses and reflect my own experience with several dozen of both nano and SIC-only coated Nikkors of various focal lengths and apertures. The images presented in those two Nikon web pages, are, in my view, an accurate reflection of the real-world impact of nano-coating.
I've owned many lenses from Nikon before they introduced nano coating and after, and there is a clear difference in how the images are rendered, there is more contrast, and less flare/ghosting in the nano coated lenses, and the color rendering is also different.
I do not particularly like Zeiss lenses because they render shadows as pitch black very quickly and if I need to pull those shadows up there will be a lot of noise due to the total lack of photons. As I said I prefer the nano-coated Nikkors because they render shadows with a more gentle way, and I find this gives me more options in high-contrast scenarios for how I want the images to be rendered, and with less high-spatial-frequency noise. When photographing people in extreme low light in indoor situations, I've felt the results from the Zeiss lenses to be harsh and after many years of trying, I was not able to like them, in general. The 135 mm f/2 Apo Sonnar, however, I did like quite a bit as a lens but because of the build of these lenses requiring quite a bit of torque to focus, I prefer the lighter manual focusing action available on Nikon lenses, and of course, the possibility to use autofocus. However, image rendering wise I did like the 135 mm f/2 Apo Sonnar. The Zeiss lenses in general resulted in detailed, highly colorful images but because of the shadow noise issue and overall feel of the images I ended up preferring Nikon lenses. I totally get that this is an aesthetic preference not shared by everyone, but that's why it is so nice to have so many options on the market for lenses.
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