evanhanded
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 p.83 #7 · which lens has the most 3D POP? | |
gdanmitchell wrote:
In this case the (purported) shortness of the list is inversely proportional to its significance.
No one says that lens choice makes “no” difference. But the differences between excellent lenses are so small and so subjective that they are virtually meaningless by comparison to the other factors that influence these qualities in a photograph. (t is a little like having an excellent Yamaha grand piano (they are quite good) and being utterly convinced that the way to making your piano performance great is to switch it out for a Steinway. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.
The fact that a painting can “pop” (to use the thread’s terminology) with no lens at all should be a hint about where to look for “pop” in photographs.
The comparison I would love to see would be one that works like this:
Take one camera. Mount it on a tripod and do all of the usual stuff to eliminate factors that potentially degrade photographs at the time of exposure.
Take two excellent lenses of the same focal length, one (lens A) being the supposed “best pop” lens and the other (lens B) being a supposed lesser but excellent lens.
Select some relatively normal scene that has no exposure or focus problems.
Put lens A n the camera, Carefully focus on some specific point in the frame and choose a “best” aperture — preferably one that doesn’t introduce significant diffraction or use extraordinarily narrow DOF. Make and exposure.
Without moving anything, put lens B on the camera and using the same aperture make a near-duplicate exposure.
With no further post-processing, generate equalized versions of the images from both. (Due to potential small differences in exposure related to lens transmission one might need to be adjusted.) Or leave them unadjusted and compare as is.
Show the samples to observers who do not know that source of the images nor the element being assessed. Randomized the order in which the samples are presented — in ther words, in some cases show A first annd in other show B first. Ask them if they prefer one over the other and, if so, which. Also ask why they have the preference.
For extra fun, and a check on the ability of viewers to reliably distinguish, add the following to the test.
1. In some cases, instead of showing the same image from the A and B samples, show different images from the two lenses. in other words, in one case you might show image #1 sample B and Image #7 sample A. Show a mixed up series like this and see whether a consistent preference for one or the other appears.
2. As a check on that process, in some cases when showing two different images make both of them from Lens A or both from Lens B and see how the comparison rating differs overall. (This is a check on the actual objective abiltiy of viewers to accurately assess the difference.)
this sounds like a lot of work, but this issue will never be put to bed until someone actually does it. (Honestly, knowing how these things work, you do run this whole test, prove that there is no consistent ability to distinguish at this level… and you’d still have true believers swearing that this stiff is true… ;-)
And, of course, the odds that anyone will do a truly objective test like this are nearly zero… so the hope that a magical lens will make one’s photographs “pop” will continue to distract people from what really creates that effect — lighting, color relationships, selective focus, understanding of perspective, etc. ...Show more →
I've done the test part comparing the Sony Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 to the Sony kit lens zoom, the 28-70mm set at 55mm. I saw no difference in the images I took. Does that prove 3D pop does not exist? No. Does that even prove that the 55mm lens can't be more "pop"-y with the right subjects or lighting? No. But since I wasn't able to discern any difference, then it's likely any 3D pop out of the 55mm is likely to be small and not worthy of my consideration, Which, of course, begs the question: If a lens has some small amount of 3D pop, so what? And if any lens had a lot of 3D pop, why hasn't it been shown here?
|
