Re: 50mm 1.2 Sony - Sigma - Voigtlander Has anyone compared them?
philip_pj wrote:
'Am I the only one who finds it weird to consider a lens less suitable for portraits because it is sharp?'
I'm the one to argue this case with you. Me and the great accumulation of evidence in the cine field as DPs all over try to work around the harsh look of digital and the sheer unpleasantness and repulsive look it (unnecessarily) imparts to human skin. DPs want to take the harsh edge off their footage.
We will be moving on from the simplistic equation we see in your above - that 'sharpness = image quality'. As its reach and power fall away dramatically in the box office, the cine world is now understanding the simple truth that 'image appeal = image quality'.
They see now that they don't decide this, the viewing and paying public do! And they don't want the fake digital look, outside of cartoons.
APO and APO-adjacent lenses are flat lenses that aim to deliver super levels of color correction, to the relative neglect of all other considerations broached in the design phase of lens development. Portraits are not a primary design target.
ARRI and others now openly talk about their efforts to portray skin in a true-to-life manner. These people, who occupy elevated positions in the field, understand they have to treat spatial frequencies differently. They reduce high spatial frequency lens micro-contrast to provide a real world facsimile to their imagery, while retaining lower spatial frequencies to shape the content. Even sharpness addicts Zeiss now do this.
As for dealing with new age sharp lens rendering in post,
(i) you are spending valuable time trying to undo what the lens was designed to excel at;
(ii) the micro-contrast is baked in and it will still impact the image in other deleterious ways because the entire aim is not true-to-life presentation - so we often encounter: bokeh ball effects of over-corrected SA, very poor image depth (lots of ED/APD glass), and
(iii) a general lack of character caused in part by an overemphasis on corners and outer frames.
The entire notion that such lenses can be as good as dedicated portrait lenses is therefore questionable. A lot of people are starting to see this - a good development.
Last week I had the chance to see and spend several hours at the Leica: A Century of Photography exhibition in the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid, Spain. The exhibition is very beautiful and striking, representing a century of Leica photography and including many iconic images as well as many that I had not seen before. The images are presented in very large prints that obliterate, even at appropriate viewing distances, any sharpness that may have been in the original image. But even so, it was clear that many of the images could never have been critically sharp to begin with. But each one is a beautiful and important photograph.
Re: 50mm 1.2 Sony - Sigma - Voigtlander Has anyone compared them?
philip_pj wrote:
'Am I the only one who finds it weird to consider a lens less suitable for portraits because it is sharp?'
I'm the one to argue this case with you. Me and the great accumulation of evidence in the cine field as DPs all over try to work around the harsh look of digital and the sheer unpleasantness and repulsive look it (unnecessarily) imparts to human skin. DPs want to take the harsh edge off their footage.
We will be moving on from the simplistic equation we see in your above - that 'sharpness = image quality'. As its reach and power fall away dramatically in the box office, the cine world is now understanding the simple truth that 'image appeal = image quality'.
They see now that they don't decide this, the viewing and paying public do! And they don't want the fake digital look, outside of cartoons.
APO and APO-adjacent lenses are flat lenses that aim to deliver super levels of color correction, to the relative neglect of all other considerations broached in the design phase of lens development. Portraits are not a primary design target.
ARRI and others now openly talk about their efforts to portray skin in a true-to-life manner. These people, who occupy elevated positions in the field, understand they have to treat spatial frequencies differently. They reduce high spatial frequency lens micro-contrast to provide a real world facsimile to their imagery, while retaining lower spatial frequencies to shape the content. Even sharpness addicts Zeiss now do this.
As for dealing with new age sharp lens rendering in post,
(i) you are spending valuable time trying to undo what the lens was designed to excel at;
(ii) the micro-contrast is baked in and it will still impact the image in other deleterious ways because the entire aim is not true-to-life presentation - so we often encounter: bokeh ball effects of over-corrected SA, very poor image depth (lots of ED/APD glass), and
(iii) a general lack of character caused in part by an overemphasis on corners and outer frames.
The entire notion that such lenses can be as good as dedicated portrait lenses is therefore questionable. A lot of people are starting to see this - a good development.
Last week I had the chance to see and spend several hours at the Leica: A Century of Photography exhibition in the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid, Spain. The exhibition is very beautiful and striking, representing a century of Leica photography and including many iconic images as well as many that I had not seen before. The images are presented in very large prints that obliterate, even at appropriate viewing distances, any sharpness that may have been in the original image. But even so, it was clear that many of the images could never have been critically sharp to begin with. But each one is a beautiful, powerful, and important photograph.
Re: 50mm 1.2 Sony - Sigma - Voigtlander Has anyone compared them?
philip_pj wrote:
'Am I the only one who finds it weird to consider a lens less suitable for portraits because it is sharp?'
I'm the one to argue this case with you. Me and the great accumulation of evidence in the cine field as DPs all over try to work around the harsh look of digital and the sheer unpleasantness and repulsive look it (unnecessarily) imparts to human skin. DPs want to take the harsh edge off their footage.
We will be moving on from the simplistic equation we see in your above - that 'sharpness = image quality'. As its reach and power fall away dramatically in the box office, the cine world is now understanding the simple truth that 'image appeal = image quality'.
They see now that they don't decide this, the viewing and paying public do! And they don't want the fake digital look, outside of cartoons.
APO and APO-adjacent lenses are flat lenses that aim to deliver super levels of color correction, to the relative neglect of all other considerations broached in the design phase of lens development. Portraits are not a primary design target.
ARRI and others now openly talk about their efforts to portray skin in a true-to-life manner. These people, who occupy elevated positions in the field, understand they have to treat spatial frequencies differently. They reduce high spatial frequency lens micro-contrast to provide a real world facsimile to their imagery, while retaining lower spatial frequencies to shape the content. Even sharpness addicts Zeiss now do this.
As for dealing with new age sharp lens rendering in post,
(i) you are spending valuable time trying to undo what the lens was designed to excel at;
(ii) the micro-contrast is baked in and it will still impact the image in other deleterious ways because the entire aim is not true-to-life presentation - so we often encounter: bokeh ball effects of over-corrected SA, very poor image depth (lots of ED/APD glass), and
(iii) a general lack of character caused in part by an overemphasis on corners and outer frames.
The entire notion that such lenses can be as good as dedicated portrait lenses is therefore questionable. A lot of people are starting to see this - a good development.
Last week I had the chance to see and spend several hours at the Leica: A Century of Photography exhibition in the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid, Spain. The exhibition is very beautiful and striking, representing a century of Leica photography and including many iconic images as well as many that I had not seen before. The images are presented in very large prints that obliterate, even at appropriate viewing distances, any sharpness that may have been in the original image. But even so, it was clear that many of the images could never have been critically sharp to begin with. But each one is a beautiful, powerful, and important photograph.
Re: 50mm 1.2 Sony - Sigma - Voigtlander Has anyone compared them?
philip_pj wrote:
'Am I the only one who finds it weird to consider a lens less suitable for portraits because it is sharp?'
I'm the one to argue this case with you. Me and the great accumulation of evidence in the cine field as DPs all over try to work around the harsh look of digital and the sheer unpleasantness and repulsive look it (unnecessarily) imparts to human skin. DPs want to take the harsh edge off their footage.
We will be moving on from the simplistic equation we see in your above - that 'sharpness = image quality'. As its reach and power fall away dramatically in the box office, the cine world is now understanding the simple truth that 'image appeal = image quality'.
They see now that they don't decide this, the viewing and paying public do! And they don't want the fake digital look, outside of cartoons.
APO and APO-adjacent lenses are flat lenses that aim to deliver super levels of color correction, to the relative neglect of all other considerations broached in the design phase of lens development. Portraits are not a primary design target.
ARRI and others now openly talk about their efforts to portray skin in a true-to-life manner. These people, who occupy elevated positions in the field, understand they have to treat spatial frequencies differently. They reduce high spatial frequency lens micro-contrast to provide a real world facsimile to their imagery, while retaining lower spatial frequencies to shape the content. Even sharpness addicts Zeiss now do this.
As for dealing with new age sharp lens rendering in post,
(i) you are spending valuable time trying to undo what the lens was designed to excel at;
(ii) the micro-contrast is baked in and it will still impact the image in other deleterious ways because the entire aim is not true-to-life presentation - so we often encounter: bokeh ball effects of over-corrected SA, very poor image depth (lots of ED/APD glass), and
(iii) a general lack of character caused in part by an overemphasis on corners and outer frames.
The entire notion that such lenses can be as good as dedicated portrait lenses is therefore questionable. A lot of people are starting to see this - a good development.
Last week I had the chance to see and spend several hours at the Leica: A Century of Photography exhibition in the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid, Spain. The exhibition is very beautiful and striking, representing a century of Leica photography and including many iconic images as well as many that I had not seen before. The images are presented in very large prints that obliterate, even at appropriate viewing distances, any sharpness that may have been in the original image. But even so, it was clear that many of the images could never have been critically sharp to begin with. But each one is a beautiful and important photograph.
Nov 30, 2025 at 10:00 AM
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