Jon Bader wrote:
PS Bif - nice reality check, the manufacturers and expensive lens owners (like me) all hope the emperor looks fully clothed for a while longer!
You\'re too kind. I really am wondering tho! And the wonderment is with great sincerity.
philip_pj wrote:
That\'s a courageous post, Bif. I guess it must be a matter of taste, but most things Leica do not get my aesthetic appreciation going either, old HCB-style B&W excepted. I can\'t imagine shooting landscape with the R lenses going by their look.
Yeah, courageous or just stupid considering the amount of money these guys paid for that. But I hope no one is misunderstanding. I\'m not saying these posted images are bad (although a few could be better!) nor do I think I\'m playing at sour grapes by trying to pooh-pooh what I don\'t have. I really put these images next to my own expecting to see some real differences and ended up saying hooooold on a minute... Mine are as good and better. Huh?
philip_pj wrote:
Can\'t agree re your P&S comments however, and good luck with the incoming, hah hah...a thick skin/sense of humour helps if you want to dissent from the zeitgeist in this world of ours.
I\'ve got the thick skin and humor thing covered but I can (and did before I posted) put flower pics side by side with theirs and come out equal or on top every time - at this size. So if I made a blind comparison for you I think you couldn\'t not agree with my P&S comments. Now I\'m really wondering if Jon\'s naked emperor assessment isn\'t in fact the actuality.
telyt wrote: Bifurcator wrote:Maybe I need educating...
You said it best. OTOH if web-sized images are all you\'re interested in, your P&S is all you need.
OK, agreed. But then why all the ooos and awes over web sized images if indeed a P&S can do exactly the same thing?
Bifurcator wrote:
Maybe I need educating but where\'s the \"hard to beat\" part?
thrice wrote: Here you go. 100%, wide open, unsharpened and unprocessed (import into lightroom, export as unresized 100 quality sRGB jpeg with no sharpening).
Any loss of per pixel sharpness is due to the blur filter (AA filter) in the 5D mark II, or the fact that I shot it handheld.
It is a lens without optical or mechanical weakness.
There\'s a lot my camera can\'t do for sure. It has a tiny little 2/3 sensor and the lens while AD, aspherical and achromatic, is not apochromatic. It\'s actually a 7.2mm ~ 50.8mm zoom which projected onto that tiny sensor is the 35mm equivalent of 28mm ~ 200mm. The sensor size as everyone here already knows affects DOF dramatically as well as tonal response curves, scene or image resolving power, and etc.. The RAW files are only 12 bpp so the colors band sooner than cameras which capture deeper RAWs - this usually isn\'t a problem though - especially for portraits and such. The fact that the lens is actually a 7.2mm ~ 50.8mm design has some advantages as well as disadvantages too. All said, it kinda sucks for stuff like celestial imaging and even far off mountains - but most of that is due to to the sensor.
And that\'s mostly what I\'m seeing here. I think I\'m mostly capable of determining which aspects are attributable to the sensor and which are of the lens. All I see in that 100% shot you posted are the attributes of lighting and the FF sensor of your 5D Mark II. My P&S lens is actually about the same or maybe a little sharper than that example image you linked to - given the same pixel to scene ratio (magnification level).
So put up or shut up right? Well, the flower images are way too easy, so lets do the 100% you posted. It\'s night-time here so I had to take an indoor shot with just a 500 watt work light and a lamp shade so the tone dynamics will need to be ignored. Also, all I had on hand was my grandson and he doesn\'t have the pours and stubble of an older man like in your shot so the comparisons won\'t be as direct and obvious right off. Also I wasn\'t sure what the cranberry sauce was all about so i didn\'t duplicate that either - to my grandson\'s delight I might add.
My image also has no post processing and no sharpening. The lens was set to 100 mm and it also was wide open - although wide open for it at 100mm (equiv) is only f/3.2. I framed the image so that the eyes were approximately the same distance apart as in your image (meaning the same magnification level I thin). The RAW file was brought into ACR with all the sliders zeroed and then opened in PS for the JPEG conversion and copy and paste comparisons all at 100%.
I really am wondering tho! And the wonderment is with great sincerity.
