Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

It doesn't look like it, but one test of it I saw shows it to be pretty
mediocre.
For a camera with 10 megapixels, the user would be well-advised to get
something
better. Maybe the Zeiss alternative is out for it?

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

RichA wrote:
It doesn't look like it, but one test of it I saw shows it to be pretty
mediocre.
For a camera with 10 megapixels, the user would be well-advised to get
something
better. Maybe the Zeiss alternative is out for it?



It's much improved mechanicallty (smoothness, firmness) over the KM
version, but still essentially a cheap Chinese kit optic. At 18mm, it's
about as good as any kit lens gets. At 70mm it's fairly soft. I now have
two of them, one KM one Sony. Earlier in the week I was at a business
meeting and was suddenly asked to shoot two or three still lifes, four
book and video covers, and a PR shot live in an office. I had no flash,
and was not intending to do any photography, just a KM 7D with the
18-70mm slung in the car with with. The 18-70mm did fine, perfectly. The
book cover shots needed a tiny barrel distortion correction in ACR. The
PR shot was amazingly crisp and what should have been rubbish lighting
actually made a very attractive final shot. I would be hard put to have
found any other lens in my kit which could have done better.

But I don't have a 16-80mm Zeiss yet :-)

David

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

"David Kilpatrick" wrote in message
...
RichA wrote:
"cover shots needed a tiny barrel distortion correction"

We live in a different photographic world now. A predictable level of
barrel distortion is not a deal killer for a lens because of sophisticated
image processing programs. Most dSLR lenses in the 11-20mm range, regardless
of their overall zoom range, have significant linear distortion that would
be hard to accept for in a film and wet print world but can be reasonably
corrected with some simple image processing in the brave new digital world.
Does that mean lens quality is declining or overall photographic options are
increasing?

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

bmoag wrote:


but can be
reasonably corrected with some simple image processing in the brave new
digital world.

But doing this causes a loss of image quality and sharpness so it still is a
problem.

--

Stacey

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

In article .com,
RichA wrote:

It doesn't look like it, but one test of it I saw shows it to be pretty
mediocre.
For a camera with 10 megapixels, the user would be well-advised to get
something
better. Maybe the Zeiss alternative is out for it?

Why don't you actually buy a camera and then tell us all about it?

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

Randall Ainsworth wrote:
In article .com,
RichA wrote:

It doesn't look like it, but one test of it I saw shows it to be pretty
mediocre.
For a camera with 10 megapixels, the user would be well-advised to get
something
better. Maybe the Zeiss alternative is out for it?

Why don't you actually buy a camera and then tell us all about it?

Do you have a camera? Lets see some shots.

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

Stacey wrote:
bmoag wrote:

[barrel distortion] can be reasonably corrected with some simple
image processing in the brave new digital world.

But doing this causes a loss of image quality and sharpness so it
still is a problem.

Well, that depends. You have to do raw conversion anyway, so you can
do the distortion correction at the same time, at high resolution.
Will this lose quality over not doing any geometric correction at all?
A little, but will it be visible?

In the end it's all about cost and weight. Is it cheaper to make a
sharp zoom lens with some barrel distortion than one without? And is
the resulting digitally corrected lens quality better value for money
(and weight) than one without any digital correction?

I suspect that if you have, say, $500 to spend on a lens, you're going
to get better quality by a combination of lens design and digital
correction than the best lens design can possibly do in its own.

Andrew.

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

Andrew Haley wrote:

Stacey wrote:
bmoag wrote:

[barrel distortion] can be reasonably corrected with some simple
image processing in the brave new digital world.

But doing this causes a loss of image quality and sharpness so it
still is a problem.

Well, that depends. You have to do raw conversion anyway, so you can
do the distortion correction at the same time, at high resolution.
Will this lose quality over not doing any geometric correction at all?
A little, but will it be visible?

Will the distortion be visible?

In the end it's all about cost and weight. Is it cheaper to make a
sharp zoom lens with some barrel distortion than one without? And is
the resulting digitally corrected lens quality better value for money
(and weight) than one without any digital correction?

I suspect that if you have, say, $500 to spend on a lens, you're going
to get better quality by a combination of lens design and digital
correction than the best lens design can possibly do in its own.

I can't see where digital correction is going to improve noticeably on the
less than 0.01 percent distortion of the $259 50mm Sigma macro.

Further, most zooms have a sweet spot with very low distortion, the trick is
finding it and using it if low distortion is needed for a particular shot.

Andrew.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

J. Clarke wrote:
Andrew Haley wrote:

Stacey wrote:
bmoag wrote:

[barrel distortion] can be reasonably corrected with some simple
image processing in the brave new digital world.

But doing this causes a loss of image quality and sharpness so it
still is a problem.

Well, that depends. You have to do raw conversion anyway, so you can
do the distortion correction at the same time, at high resolution.
Will this lose quality over not doing any geometric correction at all?
A little, but will it be visible?

Will the distortion be visible?

Yes.

In the end it's all about cost and weight. Is it cheaper to make a
sharp zoom lens with some barrel distortion than one without? And
is the resulting digitally corrected lens quality better value for
money (and weight) than one without any digital correction?

I suspect that if you have, say, $500 to spend on a lens, you're
going to get better quality by a combination of lens design and
digital correction than the best lens design can possibly do in its
own.

I can't see where digital correction is going to improve noticeably
on the less than 0.01 percent distortion of the $259 50mm Sigma
macro.

I think there has been a loss of context here. We're talking about
midrange zoom lenses, as the subject line suggests.

Further, most zooms have a sweet spot with very low distortion, the
trick is finding it and using it if low distortion is needed for a
particular shot.

As long as that's the focal length you need.

Andrew.

Sony kit lens as mediocre as Canon's?
 

Andrew Haley wrote:

J. Clarke wrote:
Andrew Haley wrote:

Stacey wrote:
bmoag wrote:

[barrel distortion] can be reasonably corrected with some simple
image processing in the brave new digital world.

But doing this causes a loss of image quality and sharpness so it
still is a problem.

Well, that depends. You have to do raw conversion anyway, so you can
do the distortion correction at the same time, at high resolution.
Will this lose quality over not doing any geometric correction at all?
A little, but will it be visible?

Will the distortion be visible?

Yes.

..005 % distortion will be visible? You're sure about that?

Your problem is that you're assuming that every lens has a huge amount of
distortion at every focal length but is so incredibly sharp that any
imaginable loss of sharpness will be acceptable. It ain't so on either
count.

In the end it's all about cost and weight. Is it cheaper to make a
sharp zoom lens with some barrel distortion than one without? And
is the resulting digitally corrected lens quality better value for
money (and weight) than one without any digital correction?

I suspect that if you have, say, $500 to spend on a lens, you're
going to get better quality by a combination of lens design and
digital correction than the best lens design can possibly do in its
own.

I can't see where digital correction is going to improve noticeably
on the less than 0.01 percent distortion of the $259 50mm Sigma
macro.

I think there has been a loss of context here. We're talking about
midrange zoom lenses, as the subject line suggests.

Further, most zooms have a sweet spot with very low distortion, the
trick is finding it and using it if low distortion is needed for a
particular shot.

As long as that's the focal length you need.

Andrew.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)