lens quality

Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon 10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality. What
suprised me is that he said that the lenses on 35 mm cameras were
better than MF camera lenses because if they weren't, it would be more
noticeable. Is this true? How is lens quality measured, and where can I
find accurate comparison data? I'm assuming that the closer to
geometrical perfection the glass is, the better the image (aside from
the mechanics of the rest of the lens).

My original thought was to get a medium format body now, and get a
digital back later on when the prices come down. This was on the
assumption that MF lenses were higher quality than 35 mm lenses. I
would also like to have the versatility to shoot b&w film, infrared
film, high saturation film, etc.

I know there are crap 35 mm lenses, but as far as price vs.
performance, what is the best deal?

I've read a lot about film grain vs. pixels, and I know it's not
totally about pixel count. The sales guy had a blown-up portrait from
the 10D ( larger than 2' in each dimension ) and I was impressed, but I
had no comparison image from a MF camera. When I looked closely at the
image, I saw what looked like weird quake texture maps, which I assume
is digital noise.

Are there any other considerations? I heard somewhere along the line
that digital sensors are better able to repsond to blue frequencies
than film.

Another concern is durability. The MF hasselblad setup will cost me ~
$500 - 600. The canon 10D is about ~$1500 with lens, but it only has a
one year warranty. I've dealt with enough electronic equipment to know
that I will probably have to buy a new one in the next 2 years. I feel
like I would be offering a really expensive disposable camera. Do they
offer extended warranties? I don't know if I would shoot $1000 worth of
film and developing in a year to make up for the differences - I would
have to shoot 5 rolls a month ( ~$10/roll, $5/developing ), which I
don't have time for.

Thoughts?

wrote in news:1111616568.316667.13600
@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon 10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality.

He was lying. My shots with 10 and 20D compare very well with good medium
format stuff, but fine-grain film produces images that can be scanned at
godawfully high resolutions (i.e., really large images).

What
suprised me is that he said that the lenses on 35 mm cameras were
better than MF camera lenses because if they weren't, it would be more
noticeable.

He is full of **** here. The very best super-premium lenses are not made
for Digitals at all.

You can get the 35mm super-premiums to work on some digibodies, and
Canons have a lot of adaptors made for them. However, they will be
completely manual, and the lower-end Canons have pretty lousy focusing
screens (small and dim).

http://www.outbackphoto.com/the_bag/...ers/essay.html

If super-premium lenses are your only reason for buying a camera body,
the Hasselblad cannot really be beat. Do NOT count on the digital backs
ever coming down, though. There's no marketing reason for that to happen.

Is this true?

No, of course not. There is nothing about digital that makes it show lens
defects more readily.

There *is* an issue that makes over f/16 impractical on most digital
bodies, where a Hassy can easily do f/45. This can make a big difference
shooting certain subjects, such as rooms, when the entire field needs to
have good focus.

How is lens quality measured, and where can I
find accurate comparison data?

All over the web, actually.

snip

wrote in news:1111616568.316667.13600
@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon 10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality.

He was lying. My shots with 10 and 20D compare very well with good medium
format stuff, but fine-grain film produces images that can be scanned at
godawfully high resolutions (i.e., really large images).

What
suprised me is that he said that the lenses on 35 mm cameras were
better than MF camera lenses because if they weren't, it would be more
noticeable.

He is full of **** here. The very best super-premium lenses are not made
for Digitals at all.

You can get the 35mm super-premiums to work on some digibodies, and
Canons have a lot of adaptors made for them. However, they will be
completely manual, and the lower-end Canons have pretty lousy focusing
screens (small and dim).

http://www.outbackphoto.com/the_bag/...ers/essay.html

If super-premium lenses are your only reason for buying a camera body,
the Hasselblad cannot really be beat. Do NOT count on the digital backs
ever coming down, though. There's no marketing reason for that to happen.

Is this true?

No, of course not. There is nothing about digital that makes it show lens
defects more readily.

There *is* an issue that makes over f/16 impractical on most digital
bodies, where a Hassy can easily do f/45. This can make a big difference
shooting certain subjects, such as rooms, when the entire field needs to
have good focus.

How is lens quality measured, and where can I
find accurate comparison data?

All over the web, actually.

snip

Eric Gill wrote:

There *is* an issue that makes over f/16 impractical on most digital
bodies, where a Hassy can easily do f/45. This can make a big difference
shooting certain subjects, such as rooms, when the entire field needs to
have good focus.

Why is that? I've used f/22, 36, 45 on my D70 with various lenses.
You've got to get the dust off the sensor though.

Eric Gill wrote:

No, of course not. There is nothing about digital that makes it show lens
defects more readily.


Actually, there's some evidence that typical
35mm lenses don't have the resolution needed
to properly "feed" the best CMOS/CCD sensors.

This debate is raging as we speak on r.p.d.

There's no question that modern CMOS/CCD
sensors capture far more information
per unit area than film.

The advantage of film, of course, is that
it's relatively easy to scale, simply by
moving to a larger format.



rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

Lenses for 35mm cameras are more highly corrected than medium-format
lenses, because they have to be. Also, because they cover only a
24x36mm area, it is easier to correct them better.

But the difference is medium-format film is larger, so the image is not
enlarged as much.

In other words, true but of no importance.


wrote:
Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon
10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality. What
suprised me is that he said that the lenses on 35 mm cameras were
better than MF camera lenses because if they weren't, it would be
more
noticeable. Is this true? How is lens quality measured, and where can
I
find accurate comparison data? I'm assuming that the closer to
geometrical perfection the glass is, the better the image (aside from
the mechanics of the rest of the lens).

My original thought was to get a medium format body now, and get a
digital back later on when the prices come down. This was on the
assumption that MF lenses were higher quality than 35 mm lenses. I
would also like to have the versatility to shoot b&w film, infrared
film, high saturation film, etc.

I know there are crap 35 mm lenses, but as far as price vs.
performance, what is the best deal?

I've read a lot about film grain vs. pixels, and I know it's not
totally about pixel count. The sales guy had a blown-up portrait from
the 10D ( larger than 2' in each dimension ) and I was impressed, but
I
had no comparison image from a MF camera. When I looked closely at
the
image, I saw what looked like weird quake texture maps, which I
assume
is digital noise.

Are there any other considerations? I heard somewhere along the line
that digital sensors are better able to repsond to blue frequencies
than film.

Another concern is durability. The MF hasselblad setup will cost me ~
$500 - 600. The canon 10D is about ~$1500 with lens, but it only has
a
one year warranty. I've dealt with enough electronic equipment to
know
that I will probably have to buy a new one in the next 2 years. I
feel
like I would be offering a really expensive disposable camera. Do
they
offer extended warranties? I don't know if I would shoot $1000 worth
of
film and developing in a year to make up for the differences - I
would
have to shoot 5 rolls a month ( ~$10/roll, $5/developing ), which I
don't have time for.

Thoughts?

"There's no question that modern CMOS/CCD sensors capture far more
information per unit area than film.

You're out of your ****ing mind. Film grains are hundreds of times
smaller than sensors.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon 10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality.
Having seen photographs by excellent photographers using Hasselblads,
Canons, and Nikons, I much prefer the Hasselblads. By the way, 4x5 cameras
take even better photographs.
Jim

wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey folks -

I was looking at used MF equipment at my local camera store yesterday
and the salesperson started giving me a strong pitch on the Canon 10D,
which he said was better than a hasselblad in terms of quality.
Having seen photographs by excellent photographers using Hasselblads,
Canons, and Nikons, I much prefer the Hasselblads. By the way, 4x5 cameras
take even better photographs.
Jim

"rafeb" wrote:
Eric Gill wrote:

No, of course not. There is nothing about digital that makes it show
lens
defects more readily.

Actually, there's some evidence that typical
35mm lenses don't have the resolution needed
to properly "feed" the best CMOS/CCD sensors.

Yes. At frequencies up to about 2/3 of the Nyquist frequency for the sensor,
sensors are very good at taking full advantage of the MTF of the lens:
digital has much less noise than film has grain.

The interesting point is that pretty much regardless of the resolution of a
sensor, a better lens will produce a better image. This is because MTFs
combine multiplicatively: the system MTF at a given frequency is the product
of the sensor/film MTF and the lens MTF. There's a review on Luminous
Landscape of the Canon 17-35 vs. the 16-35, and the difference is clearly
visable on the 3MP D30.

So the idea that it's a _resolution_ issue is basically incorrrect, it's an
MTF issue, since better lenses have better contrast across the whole
frequency range.

There's no question that modern CMOS/CCD
sensors capture far more information
per unit area than film.

Well, no. They capture more _useful_ information, but in terms of _limiting
resolution_, film can exhibit vanishingly faint traces in resonse to
insanely high contrast targets.

The advantage of film, of course, is that
it's relatively easy to scale, simply by
moving to a larger format.

One point here, is that in both film and digital, one runs into diminishing
returns. It's harder to provide the resolution across the whole frame for
larger formats. Also, assuming the same technology, if you reduce the pixel
pitch by a factor of 1.414, you only increase the noise by a factor of
1.414, so cameras like the 300D/10D, with their usable ISO 400 and
outrageously clean ISO 100 will seem less attractive than something like the
D2x with its usable ISO 100 and 12MP. This makes the MP game a slippery
slope. So whereas you used to have an FZ10 with a respectably clean ISO 50,
you now have an extra MP and visible noise.

To get back to the diminishing returns bit, that means that you really want
a wider pixel pitch on your MF back than on your full-frame dSLR, and a
wider pixel pitch on your full-frame dSLR than your APS-C dSLR. But at which
point, since the D2x has a usable ISO 100, most people won't see the
advantage of a similarly priced full-frame camera with 16.7 MP and a
stronger AA filter (to avoid Moiré more of the time) whose only advantage is
slightly lower noise and usable higher ISOs.

(Note that the above is only significant/interesting assuming that the D2x
sensor will appear in a D100 class body, and the 1Dsmk2 sensor will appear
in a US$3,000 class body, both of which I consider likely.)

Sigh.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan