Do you try to match signatures with your lens kits?

[Brian Legge]

I care about similar contrast as it impacts how I develop rolls. Summar shots on the same roll with Biogon shots make processing a bit less ideal.

I don't care as much about other aspects of signature as I am fairly consistent in what I like anyway.

 

[DominikDUK]

No I don't but the lens mfg do it for me.

Staying within a range from a lens manufacturer does it for me without having to look for a matching look. Leica Summitar > pre asph Summicrons or summicron > summicron have a nearly matching look maybe some slight contrast differences but overall they give a fairly similar look. If you choose a wide angle planar from mfg x and normal planar from same mfg they will most likely match wa distortions aside.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I find threads like this great fun. I see them as the forum equivalent of the old camera club discussions in "the pub across the road".

Older readers may well recognise the stereotypes: the club secretary in tie and blazer stands at the bar, clutching a small shandy, while listening intently to the FRPS, who has a "fine old malt" in front of him, with just a splash of Highland spring water. The man who's "something in the city", will be next to them, with the latest Leica carelessly slung over his shoulder and a Martini in hand. A couple of toadies will be nodding inappropriately at what they think are the right moments.

Slightly separated from them will be the local amateur, who does press pictures at the weekend, listening with half an ear and making deliberately loud comments to the bunch of "rude mechanicals" who see him as their natural leader and who can be expected to laugh right on cue at every contradiction. They, of course, all clutch pint glasses filled with best bitter.

Two or three really commited photographers, one of whom will be a successful freelance, talk quietly around a table selected for its distance from both the other groups. They're discussing the day's non-photographic news and wincing occassionally at the loud laughter from the second group.

Not, of course, that I would dream of assigning any of these stereotypes to the fine upstanding members of this forum.

😉

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

Between chasing the perfect lenses for a look I have in mind and striving to produce images that match the potential of the lenses I already own, I do in fact neither.

 

[redisburning]

My type of photography out in the real world simply has no connection to the detailed thought analyses that goes on with hands on the keyboard and eyes on the monitor.

well that's all well and good for you, but doesn't really represent how most of us on the hobbyist side have to approach photography.

I can steal a minute to look on flickr at some lens I might want between meetings. I cannot simply go to New Mexico or Belize in my free time or even take a few hours to go somewhere interesting around where I live.

 

[Bille]

For me, my interests are the 35mm/50mm focal length, and I wanted to know what m-mount 35/50 pairings share similar signatures, but am also curious about what other lens combinations--regardless of the lens mount--people have found to be similar.

I´m still trying to find a match for the 35/2 Summicron IV. The closest thing
seems the CV Color-Skopar 50/2.5 so far but the quest is not over yet... 🙂

 

[Ansel]

Lens signature matching is irrelevant to me, but I do believe we have our own image signatures as photographers, which is what sets us apart.

When you look back at a body work, like Capa for example who used Leica, Contax and Rolleiflex cameras, a clear style and vision emerges, which is of greater importance than any perceived difference between cameras.

 

[hepcat]

No, I don't care about this at all... there are two types of lenses... good enough and not so good.

I actually have a third category... those that are good enough that I can afford. That is, of course, a subset of "good enough" but past a certain price point lenses that are "good enough" are made of unobtanium which renders their optical matching impotent.

 

[Vics]

I think about this a lot. I shoot 35 and 50, like the OP, and I'm happiest when I look at the photos from a roll and can't tell which were 35 and which were 50. I have (in RF mount) 35/2.5 Nikkor, 35/2.8 Summaron, 50 Summicron v.1. and 50 Carl Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5. I think that the two that match the best are the Sonnar and the Nikkor. I shoot them all on my M3 (two via Amadeo). Which would seem to you to be the best matches?