Help picking my next lens

Who's thread is this?

Who's thread is this?

😀

Back on a lighter note.........

Magus, you set a high standard indeed. No worries, if everything were easy we could all shop for photographic equipment at Wally World. I shall endeavor to elevate my standards.

I'm still learning BW400CN. This is only my 4th roll and the first in bright sunlight. I see now why folks say that it has a red bias. The red bricks in the courthouse building are overexposed while the blue of the flags is underexposed. Note made to self.

After much fiddling with the scans in Lightroom, I've managed to create a crop at the maximum size permitted by the RFF image upload software. I personally feel that my brick test chart is better than Herr Putt's brick wall.

The original scans I'm working from are 1,270 ppi. These crops maintain the 1,270 ppi and are just a whisker under the 1,000kb limit. My apologies to those with dial up connections. These photos are not dial up friendly.
Click to expand...

I'm doing something really wrong. Nevermind new versions of the scans. Suffice to say that I think one of my 35mm lenses is sharp.

Todd, you're right. Summicron is the no brainer solution. On the other hand, two lucky shoppers at ebay scored 35mm and 28mm M-Hexanons last week for a combined total under $1,100. I think I would be grinning from ear to ear with that combination.

Let me just say this about that:

Given my present skill level and media limitations (BW400CN film, machine processing and scanning), I could take a bushel basket of Leitz's latest and greatest lenses and produce images that nobody would ever mistake for Leica photographs.

Y'all play nice, ya hear.
 
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I just can't understand how a conversation about lens-character can end in a vitual fight about words.
I "know" Magus as a man who likes to make strong statement to "paint the picture" .. to get his message through. He is also one of the politest posters here ... always carefull in choosing his words.
I feel no need to defense Japanese lenses (as an owner of a 35 Canon Serenar) because they were not under attack in the first place ... or did i misread this thread ?
 
J. Borger said:
I just can't understand how a conversation about lens-character can end in a vitual fight about words.
I "know" Magus as a man who likes to make strong statement to "paint the picture" .. to get his message through. He is also one of the politest posters here ... always carefull in choosing his words.
I feel no need to defense Japanese lenses (as an owner of a 35 Canon Serenar) because they were not under attack in the first place ... or did i misread this thread ?
Click to expand...

Mr. Borger is right. Calming breaths ... calming breaths, all :angel:

Let's all step back a bit and remember we are here to talk about lens, cameras, and the color of our straps 😉

Let's steer this back on course.

How about that Zeiss zm 35/2 lens?

Surely someone must have had experience with this lens.

How does it compare with the Hexanon-m 35/2 or the 35 crons?
 
as this seems to be about my statement that i would like to see magus in a blind test, i still stand by that.
i don't see that as getting defensive at all.
it seems to me that there are many who claim to be able to hear sounds or see len's characteristics and i think a blind test is the way to go. as proof that this is true. seems a fairly basic tenant. in hi fi mags they do blind tests all the time.
 
Actually, Joe, I think I can hear a great deal of difference between a Bösendorfer and a Yamaha, or a Steinway for that matter. About lenses I might not be as ready to take up this challenge, but I gladly bow to others....But that is neither here nor there. It seems to me that Magus understood your post differently than you meant it and I feel that this is the moment to apply Jorge's statement that this is due to electronic transmission errors. I am sure the two of you would never have gotten into this twist had the only thing between you been two glasses of beer instead of two keyboards and a considerable length of wire.
 
back alley said:
as this seems to be about my statement that i would like to see magus in a blind test, i still stand by that.
i don't see that as getting defensive at all.
it seems to me that there are many who claim to be able to hear sounds or see len's characteristics and i think a blind test is the way to go. as proof that this is true. seems a fairly basic tenant. in hi fi mags they do blind tests all the time.
Click to expand...

I think a blind test would probably make fools of all of us, myself included 🙂 Although it would be fun and interesting.

A revival of the Optics forum, perhaps, with stickies on tests? I'd be up for that.

For instance, I'd like to see the 40cron/40rokkor versus 35cron4th put to a blind test.

I readily admit that I frequently cannot tell the difference between my lenses in the same focal length from prints. All I know is that I like them enough to keep them, and I sell the ones I don't like.

We all infuse our own biases into what we see (favorite lenses, and favorite characteristics). So I take every endorsement as well as every attack on a lens with a grain of salt, sometimes buckets full 😉
 
jaapv said:
Actually, Joe, I think I can hear a great deal of difference between a Bösendorfer and a Yamaha, or a Steinway for that matter. About lenses I might not be as ready to take up this challenge, but I gladly bow to others....But that is neither here nor there. It seems to me that Magus understood your post differently than you meant it and I feel that this is the moment to apply Jorge's statement that this is due to electronic transmission errors. I am sure the two of you would never have gotten into this twist had the only thing between you been two glasses of beer instead of two keyboards and a considerable length of wire.
Click to expand...


years ago, i was a bartender.
i had a little test that i would administer whenever i low on funds.
i would bet someone that i could line up coke, ginger ale, 7 up, club soda and i think ginger beer (it was a long time ago) and if they could tell me which was which they won, if not i won. they were blindfolded.
i rarely lost.
we are all 'experts' with our eyes open, but blindfolded? another thing entirely.
joe
 
magus,

i am a simple man.
what do you want from me? to admit to an untruth?

what reason do i have to dislike you, i don't know you.

i do think and agree with a statement made above that you are somewhat polarizing in how you present your case to people.
there seems a certain arrogance but who am i to judge? as long as you do no harm i am happy.

joe
 
But please realise that your original statement conceals a certain attitude...

i have a problem with this statement but in the interest of peace and olive branches i will look inside and try to discover a new truth.
know thyself is what i will attempt. perhaps you will try this also...

the wrangle is now over!
joe
 
Back on track for to answer Wayne's orignal question bit i would say IMHO that the only way to be sure you like how a lens renders a subject is to check the negative on a lightbox with high quality lupe such as the Schneiders x or 4x or dare i say the Leica 5x when shooting on a film that you like the results from. This is easier of with b/w film as you don't have the orange colour base to distract you.
You can check the centre and corners and see how it differs from another lens version or brand, at different apertures then try to make a print and see how it's rendered.
Knowing if a lens is good performer is subjective i think as we all see and like different characteristics - this is evident in the Bokeh and ASPH V non ASPH threads. It all depends on what you shoot with and the subject matter - MTF charts don't really figure into real time shooting certainly in what i do when sometimes you're down to 1/15th shutter speed!

Showing Jpegs online is very hard to judge results by as a monitor's contrast and resolution can vary quite a lot and already the information has been compressed.

However having said all this few people actually have the chance to test out several brands of lens at the same time so online comparions certainly make a good starting point but i do think it's limited in what it can reveal about a len's performance and character.
 
>They are much better than is thought, unless one's monitor is really crappy. I am,
>of course, referring to black and white. If you compare photos on, say, PBase, it is
>remarkable how the fingerprint of individual lenses comes accross, even with
>different films!

Fair point KP, but i know Mitch Alland came in for a lot of stick on PNET (not surprises there) about his jpegs of from his GRD which threw into light the whole quality issue of the GRD and when i saw the actual prints (which were huge) and from 2MB Jpegs the results were outstanding so online comparisions/postings can be misleading...
 
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