evphotography Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>I wanted to post this question, because I thought it might help some of the beginners just starting out into photography. I chose Canon's WA lenses as the subject because they are always getting criticized for being low performers. But I see so many post asking which is best lens to get, or comparing this brand to that one, or this lens to that one. Is pixel peeping really a good way to evaluate the performance of a lens or camera for that matter? Please let me know your thoughts and if I am off base here.</p> <p>Here are my thoughts. Every lens has its strengths and weakness, you just need to do a little research and find out what is the best lens for your type of shooting. I always test out any new lens I get to see how it performs at certain focal lengths and apertures, then use it for it's strengths and I can get some excellent results from it. If I only worried how it looks on a screen at 100% viewing and not real world prints, then I wouldn't want to buy any of their lenses.</p> <p>Finally here is an example of what I am talking about. I choose a film image that was shot on 6x7 film and scanned because I think it does a better job of getting my point across. The scan is a Tango Drum scan from West Coast imaging in California. Let me mention they don't apply any sharping during the scanning process, they feel it is better not to and let photographer sharpen the image to taste in post processing. For anyone knows anything about scanning, a Tango drum scan is one of the highest quality scans you can get for film and many professional photographers use West Coast imaging to do their scans, like Micheal Frye, Glen Ketchum, etc.</p> <p>I choose this section for the crop because I wanted some of the sky in the image to show what a fine grained film like Fuji Velvia 5o looks like when viewed at 100%. This isn't the sharpest section by any means because the plain of focus was toward the foreground. No sharping was applied to this image, pretty impressive, yes? I don't think so</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evphotography Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Now here is an example of what the image actually looks like at print size which is a 24x28" print at 240 dpi. No sharping was applied to this image posted either. If you saw the actual print with post sharping applied it is even more impressive.</p> <p>So I hope this is a fair example of what I am talking about, if it isn't please let me know.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_ziegler2 Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Eric,<br> That is an excellent example. It's too easy to pixel peep with digital images on a computer and think you have a problem. In film days the equivalent alternative was not available.<br> Most starting photographers are printing to 4 x 6 anyway. As long as the print is sharp they should not have an issue with pixelation.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
15sunrises Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>This is a great point. I was guilty of this when I got my Sigma 10-20 for my 30d (a bit of a different comparison). The funny thing is, the only reason I did it, was because I saw a bunch of other people doing it. 100% crops are pretty demanding, and now people are peeping with the lenses wide open as well. If a lens isn't tack sharp at it's widest open setting, chances are, it isn't going to ruin many of your shots.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zml Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Digital is not to blame - try "silver halide peeping" if you want to make your hair stand up in horror: get a good 4x or 6x loupe (APO if you can), a color-corrected light table and take a good, critical look at your slides, especially in the corners...</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everheul Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Here is an example of a scanned slide (E100S) tripod mounted shot. 200%...who enlarges that much?</p> <p><img src="http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/006/006icO-15608984.jpg" alt="" width="854" height="450" /></p> <p>I agree with you about to much derision based on "pixel peeping"</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonny_mac Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Unfortunately poorly designed websites like 16.9.net that encourage this sort of thing only make the problem worse. I guess there is always an amount of gear lust and we are all part of the problem at its heart. <br> I have the 14mm f/2.8 II, and it is an amazing lens. Sharp in the corners, especially stopped down a bit. the 16-35 and 17-40 are great lenses as well.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._j._young Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>As the person whose post I think might have motivated this thread I agree with you that pixel peeping is of very limited value. Most pictures should be evaluated on the basis of how they will ultimately be used and since that's often 8"x10" at most sharpness or even low-noise considerations may be oversold. On the other having better equipment encourages us to abuse it. Many photos are now taken at high isos with wide aperture lenses simply because its possible and convenient so the performance of a lens wide open is important. Sharpness here is, however, rarely important because of limited dof and high noise. I often find that images that look poor at 100% because of high iso noise and poor color rendition also lack something at 8"x10".</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>I don't fully agree with the arguments here. I think apples and oranges are being compared.<br> A 100 per cent crop of a very large file such as a tango scan of 6x7 film need not be very sharp as it actually a huge image to start with and does not to be enlarged many times to produce a print such as your 24x28 image.<br> On the other hand a 100 per cent crop of a 4 megapixel image taken on an APS-C sensor does need to be very sharp if it is to be enlarged to 24x28 because it is being enlarged many times from its original image size (of about the size of a postage stamp).<br> The pixel peeping and sharpness debates are largely to do with small formats such as 35 mm film, APS-C and FF digital, because it is quite demanding producing a large print from such a small format.<br> It is pretty clear to me that some of my older nastier 35 mm lenses were beyond their limits when producing a 13x19 print.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregf Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>I would have to agree, looking as most slides with a 4x lupe, they all looked pretty well. The same with enlarging them to 8x12. It's only with digital that some people obsess over a minor flaw in the photo.</p> <p>I just converted to primarily digital about six months ago, asd I was shocked at the way people evaluate their photo's! When I view my images at monitor resolution and size, if it looks good there (24" monitor), then it will look just as good when enlarged to 8 x 12. No need to question where you have a good copy of the lens, your AF is bad, you did not shoot at the optimum aperture.<br> Photo's are as much artistic (composition and lighting) as they are technical. It seems that too many people are today obsessing of the latter.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_bellenis Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>"Photo's are as much artistic (composition and lighting) as they are technical. It seems that too many people are today obsessing of the latter."</p> <p>Absolutely. In fact they are much MORE artistic than technical. Photography is about CONTENT primarily... subject, lighting, composition, impact, emotion, timing, originality, color (or not), etc. Digital has opened up a Pandora's box for pixel peepers, test chart shooters and technical obsessives. Unfortunately it has also started a trend of over-sharpening and over-saturating mediocre images in an attempt to make them "pop" and give them impact (but that's another story). </p> <p>Obviously one has to understand photography's technical aspects - and as a professional it is one's obligation to use the best equipment available. However, when the pursuit of technical perfection becomes more important than creating stunning images, something has gone wrong. There are many interests under the wide umbrella of photography including camera collecting, the science of lens testing and the pursuit of technical perfection, shooting for fun, profit and for art's sake. All are, of course, equally valid - whatever floats your boat... However, it's definitely a mistake to overstate the importance of analyzing an image at 100% when your primary concern is the creativity and content of your photographs. <br> <br /></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregf Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>Some of my best photo's have issues with to wide of an aperture and/or an area out of focus. Do you know how many people comment on those two minor technocal details? Hardly any, when they do, it's only when they look for five minutes to give a critique.<br> Most photo's are determined to be good or bad within the first couple of seconds of someone looking at it. If they like what they see, it's good, at most people make that determination based on composition, not that "the corner's aren't sharp"<br> I feel very lucky to have learned photography in the days of Kodachrome. I just never obsessed over "the sweet spot" in aperture or focal length of a lens. The first impression of the shot is either spot on, or it s*cks.<br> Techinical detail are important, but they rarely make the shot.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evphotography Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 <p>I appriciate all of you who have posted their opinion, there is a lot of great points made I hope will help some others to stop worrying so much about the minor flaws of a lens. I especially want to give a nod to Greagory Ferdinandsen last post, he nailed it dead on. I too feel lucky I learned photography back in the film days. Thanks all for your posts everyone, much appreciated.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everheul Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <blockquote>On the other hand a 100 per cent crop of a 4 megapixel image taken on an APS-C sensor does need to be very sharp if it is to be enlarged to 24x28 because it is being enlarged many times from its original image size (of about the size of a postage stamp).</blockquote> <p>Geoff: A 24x28 enlargement from a 4x5 negative would be a 6x enlargement. If you want to go that large from an aps-c sensor that's like expecting to use a yugo to tow a semi and then bemoan the Yugo engine lacks acceleration.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Eric this is exactly the point why I think you are comparing apples and oranges. You have a 100 per cent crop from a 6x7 film and then say despite it not being very sharp it doesn't matter too much because it can produce a very nice large print. What is demonstrates is large format is far superior for enlargements and much less demanding on lenses because it does not need to be enlarged many times to get a large print.<br> It does not follow that people obsess too much about Canon wideangle lenses (though they may well do), as the much smaller format is far more demanding on lenses if you are aiming to print big. If you had done a 100 per cent crop from APS-C or 35 mm which was fuzzy and then shown it could still produce good enlargments that would be proof, but this is not what you have done.<br> The other thing I would add is that this seems to be a technical forum, so the questions are naturally heavily biased towards the technical performance of equipment. I doubt most of the posters here spend their days shooting test charts despite their questions. I'd be the first to agree that when photos suck it is rarely the fault of the equipment..</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everheul Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>I'm arguing that obsessing over optical performance of 35mm lenses (even for aps-c sensors) is useless, as this format was never meant to be enlarged to the degree of "pixel peeping"</p> <p>I'm arguing that if you need to enlarge to the degree that CA and other lens aberrations are becoming objectionable then you need to go to a larger format.</p> <p>btw, I agree that when photos suck, it's because they suck, not because of the equipment.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Ok I misunderstood the point you were making. I agree APS-C or 35 mm film or digital was never meant for really big enlargements, but that doesn't stop people from trying to do it, hence the obsession with lens peformance for this format.<br> BTW I think many of the respondents to this post didn't seem to understand your point either.<br> Large and medium format would be nice if it weren't so inconvenient. Try getting a drum scan, let alone development of 220 film here in Australia.<br> Cheers. Geoff.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everheul Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Surely you can send film to Sydney for processing and scanning?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 <p>Yes this can be done, just not convenient, quick or cheap compared to small format digital. Drum scan a minimum of $200 and about $40 to process a single roll of 220. Imacons can be done for around $40.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evphotography Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 <p><em>"Eric this is exactly the point why I think you are comparing apples and oranges. You have a 100 per cent crop from a 6x7 film and then say despite it not being very sharp it doesn't matter too much because it can produce a very nice large print. What is demonstrates is large format is far superior for enlargements and much less demanding on lenses because it does not need to be enlarged many times to get a large print."</em><br> <em></em><br> I think that maybe you misunderstood the point of my posting Geoff, or maybe I didn't explain in enough detail the point I was trying to get across. I wasn't trying to advocate that someone with 10-12MP camera try to make a large 24"-28" print from them. Even though I know some people do, that is a hole different subject altogether. I choose the 6x7 film image because I felt that a lot of photographers, especially new ones, probably have never seen what I drum scan from MF film looks like at 100% and so I thought that it was a better example for the point I was trying to make. Which is if you are making prints that are within the limits of what a camera can produce at it's given sensor resolution for that print size, then not to obsess so much about performance of a lens. Meaning that if you have say a Canon 5D at 12.8MP and are making prints no larger then 12x18 which is about 240dpi, then don't worry if the lens is little soft in corners. It is hardly going to be noticeable anyways.</p> <p>But you are correct that a lot of photographers do want to make very large prints from say a 10-12MP camera and that's fine. If that is the case then they better have a lens that is tack sharp from corner to corner, because they are going to need it. But then again that doesn't advocate poor performance of a lens, only they are trying to push their camera and lenses to a limit they were not designed for. So maybe that is another subject a lot of newer photographers need to be made aware of also.<br> <em><br /></em></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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