My 35mm lens is sharper than my Rollei; and a question

[m_dawg]

<p>All things equal the 135 lens should be sharper per mm (and large format lenses are usually sharpest at their shortest focal length for a given design) but I don't think the difference should be that dramatic.</p>

<p>I compared some scans from my Nikon F with those from my rz67. Per mm, the nikkors were generally sharper than the Mamiya lenses, but it turned out the majority of this had to do with shutter slap (not an issue with the rollei), errors focusing, the required twice-as-high shutter speed for equivalent fov, etc. All that dealt with, the Mamiya did well, especially with the 65mm lens, which is legitimately sharp. This is comparing scans from the nikon 9000 scanner. If you want great sharpness, upgrade to a Mamiya 7 (based on the link I'm about to post, it's the sharpest system) and use better technique.</p>

<p>Here's an interesting chart:<br>

http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/MF_testing.html</p>

<p>If you are upset by how soft 120 film is, don't go near LF! That said, LF is sharper than 135 over an equivalent fov. As for digital, who knows? I used to think it revealed lens flaws way better than film (as it should; digital is sharper) but then my rebel xt was more demanding than my rebel t2i, which gives great results wide open on cheap old nikkors. Who knows why?</p>

[asimrazakhan]

<p>yes it was casual. I'm more into enjoying photography rather than dissecting it. we were out on a desert expedition in our two Land Rover Defenders and I saw these camels. So we stopped on the side and took some shots. The shutter speeds were fast enough to not need a tripod. It was bright enough to use an optimal aperture. sorry i didn't set up a fully scientific photo studio in the middle of the desert. i just wanted a photo of a couple of camels!</p>

<p>Maybe the Rolleicord doesn't function up to full potential. Since 1969 it has only seen about 4 rolls of 120 go through it. By its looks, it can be considered in 'Like New' condition. But maybe from the lack of use it doesn't function as well as it could. But I don't see how the sharpness of the lens has been affected by lack of use over the past 4 decades. There's no fungus on it at all. </p>

<p>Take note that the Pentax Limited lenses (31mm, 43mm, 77mm) are considered some of the sharpest lenses in the market. I think there's even a Luminous Landscape article stating that these ARE the sharpest AF lenses available. I used to have the Pentax 50mm and 28mm before I upgraded to these three Limited lenses and I did see an improvement in my transparencies. The Limiteds are a tiny bit sharper but colors are noticeably richer. Compared to my old 28-200 Tamron lens, these Limiteds blow the zoom away.</p>

<p>.... but nothing scientific</p>

[m_dawg]

<p>Your results make sense. The f3.5 Rolleis seem to manage just over 60lp/mm at most by f11. The best 35mm primes could probably hit twice that or more at their ideal f-stops (the Master Primes are reputed to approach 200-400lp/mm projecting charts), not that it would register on any film.</p>

<p>Also, remember you might even get some shake at 1/125sec shutter speeds, and you'll almost certainly lose sharpness below that. Just be glad you have such awesome lenses on 135, but my guess is there are some medium format lenses (not many) that can compete with them, even on a per mm^2 basis, and 6x6 will still win for tonality (unless you bring digital into the equation).</p>

[tom_rittenhouse1]

<p>Let's see, the OP said that his mediocre MF lens is not as good as his world class top of the line 35mm lens? That is news?<br>

As Mr de Bakker says, quality standards do not differ between formats, only price standards. If you make a 50mm lens for 35mm and the same quality 200mm lens for 4x5*, the 200mm will cost about 10x as much to make as the 50mm. The resolution will be pretty much the same for both of them.<br>

* 50 & 200 because they would have pretty much the same field of view.</p>

 

[mauro_franic]

<p>My medium format most used lenses (6x7) Mamiya 50mmULD, 80mm, 110mm and 180mm are sharper and higher resolving (per mm of projected image on film) than my Canon 50mm 1.4, 60mm macro and 70-200mmL IS.</p>

<p>Film flatness on my MF cameras (Mamiya 7II and Mamiya RZ67II) is also perfect.</p>

<p>The resolution and contrast of my medium format lenses also far exceeds the resolving power of my scanner (Coolscan 9000) as well as the film (Techpan, TMAX and Velvia 50).</p>

<p>MF lenses are superior in almost every respect to 35mm lenses.</p>

<p>That said, the explanation why some people get substandard results is hard to pinpoint (poor camera, poor lens, bad technique, etc.)</p>

[m_dawg]

<p>How can you tell if your lenses are out-resolving your scanner or film if your sharpness is always limited by the scanner and film? The Mamiya rz lenses are quite good, though. But the 110mm never seemed that sharp to me.</p>

<p>And while medium format lenses are ridiculously expensive, I have the feeling that large format lenses are cheap to manufacture, just low-volume. Seems a lot easier making a 150g plasmat that's moderately sharp by f22 than a big fast 50mm prime, but I do not know about these things.</p>

[mauro_franic]

Microscope on the fresnel.

[mauro_franic]

The 110mm 2.8 in particular is top performing. It easily resolves tech pan s 300 lines pmm.

 

 

The 180mm is the only one slightly behind the group. It performs comparable to canons 50mm 1.4.

[ondebanks]

<p>We drifted into this topic as well on LuLa last week. Here's my response - like M Dawg above, I also referenced Chris Perez's tests, which disprove the notion that all MF lenses are inferior to 35mm on film.<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=50077.msg414500#msg414500</p>

<p>My Mamiya 200/2.8 APO is another MF lens which surely matches or beats its 35mm brethren in lp/mm. According to some, its big brother, the 300/2.8 APO, pips the Canon 300/2.8 L lens on the same DSLR.</p>

[m_dawg]

<p>I have a picture of a 35mm f1.4 nikkor, 65mm f4 rz67 lens (which I now regret selling), and 135mm sironar-s all side-by-side....</p>

<p>One of these lenses is huge, one is tiny. Large format does not mean large lenses, and lf lenses don't perform that well, either. They do have other advantages, however.</p>

<p>So I think the switch up from 135 to 6x7 is pretty much a 4x improvement assuming you're using the best lenses, all of which are sharper than most film. The step up from MF to LF is simply a matter of tonality. Maybe this is where the "myth" was started, that larger formats are not sharper. All my mamiya lenses were at least comperable to my nikkor primes and better in many ways.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Ho there! We're running the risk of losing sight of the very real format advantage!<br><br>While the myth about 35 mm format lenses supposedly being better than MF lenses is just that: a myth, let's not forget that it was born as a perversion of the very real observation that to equal (!) the results obtained by larger formats, something has to compensate for the small format.<br><br>(That's where it started, M Dawg: as an attempt to win people over for the miniature format, pointing out the obvious disadvantage - and at the time it really was obvious to anyone - promising that they would make up for it through the extremely high quality lenses (that's advertising talk) and great precision with with the camera was built - did anyone using a LF camera here ever worry about the fact that the front and back part of the camera were not made out of one solid piece, still left unseparated? Leica did.)<br><br>Since it could not be anything else, the natural and correct conclusion was that it had to be the lenses that should compensate for the small format disadvantage.<br>But since that "have to be better" by no means has turned out to be "are better", the format disadvantage still exists. With nothing making up for it, stepping up to a larger format is much more than just "a matter of tonality"!

[andre_noble5]

<p>I have one 35mm lens - a Nikon 300 2.8 AFS that is in a class by itself. Other than that, I still say 35mm lenses are going to be slightly sharper than Med format lenses. With large format lenses being slighly less sharp than MF lenses.</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>Andre, it sounds as if you did not read the posts above yours and that you are putting opinions (however valid) over accurate, established data.</p>

[denniswms]

 

<blockquote>

<p>The lenses are slow, the systems heavy and unwieldy.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yea.</p>

[photo5]

<p>35mm lenses can resolve higher detail than medium format lenses, everyone knows that. but the reason one shoots medium format is for the lower magnification ratio to make a print, and the improved tonality over 35mm. lower magnification ratio means sharper details on the final print. and larger prints can be made from medium format.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Dave, Dave...<br>I admire your courage, opening with a line like that.

<br>But...

[m_dawg]

<p>Well, to be fair I spoke at length with an engineer who used to work at one of the largest film companies and who knows quite a lot about optical design. He said three things that surprised me:</p>

<p>The less coverage, the sharper the lens, in general. Zeiss lenses really are that much better (purely from an engineering standpoint) than the competition (the competition in this case being Schneider and Mamiya, mostly; we were talking LF and MF). These differences won't show up on film 98% of the time so don't worry and this is even if you use perfect technique.</p>

<p>So just because some Hasselblad lenses are better than most 135 lenses doesn't mean 135 lenses aren't sharper in theory. Zeiss advertises their 21mm biogon, I think, as their sharpest wide angle lens in terms of lppmm. But in terms of lpph, their MF lenses are likely as good or better... So of course it depends how you measure.</p>

<p>Just for kicks I compared a good plasmat (180mm sironar-s) with a bad EF-S zoom (55-250mm IS, which is actually not so bad) on my t2i. I shot both around f9, which should be their sharpest aperture in the center, and then sharpened and adjusted contrast as I would normally. The result is...they're both fine, but the EF-S zoom is just slightly better. The contrast on the plasmat is terrible partially because I built an adapter out of PVC pipe (inside painted black, but still), partially because the coverage is 40 times the zoom's and that's a lot of stray light, but the zoom is also a little sharper.</p>

<p>Still, no one expects a plasmat to deliver stunning performance, so I can hardly complain.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>MF: Mamiya's 50mmULD, 80mmII and 110mm for example, from f4 to f11, outresolve Techpan 6x7 (and all films ever produced).<br /> 35mm: Canon's 50mm 1.4 and 70-200mmL 4 IS come close with a tad less contrast.<br /> 35mm other: Minolta's 50mm (1.4 and 1.7), 24mm and 135mm come closer to Mamiya's resolution.</p>

<p>This is all per mm of projected area.</p>

<p>As a consequence, resolution of these MF lenses in real life as captured on any film (6x7) is at least 4.75 times higher than the resolution captured by any 35mm lens on the same film (35mm).</p>

<p>From 35mm to 6x7 the gain in detail is proportional to the 4.75 times gain in film area.</p>