Sunday musings: The silly super-fast lens craze

[johne37179]

Russ, I notice you didn't make that advice universal. You must be a wise man!

[leslie_cheung]

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<p><br />If you want something, and can afford it, its not silly.......If you are happy with it.</p>

 

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<p>Depends on the eye of the beholder...</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

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<p>First, the craze that you complain about doesn't exist.</p>

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<p>Perhaps I am looking too much over the shoulder of cinematographers.</p>

 

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<p>Second, even if there were such a craze, what's it to you? Why do you care what somebody else gets?</p>

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<p>That was explained in the second paragraph.</p>

 

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<p>Salt in your food is your friend? Ask any cardiologist. Most of the time it isn't.</p>

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<p>Correct answer:</p>

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<p>The double-board-certified cardiologist who saved my life said, "Don't go overboard on salt, but don't worry about it."</p>

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<p>Not only that, they tend to charge you just as much as a fast lens which is scary...</p>

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<p>Nikon's 85/1.8 is 1/3 the cost of their 85/1.4. :-)</p>

 

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<p>Sometimes the craze belongs to the clients, not the photographers. A lot of clients want fuzzy-background photos, so you get the fast lens to meet their needs.</p>

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<p>I guess I could just lie, shoot at f/2.0 and say that it was f/1.4. :-P</p>

 

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<p>I guess it's better just to make my own bread rather than use that excessively salty bread that they sell in grocery stores - yuk.</p>

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<p>I must agree with you there. We all need to be more involved in our food production and intake. According to what I have heard, American bread has too much sugar. Well I don't actually know and I hope that it isn't the case.</p>

<p>I realize that I did not define what I thought was 'silly'. Perhaps anything wider than f/2.0 (on average). A 50/1.8 is not silly but a 200/1.8 is. I doubt that you'll miss a shot because your lens was f/1.8 and not f/1.4.</p>

[georg_s1]

<p>Karim, <br>

a 200/1.8 is everything but silly - lenses can't be silly, maybe lens-buyers are.<br>

A well-known sportsshooter over here rarely leaves home without exactly this lens (a beaten-up Canon). He doesn't use this lens wide-open because he wants a short exposure-time or low ISO; he is shooting the 200/1.8 because he wants a very shallow DoF.<br>

It's not about missing a shot or not; it's about a look that some photographers want/like and others not.<br>

Your choice.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em>"Don't go overboard on salt, but don't worry about it."</em></p>

<p>That's because worrying is also bad for your heart.</p>

[tholte]

<p>"Yes, they look cool." That's a good enough reason for most people.</p>

[greg_peterson3]

<p>If a fast lens solves a real-world problem then it's a good investment.<br>

When shooting in Jazz clubs or backstage at a concert I carry an 85mm f1.4 and a 135mm f2.0<br>

It's not that I always shoot wide open, but the extra light and shallow depth of field help in focusing. <br>

And they look cool.</p><div></div>

[luis_g]

<p>Karim, you're right in the general sense. We see it here all the time, the endless drive towards a 1D III, 24-70/.28. 70-200/2.8L, and all the fast "L" lenses or their Nikon equivalents, etc. But as many others have stated, there are situations and types of photography where such lenses are extremely useful. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>From another angle, and this is my experience, the drive towards fast zoom lenses is perhaps just as silly (f2.8, fast?) if not more so than that towards fast single focal length lenses. What is necessary for the photojournalist or sports photographer, who cannot afford to miss a key shot is one thing (the special cases where fast zooms are important), but an amateur photographer, or one involved in a slower or more methodical pace, really needs no 12 or 15 glass element anvil-weighty and bulky zoom lens, when he can be served equally well by fixed focal length or slower zoom lenses in the 21 to 600 mm range. Of course, the ability to sit in one's truck or Lexus and shoot from one spot, rather than use simple leg work (and its potential for discovering new angles of vision), makes a zoom lens attractive to many, just as autofocus does. I have nothing against either, except that for 95% of my shooting I can easily do without either of these "convenience" innovatioins of the big camera industry.</p>

<p>A fast 35, 28 or 24mm lens, a 50mm optic, and an 85 or 90mm lens, are not unduly expensive propositions in many systems, provided you are content with an f2 lens (or f1.4 in some cases of the more economical series, like the V-C 40mm f1.4). Going to an f2.5, f2.8 or f4 alternative in those same focal lengths does not save you a great amount of money if you choose well, and the faster lens often also gets you an optic that performs better in the critical f2.8 to f8 range, where most shooting is done. And despite what they may tell you, a top single focal length lens is not surpassed in quality by the weighty zoom.</p>

<p>So the sillyness factor may not just be limited to very fast single focal length lenses (f0.95 to f1.4), but also to overweight f2.8 zoom lenses, and to those (especially zooms rather than faster single focal length lenses) which perform less well in the critical f2.8 to f8 (or f11) range. Sillyness, if it exists, sports many coats.</p>

<p> </p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Well, the fast zooms are the only ones that are really well corrected optically, so if you want high quality images (comparable with primes) and the ability zoom (which you could need for a variety of reasons) then the fast zooms are the way to go.</p>

<p>As to why one might want to zoom, well, if you're on a mountainside, you cannot move forward and back. If you want to adjust framing you can choose the prime and crop for fine tuning (losing quality which in a landscape image could be disasterous as a small format image doesn't have too much detail to begin with), or you can zoom and retain much of the quality. Without a crane, there are no alternatives. In photography or architectural details, sometimes one wants to juxtaposition a store sign and windows or other building details in the background ... and to adjust the relative proportions of these and keep framing at a desired setting, the only option is again between cropping and zooming, and usually zooming results in a better image (unless bokeh is significantly worse in the zoom than prime, which can be the case). Third, when photographing an event, where you may be following a moving subject approaching (e.g. bride walking down the aisle) if you want multiple images to choose the best expressions from, zooming lets you keep framing tight during the precession. If you are documenting a discussion in a lecture hall, you may be restricted to one place in the hall from which you must be able to frame good images of both the speaker and possible members of the audience having questions, or in a debate with multiple speakers you may have to shoot them both separately and together. So to do this without distracting lens changes a 70-200 is the way to do it with minimal fuss and usually negligible loss in image quality. In Nikon's case the 70-200II has superior autofocus accuracy and contrast to most of their primes, and the focusing is quieter, too. Sometimes events can be so unpredictable that you can not get a shot if you have to switch lenses. Sometimes this matters, other times not. It depends on how comprehensive you want to be in your coverage of the event.</p>

<p>IMO slow lenses (f/4 and slower) are nearly always useless for the events and people photography that I do. And while primes can be excellent, 70% of the images can easily be lost by using them. I still often prefer to use primes because of their relative compactness for the focal length and speed, simplicity of operation, low-light options, cleaner background rendition but I have no illusions about this matter .... sometimes the 70-200 is simply better from both absolute image quality point of view, as well as practicality due to its features (VRII, AF-S, zoom, tripod collar etc.) It's not compact but often it is nevertheless the best choice. And sales basically prove the point; it is among Nikon's top selling professional lenses. There is absolutely nothing silly about its use.</p>

<p>Similarly, at the other end of the spectrum is the 14-24/2.8 which is easily superior to other lenses in its range, by any brand. And sometimes this advantage is by so considerable that the use of any other lens in its place is just plain dumb. (I have used a bunch of Nikon and Zeiss top prime wide angles and I have to say the 14-24 is in a class of its own in many ways when looking at the final images.)</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>I don't have the 14-24/2.8. Does this test match your experiences:</p>

<p>http://www.photozone.de/nikon_ff/447-nikkor_afs_1424_28_ff?start=1</p>

<p>Resolution decreases as focal length increases and there's barrel distortion up to 21mm. But CAs are well controlled for a zoom. Not what I'd call 'superior' - it's better than the Zeiss 18/3.5 in most areas, but that is only because the Zeiss is so crap. It seems that if you want a good wide, you're going to have to look elsewhere or put up with the Nikon.</p>

<p>Cinema lenses seem to be the go if you want properly designed wide-angles, but most only cover APS-C. They're more affordable than you'd think but they are bulky.</p>

<p>BTW I don't consider f/2.8 zooms as silly. That's a good aperture to have although I'd be happy with f/4.0 if it meant better quality (but perhaps not for indoor use - my experience varies).</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>The 14-24 at 24mm works very nicely; a bit better than 24-70 at 24mm and ever so slightly worse than 24/1.4 in sharpness but the 14-24 autofocuses more reliably than the 24/1.4 and the zoom has less distortion. Compared with the 25/2.8 ZF all three Nikkors are (much) better at wide apertures and slightly worse at f/8-f/11. Compared with the 18/3.5 ZF the 14-24 has much better uniformity of luminosity and colour across the frame; the 18 ZF has such color shift towards the corners that I rarely got a color image of interiors with it that I could use. For nature (landscape) the 18 ZF works fine but overall I consider the 14-24 a much better lens. The 21 ZF I have not tried, but Lloyd Chambers has compared it extensively with other lenses. I'll post a summary of my interpretation of his test images: The 14-24 has better uniformity of tone and colour across the frame (which to me is important as I use it for interiors most), at f/4-f/5.6 the 14-24 is about equal with the 21 ZF in sharpness; the 21 ZF is better in detail contrast at f/2.8 in the center but has a lot of vignetting and correcting it will no doubt result in some residual non-uniformity. At f/8-f/11 the 21 ZF is better than the 14-24 in sharpness so there it has a useful niche. But the 21 has greater distortion (the 14-24's distortion at 21mm and 24mm is very low indeed, it's almost imperceptible). I can understand why a landscape photographer might prefer the 21 ZF optically, and it does allow filters to be attached easier than the 14-24. But for my applications the key feature of the 14-24 is that it gives consistently very high quality across all settings (at very close distances is becomes softer and the 24/1.4 pulls ahead here), focuses snappily and accurately (dance floor shots in weddings can be hard to do with manual focus), has low distortion at 17-24mm (which is where I would shoot it most), can be used even wide open with low vignetting, has high uniformity of colour so white walls in interiors look white without extensive photoshopping and so on. The drawbacks of the 14-24 are well known but in my opinion it is the best optic in its range (overall image quality). I get the shivers thinking about that color shift of the 18 ZF and the need to stop down quite a lot for a reasonably evenly lit frame that I'm not inclined to try the 21 ZF although I do use e.g. the 28 ZF which I find excellent overall, but it does have considerable field curvature (and the 14-24 at 24mm has better sharpness across the frame than the 28 ZF so that you can crop it from 24mm to 28mm framing and still come out ahead, at least at long distances where the field curvature of the 28 is pronounced). The 28 ZF comes more onto its own in closer focusing distances and of course has the f/2 aperture.</p>

<p>Anyway, optical design is always about compromise and weighting of different priorities but after going through all these lenses and others I have come to the overall conclusion that the 14-24 is the best overall performer in this focal length range, at least for interiors; for landscape I still find the quality excellent even if it doesn't have quite the Zeiss detail contrast at suffers slightly at close focus. I don't think anyone would make a mistake in choosing the zoom in this case. IMO the loss in sharpness from 14mm to 24mm in the case of the 14-24 can be classified as going from otherworldly to merely excellent. The tradeoff is that 14mm the distortion is quite high whereas it is negligible at 24mm. I do not hesitate for a second to use the 14-24 at 24mm (in fact most of my images from it are in the 20-24mm range) and the lens has never disappointed me in the quality of the outcome in a practical shooting situation. And that, in my opinion, is the highest complement a lens can get. By contrast a lens that is outstanding in 20% of situations and so-so at 80%, is not a lens I am interested in owning even if the 20% is better than another lens which is more consistent.</p>

 

[mjferron]

<p>Fast lenses have their place. Not a bad thing. I like the creativity artists can do with them. At F8 none of them are any sharper than my lowly Nikon AFS 18-70 that sells for $175 used. So when I need shallow depth of field or low light abilities fast is good. Walk around in daylight? My cheap zoom is ok.</p>

[walter_strong5]

<p>I too just HATE those super fast lenses and I'll CONTINUE to hate them right up to the time I can afford to buy one!</p>