difference of each brand's lens feeling

[great]

i am curious about each brand's lens feeling.

i heard that schnider and rodenstock gives little cold feeling.

and fujinon gives canon feeling.


but i want to see it as a picture.

is there a compare shot about this?

same camera. same composition. same film. and only different lens brands.

[BrianShaw]

i heard that nikon gives Nikon feeling. :o

[Dan Fromm]

How much will you me to do the work?

You'll have to buy the full range of lenses that cover at least 4x5 from each maker, color film of your choice, standard color target and strobes to ensure consistent lighting. If you want comparisons to Canon, you'll have to buy one each of every lens Canon ever made for 35 mm cameras as well as one each LTM, FD and EF mount body. The color film of your choice will have to be available in 4x5 sheets and in 135. Don't forget to budget for processing. I'll charge you a reasonable hourly rate.

You could economize a bit by doing without film and buying a spectrophotometer and standard light source so that each lens' transmission by wavelength can be measured. I'll leave the task of making sense of the transmission curves to you.

[djdister]

i am curious about each brand's lens feeling.

i heard that schnider and rodenstock gives little cold feeling.

and fujinon gives canon feeling.


but i want to see it as a picture.

is there a compare shot about this?


No, there is not.

[Alan Gales]

What have we got here? The long answer version Dan and the short answer version Dan? ;)

[jp]

How much will you me to do the work?

You'll have to buy the full range of lenses that cover at least 4x5 from each maker, color film of your choice, standard color target and strobes to ensure consistent lighting. If you want comparisons to Canon, you'll have to buy one each of every lens Canon ever made for 35 mm cameras as well as one each LTM, FD and EF mount body. The color film of your choice will have to be available in 4x5 sheets and in 135. Don't forget to budget for processing. I'll charge you a reasonable hourly rate.

You could economize a bit by doing without film and buying a spectrophotometer and standard light source so that each lens' transmission by wavelength can be measured. I'll leave the task of making sense of the transmission curves to you.

Then we'll criticize you for the choice of test subject as being unscientific or unrepresentative!

[BrianShaw]

Once upon a time (1980s). I heard folks sayin that Nikon LF lenses were more contrasty than Schneider. I could never see it.

[Richard Johnson]

In the day if you shot chromes for catalogs and used grey backgrounds, commercial photographers would stick to one lens, or at least one brand-series of lenses to minimize subtle color shifts between shoots. They would also try to use all the same emulsion over the entire project and be consistent with every factor they could. And it was still imperfect enough that they would often use the weakest Wratten gel filter to correct color between batches.

Nobody works like this anymore. Most outdoor photographers who still use chrome are shooting under an infinitely large soft box whose color temperature varies 6000 degree per day, inconsistently. The rest use negative film so any subtle differences between lenses' color cast is unknowable and moot.

[vinny]

Even if there was an example online or in print form, it'd be useless. I use fujinon, nikkor, rodenstock, schneider, and repromaster. I've yest to have someone ask which brand of lens was used for a print and if they did, I would not be able to tell them.

[Jody_S]

i can't tell the difference between the lenses listed.

It's sort of like the high-end stereo market; you can go from showroom to showroom listening to high-end gear, but what you're really listening to is differences in the room acoustics emphasized by badly-placed loudspeakers. Or you can read about what someone else claims he heard as a difference, on the Internet, and then you're most likely reading bullshit. Or, if you're really bad at this, you can have someone record them in showrooms and put the 28kbps recordings on the Internet, and you can listen for yourself on your computer speakers.

Use any of them, if your example isn't a bad copy then you'll be happy with the results.

[Alan Gales]

There are subtle differences in the glass but not enough to worry about.

With modern glass let price and condition be your guide as to which brand to buy.

[richardman]

You guys are doing it wrong.

For the highest details and resolution, you MUST get the APO Sironar S or the Symmar XL lens. The European elves work their magic dust so that the images are 30% brighter, the MTF 15% better from edge to edge.

Nikon lens, OTOH, is the bestest of the best Nippon has to offer. They have virgin Himalayan grinding glass with the finest sake for lubricant.

Fujinon! What a story to tell. They said that the Thunder God lives on Mt. Fuji and forges the Fuji glass himself, hence the name. The quality of such has not been seen by mortal men or women since the Heinan era, and that was quite a while ago.

Did someone say Dagor, son, pull up a chair and listen to the legends of the Gold Rim Dagor where St. Ansel....

[jnantz]

the lens feeling is onlypart of the equation because someone with skill
can make that feeling turn into something else.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Budweiser beer goggles (http://geoffobowral.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/beer-goggles.jpg?w=640) are definitely superior to Canon's (http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Camera-Lens-Mug_1.jpg).

[Tin Can]

I am getting my eyes examined. Tuesday. Can't see shit.

[David Karp]

The thing about this question is that it seems quite subjective. I had a friend who insisted that Rodenstock was far superior to Schneider, and that he would never use a Schneider. He "knew" that his Caltar lenses were Rodenstock. He was right about his 75 and 90. Problem was his 150mm Was a Caltar II-S and his 360mm was too and both were made by Schneider! I have heard others say that Nikon lenses are cold and Fuji are not, and that Nikon lenses match better with Schneider, etc. Coatings change over time. As mentioned, the color temp of the light changes all day long, film choice makes a difference, and all these things impact color rendering.

I solved this problem by a) not caring and b) shooting black and white. :-)

[Kirk Gittings]

In the day if you shot chromes for catalogs and used grey backgrounds, commercial photographers would stick to one lens, or at least one brand-series of lenses to minimize subtle color shifts between shoots. They would also try to use all the same emulsion over the entire project and be consistent with every factor they could. And it was still imperfect enough that they would often use the weakest Wratten gel filter to correct color between batches.

Nobody works like this anymore. Most outdoor photographers who still use chrome are shooting under an infinitely large soft box whose color temperature varies 6000 degree per day, inconsistently. The rest use negative film so any subtle differences between lenses' color cast is unknowable and moot.

Absolutely true back in the day. You could lay out a set of transparencies on a light table and see the difference so we stuck to the same brand and era of a given manufacturer so the coatings were consistent. Beyond that light table view it was irrelevant because printing or magazine reproduction would change it all anyway. Now? don't give a hoot because we don't shoot transparencies for reproduction anymore and it is easy to match a "look" in a file.

[William Whitaker]

Heck, my eyes each have different a color response, so can't be too worried about differences between lenses. My left eye is definitely cooler than my right. But they don't have a different "feeling". Maybe that's why I stick to black & white. Partly, anyway.

[Richard Johnson]

Absolutely true back in the day. You could lay out a set of transparencies on a light table and see the difference so we stuck to the same brand and era of a given manufacturer so the coatings were consistent. Beyond that light table view it was irrelevant because printing or magazine reproduction would change it all anyway. Now? don't give a hoot because we don't shoot transparencies for reproduction anymore and it is easy to match a "look" in a file.

For catalogs they would try to save money by ganging up the separations and doing several chromes all at one time, so it was imperative that they match. What made it hard is that they would want to take film shot a few years before and mix it with newly done images.... this was at the time they still used large process cameras and only the best stuff was scanned.

[hiend61]

Most of my lenses are Rodenstock. Lately I purchased one Schneider and a Nikkor, and I can´t say they have a different personality than the Rodenstock. Chose a lenses to match your needs and do not worry about the brand. All big four are fine.

[goamules]

The only variable is the coatings and the "quality" of modern glass right? I mean, aren't all modern LF lenses Planars? So there is no variation based on lens designs, other than the Cooke.

But, I would say you will feel differently depending on what is engraved on your lens.

[ic-racer]

i heard that schnider and rodenstock gives little cold feeling.


With respect to photography, seeing is more important than hearing.

[Dan Fromm]

I mean, aren't all modern LF lenses Planars?

Most modern non-tele non-wide angle lenses are plasmat types and derivatives. They're not all equal but the differences that matter are in coverage and sharpness, not in transmission.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

If you shoot transparencies, the difference in contrast between a Nikon lens and a Rodenstock can blow out details in a highlight versus not, all else being the same. That said, higher contrast lenses usually perform well on test charts, and and will do just great with neg films having 14 stops of dynamic range.

I'll suggest the best reason for sticking with one line or looking to consistency within brands is because the coatings and color balance and curves once brought into Photoshop tend to be easier, particularly when working in color.

[Dan Fromm]

Um, Ivan, for color reversal film shot with continuous illumination there's an elephant in the room that hasn't been mentioned. Shutter speeds. Slight exposure errors shift the color balance. By Occam's razor, these are the cause of most observed variations in color rendition between lenses.

Variations in the color of ambient light are another problem that was mentioned earlier in this discussion. I have a couple of f/6.3 B&L Tessars. The first couple of shots I took with one were strongly blue. After that, no excess blue. What happened. The first couple of shots were taken with the sun behind a cloud. The others were taken with the sun not behind a cloud. I was there and that's what I saw. Either that or something mysterious happened to the lens' glasses.