The Problem with Modern Lenses.. transfered to those new to view camera image making

[paulbarden]

What is the problem? A lens can't be 'too sharp' anymore than one's tripod can't be 'too stable.'

There is such a thing as harsh, contrasty sharpness that certain lenses exhibit, and it can be unsuitable for certain applications. I’ve discovered that my Symmar-S 240 is brutally sharp when used for wet plate collodion work: hard and clinical, and it gives plates an unpleasantly harsh look. This is what I think of when someone says a lens is “too sharp” for their tastes. Many of my favorites are older, uncoated lenses.

[paulbarden]

I can't imagine a world without lens multicoating (love to shoot subjects backlit) and at least aspherical lens elements to correct spherical aberation and astigmatism in camera lenses (and to the extent possible, reduction in field curvature). Don't most of us want lenses where edges, corners and center resolution are comparable so that when we stop down to say F5.6-8 (4x5, F22), most everything in sharp focus assuming adequate DOF?

I won’t speak for anyone else, but I certainly have little interest in the sterile perfection of such things. I’d be bored senseless if that’s all I pursued.

But "accurate" color is the continuing issue with digital IMO. Retro lenses don't get us any closer to reality.

Not all of us want to illustrate “reality”. Personally, I’m not enamored of “just the facts” image making. You make it sound like that is the only worthwhile goal in photography.

[Ari]

I like what's being offered these days in the digital world.
There are far too many pixel-peepers around, as always, so the pointless hunt for perfection continues. Beyond that there are some truly beautiful images being made, with craft and skill, and with digital cameras.
The Fuji GFX 50S is proving to be a lighter digital version of the Pentax 67II, and only marginally more complicated to use.
The lenses and camera combine to make rich, detailed, but not bitingly-sharp, images. Much like the smooth P67 lenses of yore.

How much of the pixel peeping carries over to LF? Probably lots, but old-time LFers can be just as bad sometimes.
Eventually, hopefully, they realize that focus and sharpness are vastly overrated, and they then settle down to make some decent images.

[paulbarden]

How much of the pixel peeping carries over to LF? Probably lots, but old-time LFers can be just as bad sometimes.
Eventually, hopefully, they realize that focus and sharpness are vastly overrated, and they then settle down to make some decent images.

Hear, hear!

[pgk]

Whilst looking at a finished print, why should one care whether or not the contrast was increased via using a newer, higher-contrast lens, a longer development time, or a slider in software after scanning?

Does this fundamentally change the way you view a print? Are there any rules that state one way of increasing contrast (as just an example of "image manipulation") is the "correct" way of doing it?

Depends. Rules? Not sure there are any really. FWIW My mother has a Cibachrome print on the wall that was made from a Kodachrome slide that I took whilst a photography student in ~1980.So iIt is now over 40 years old and she (and I) still enjoy viewing it - she sees it everyday and is not bored with it. So the print does what it was intended to and has survived the rigors of being constantly viewed very well, and far better than I ever anticipated.
However. As many will be aware, Cibachrome prints were not without their problems. This particular one was made by a printer who actually used a physical unsharp mask to do so and is probably as good a print as was available from 'wet processing'. I remember that the slide was shot on a Nikon FM using a borrowed 28/3.5 Nikkor which had a hard life with sudents using it and even the Ai prong had been broken off it. To a viewer of course, both are irrelevant. I recently copied the original slide in 4 sections, merged them and cleaned (40 years worth of dust!) and adjusted the file and then had it bubbljet printed by a very good printer. Technically this is a 'better' print. I will eventually frame it and put it up and it does bring out every ddetail on the slide with a little better tonality than the Cibachrome print.
Both prints are viewed for the image though, not for their technicalities which were merely a means to an end.
Back to the original question. I have just sold off some 'classic' Leica lenses because I realised that I preferred the output from modern equivalents more - based simply on viewing the images they produced. Pretty as they were, the 'classic' lenses did not produce the images as I wanted them to be. For large format I prefer very much older, 'dreamy' lenses. To me the two have very different roles to play, so I suppose the answer I would give is that personally I don't see large format as needing the traits of digital lenses. But we are all different and have differing desires of our imagery.

[Tin Can]

Here Hear!

I agree

I wonder about the reasons for endless gaslighting of anything here without posting as good an emulation as they can produce

Poster #2 has admitted to using a Digi, then denies

I respect the one woman expert we have, yet no donuts yet

I really appreciate this post by a proveable image making expert

Paul Cunningham

Yes, direct viewing in a gallery is best, but locations are always expensive, so we live on computers now

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...=1#post1623515

[Jody_S]

But isn’t photography by definition illustrative, not impressionistic?

Well my passport photo certainly is. So was my latest MRI. I prefer thinking of photography as storytelling though. Sometimes that story involves reproducing a view of something with the greatest possible clarity and detail. Most often not, or at least that's not what I'm trying to do. I don't tell other people what their photography is or should be, because theirs is not my story to tell.

[Tin Can]

The problem with experimenters

old as the hills

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...lass-look.html

[Michael R]

Perhaps you’re not looking in the right places. Charles Cramer was mentioned earlier in this thread. He transitioned to digital. Superb work. Doesn’t look digital or analog, just looks terrific.

Well, let's see.... digital photography has been around two or three decades. The dinosaurs lasted many millions of years, and turtles and crocodiles were in existence even before them, and are still around. Certain designs just make sense. And art? I'd rather see Lascaux in person (though now that's sealed off from the public, and one has to see it in a faux replication), than every "street art" neo-Phenom splatter in every museum in the world. Some folks got it right the first time, and long before Lascaux itself. Latest/greatest technology is a poor substitute for real home cooking. Choose your kitchen appliances according to your own needs, and use em well. But the gadgetry itself is just the tip of the iceberg. Likewise, fine lenses. I use em, but they don't do the work by themselves.
I do appreciate that Bosch convection oven behind me, which will do the turkey on Thursday in less than an hour and a half!

But I do have my own hypocrisies. Responding to Mark, hammer's DON'T drive nails. Not anymore. Nail guns do. I had a lot to do with establishing that trend in the first place, at least here in the Western half of the US. Either adapt or go extinct, financially, if you were a contractor. But I'm not a commercial photographer, so can take my time and still do real-deal home cooking in the darkroom the way I want to. Optimal quality is the incentive, and that's how I do it. No commercial lab can afford the time.

[Michael R]

“All photographs are illusions”. (John Sexton)

And what is clinical supposed to mean? First it was tabular emulsions that were clinical. Then digital. Sharp lenses. Please.