NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: Wally on October 02, 2016, 19:13:38
-
Subject says all. Evaluation shall be on the rendition rather than individual technical performance.
Goal is to pick the right / most suitable lens depending on picture subject.
Lenses in questions are a bunch of 50mm Nikkors from 5.8cm 1.4 to AF-S 58mm 1.4
This is probably a very subjective question. Thanks!
-
There are many ways to do this, even for an 'objective' assessment.
To remove too much subjective influence, find a suitable test subject, put your camera on a tripod, and step through each of the candidate lenses in turn. Make at least three different shots with each lens (wide open at f/1.4-f/2), medium aperture (f/5.6), and stopped all the way down (f/16 should be available on all 50 mm lenses presumably).
If the lenses don't provide EXIF, ensure you keep copious notes of lens/settings to consult later.
Go through the test shots and look for chromatic aberrations, signs of flare and veiling, image contrast, colour rendition, and the way out-of-focus elements are rendered. Sometimes the rendition of the unsharp zones on either side of the plane of focus can be drawn very differently.
-
Strange coincidence - I had just done this before reading the thread - but only wide open and (guesstimate) f5.6.
I have 13(!) different ways of primes getting around 50mm.
I chose distance around 1.5m (typical head shot/top body distance) and shot using Sony A7II using magnified focus peaking - chose the Sony so that no chance of magic in camera assistance. I could have controlled a lot more eg exposure by shooting manual but I didn't have a huge amount of time and I did want to get a rough estimate of how each lens rendered.
-
The Nikon 50mm 1.8s
-
The micro Nikkors and Zeiss
-
The 58mm including Helios
-
The sweet SMC Takumars
-
Interesting comparison and differences. My aim is to focus on different Nikkors only ;)