Professional opinion states: no old lenses for hires FF sensor!

[RaduA]

According to recent review FF Canon at dpreview: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III Review: 23. Photographic tests: Digital Photography Review only the best of the best lenses will do. So sorry to the guys that insists ad nauseum that only a Pentax FF body is needed because the lens base from decades ago will provide the rest. Excerpts from the article by Simon Joinson:

“ Only the best glass will do

When entry-level products like the EOS 450D are out resolving the lens they're supplied with it's hardly surprising that Canon's flagship high resolution body demands the very best optics to really shine, and like the EOS-1Ds Mark II before it, the Mark III is very unforgiving of lens edge softness, chromatic aberrations and lens shading/vignetting, and will quickly reveal any under performing lenses in your kit bag. If you're not using primes and 'L' zooms don't be too surprised if you don't get the optimum results from the Mark III. Having such huge files also magnifies any focus or camera shake issues. Taken together these considerations make the Mark III a camera that - outside the controlled environment of the studio - challenges you to get the best possible out of it.

Edge softness / chromatic aberrations

As mentioned above you must be mindful of the limits of the lens when shooting with the EOS-1Ds Mark III (much more so than you would on a cropped sensor camera). These limits occur most often at extreme wide angle and/or large apertures (even with the most expensive professional 'L' lenses). On the counter side you do of course get the full wideangle capabilities of a lens like the 24-70mm f2.8 L, something you don't with a cropped camera.”

Note that the Canon has “only” 21 Mp lower than the ~ 25 Mp expected for a future FF Samsung sensor. I am sure that some fanatics will disregard even this but I want to warn some good people that may misbelieve they will get away only with a new body and use that 70’s Takumars.

Of course all this is purely theoretical until we get a FF from Pentax but I think it will shade a new light that new lenses MUST be made and so I think Pentax could bring a FF system on the market in end 2009 to the earliest.

Radu

[kenyee]

Interesting...the theoretical limit for the "best" lenses is 15mpix on aps-c lenses and 30mpix for ff lenses from an article someone posted on photo.net. I'm surprised the Canon FF resolution limit is being tested w/ only 21mpix...
Sounds like it's time for medium format to come back ;-)

[cpopham]

Originally Posted by RaduA

As mentioned above you must be mindful of the limits of the lens when shooting with the EOS-1Ds Mark III (much more so than you would on a cropped sensor camera). These limits occur most often at extreme wide angle and/or large apertures (even with the most expensive professional 'L' lenses).

Note that the Canon has “only” 21 Mp lower than the ~ 25 Mp expected for a future FF Samsung sensor. I am sure that some fanatics will disregard even this but I want to warn some good people that may misbelieve they will get away only with a new body and use that 70’s Takumars.

Originally Posted by kenyee

Interesting...the theoretical limit for the "best" lenses is 15mpix on aps-c lenses and 30mpix for ff lenses from an article someone posted on photo.net. I'm surprised the Canon FF resolution limit is being tested w/ only 21mpix...

Of course, a lot of these numbers are back of the envelope calculations from people who are not actually camera engineers, or scientists in the various fields of optics - that doesn't mean they aren't accurate, but I'm personally not sure how much to trust them.

I understand (and I am not a camera engineer) that a lot of the problem is caused by differences in how a digital sensor reacts to light compared to film. Surely this is something which improvements in sensor technology, and things like microlenses are able to conteract to some degree, and as these technologies improve the difference between the older lenses on film / digital must surely decrease

[borno]

translation: don't use your markIII with the canon kit lens

[Frogroast]

Originally Posted by borno

translation: don't use your markIII with the canon kit lens

Translation - sell a kidney and you can afford the body and a decent lens

[RaduA]

Originally Posted by kenyee

Interesting...the theoretical limit for the "best" lenses is 15mpix on aps-c lenses and 30mpix for ff lenses from an article someone posted on photo.net. I'm surprised the Canon FF resolution limit is being tested w/ only 21mpix...
Sounds like it's time for medium format to come back ;-)

Hi, Ken

I guess you're reffering to this article: Do Sensors “Outresolve” Lenses?. I am not an expert and we have here much more qualified people than me but to analyse this but I guess the ideal to achive high performance with a hires sensor is to have lenses than can perform at lower f numbers. So this means very high quality glass capable to perform very good from wide open and with best performance around f5.6 for an APS-C sensor. In oposition to this older glass tends to sharpen up around f8 which is no good. Look at the new Sigma 50/1.4 (photozone and dpreview) which slothers both Canon 1,4 and Nikon 1,4 in resolution.

Radu

[morfic]

You will be surprised to find that they did not talk about Takumars, or other Pentax glass, if anything that say that even the best Canon glass struggles on the latest sensor.
Which may simply reveal a Canon design choice not working out on their latest sensor.
Not that i'm against new FF lenses anything to mount on my Super Program for cheap is welcome.

[pw-pix]

Recent test/review of the Sigma 50/1.4 on d p review suggests the same thing, it clearly beat the Canon and Nikon and Pentax equivalents when tested on full frame bodies. The older designs are not able to perform as well in edge to edge sharpness.
Designs need to be optimised for digital, although advances in microlens design for sensors seem to be helping to restore some of the light loss and other problems encountered when using lenses on full frame 35mm sensors.

[philmorley]

so if you're going to spend US$8000 on a camera, your $25 cosina 70-210 f5.6 off ebay may not perform real well

[little laker]

If someone's willing to buy me an $8,000 body I'll test your theory for you Phil

[Gooshin]

good read(s)

[RaduA]

Originally Posted by philmorley

so if you're going to spend US$8000 on a camera, your $25 cosina 70-210 f5.6 off ebay may not perform real well

I wonder how much of this 8000 USD price tag it's real and how much it's only because it's the only over 20Mp DSLR at the moment and it really seems canon's last edge they have over Nikon. Considering that many MF cameras starts around 10-12K and anyway the canon is mostly a studio camera for me at least it doesn't make much sense.

Radu

[ryan s]

I'm curious to know how many people will actually buy a FF Pentax/Samsung...because it seems like everyone here will with all these threads and "advice" offered to the mfr's...

[mithrandir]

Don't rule out the fact that when you shoot with a cropped sensor (rather than FF) you are shooting through the center (sweet spot) of older full frame lenses. This gives you better performance from a less expensive older lens (so some extent).

[cpopham]

Originally Posted by RaduA

Mark III is very unforgiving of lens edge softness, chromatic aberrations and lens shading/vignetting

Just to play devil's advocate - the instant assumption on the part of the reviewer is that these issues are caused by the lens, and not by some particular characteristic of the sensor, or interaction between particular lenses and the sensor. It's not terribly scientific, is it?

Originally Posted by ryan s

I'm curious to know how many people will actually buy a FF Pentax/Samsung...because it seems like everyone here will with all these threads and "advice" offered to the mfr's...

I, for one, will be sticking with APS for a long while I think. As a hobbyist I believe the smaller / lighter / cheaper lenses deliver much better value for money at the moment.