Originally posted by rparmar While this may be a popular humanist sentiment, it is also false. In fact, as one gets better as a photographer the little differences in lens rendering, and how one uses these differences, becomes more important, not less.
I don't think it is a proper thread to (re?)start this argument. In my opinion (which naturally could be different than yours, Robin), it takes great amount of experience and thoughtful analysis of results in order to actually understand these little differences and take full advantage of them. Personally, I don't think I am any near to that. Until this happens, FA limited lenses
for me are just good lenses, no less and no more.
Originally posted by rparmar The FA Limiteds were designed by Jun Hirakawa to render differently from all other optimised lenses. We call it "magic" because it's simpler than saying: "Rather than perfectly correcting for field curvature, the FA Limited lenses completely correct astigmatic difference in both meridional and sagittal subject planes, allowing small amounts of field curvature to remain."
Thank you for explanation. Indeed using a single word is better for brevity. Unfortunately, it was chosen to use word "magic" to denote perfectly technical, measurable and rather non-magical things. Evidently, after some time the real underlying meaning of "FA limited lenses magic" becomes forgotten and the hype is born.
But then again, I should digress here, so as not to provoke a flame. I am considering producing a write up on the matter and may be starting a separate thread, but not just yet.