Originally posted by les3547 Sorry, I read through the thread but missed that. Plus, I think I was already believing the sun was different just based on how different the pictures look from each lens.
If nothing changed but the lenses, then I am not sure Steve’s explanation accounts for the differences. To me it appears that the FA31 is capturing highlights far better than the FA35. For example, if you study your pictures taken at f8, the shadow detail in the green leaves to the left comes through better with the FA35, which indicates your camera exposed a bit longer than it did with the FA31, as Steve suggests. But look at the highlights, not just on the leaves, but on the flower petals, on the little leaf in front of the pink flowers, on the mailbox (?I think that’s what that blueish-gray thing is in the background), on the gutter above the window, on the tops of the shrubs in front of the window . . . and that is the case at every aperture setting.
Obviously, since your camera was setting the exposure time automatically, it would have adjusted accordingly with each change in aperture; but I found myself doubting that a 25% change in exposure would make such a big difference in capturing highlights.
So, knowing Steve is a fan of the scientific method
LOL!
Quote: I decided to test his hypothesis as best I could given I can’t exactly recreate your situation. I used my Voightlander 40mm (as close as I could get to your lenses), set up a back lit scene with a flower (I didn’t have any pink ones) and made sure the petals were a bit illuminated, I shot close, and I set it at f4 for all pictures. I then used the AEL button to set exposure times by moving the camera until it read what I wanted.
Since none of the exposures eliminated highlights the way the FA35 did, my conclusion is that it seems more likely the FA31 (in your photos) was transmitting a better dynamic range.
That was certainly nice of you to undertake just for me!
I think you're looking at a combination of two things here; I think the FA31 does have more contrast, at least for this copy (I've observed before that I cannot re-create this circumstance with my FA35; the highlights remain clear and strong); however, the FA35 has more detail in the shadows AND the highlights:
If you zoom in on, say, the top petal on the right-hand flower - this bit:
It's clear that the 'blown out' bit is larger on the FA31 than on the FA35.
This creates a situation that's difficult to explain; if we take a lens with low contrast and expose it identically, we blow BIGGER highlights, typically - highlights tend to "bloom" in lenses with low contrast. So to get greater detail with lower contrast lenses in the highlights, we'd need to underexpose; OTOH, that would cause detail to drop out of the shadows, yet we have greater detail both in the shadows and in the highlights - and it's not just a loss of black, it's actual detail.
If you look at your 1/125 and 1/160th samples, you'll see on the top right petal that the first image has blown out bits considerably greater than those in the 1/160th, but the darker bits don't appear significantly darker. You've got a white flower, which pegs all channels at the same time, whereas the original was a pinkish/peachish flower, which would peg the red channel first. Just observations of things that would have to be normalized...
I can certainly understand why some might prefer the FA31, but I don't think there's any grounds here for an "objectively better lens" assertion (although if we're talking fit, finish, and feel in the hand, the FA31 wins hands down); just "different lenses".
I don't have an FA31, but I had an FA43 for a while, and it produced
slightly more contrast than my FA35, but not nearly the difference we see here. A +5 on the contrast slider in lightroom rendered most images nearly identical. This looks more like a +35 to me.