[normhead]

With pp and resize, I'd say extremely hard to guess. Especially with all that depth of field.
So I'll roll the dice and say...

I agree to a point... where we have compared actual photos done of the same photo scene and same focal length, seconds apart, sometimes the results are still very close... but, also, at 3000x2000 pixels it's impossible to tell D800 image from a K-5 image... so taking images down to 1080 does put you at a disadvantage for sure. But I'm expecting anyone would be able to pick out the 18-55. I can, but that doesn't mean much, I know what to look for.

[geomez]

I agree to a point... where we have compared actual photos done of the same photo scene and same focal length, seconds apart, sometimes the results are still very close... but, also, at 3000x2000 pixels it's impossible to tell D800 image from a K-5 image... so taking images down to 1080 does put you at a disadvantage for sure. But I'm expecting anyone would be able to pick out the 18-55. I can, but that doesn't mean much, I know what to look for.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong in setting up the challenge, I just suck at these things and lack the ability to make an educated guess.

[Tanzer]

C'mon, nobody guessing the specific lenses? I'll be the first to make a serious fool of myself.
1. 18-135
2. DA35
3. FA50
4. 18-55
5. DA21
6. Tamron 17-50
7. Tamron 90
8. 60-250

[Trudger1272]

What the heck, why not?!
1.DA18-135
2.FA50
3.Tamron 17-55
4.Tamron 90
5.DA21
6.DA35
7.DA*60-250
8.DA18-55
Probably way off though, but it wouldn't be the first time!

[NZUnicorn]

This may make me look like a real numpty ...

Zoom 3, 4, 7, 8
Prime 1, 2, 5, 6

1.Tamron 90
2.DA21
3.DA*60-250
4.DA18-55
5.DA35
6.FA50
7.Tamron 17-50
8.DA18-135

[RobA_Oz]

This is an interesting little challenge, and one I'm not sure I'd be up for, Norm. I'll look at these tonight on my 27" iMac. The IQ on my work Lenovo pretend iMac isn't up to it, I'm afraid.

Nonetheless, I'd be interested to see you repeat this exercise with a D800 and a K-3, with equivalent lenses and settings. (Cat + Pigeons = ??)

[formercanuck]

Looks like central Ontario... so I'll go for 1567 as zoom, 2348 as prime

[normhead]

This is an interesting little challenge, and one I'm not sure I'd be up for, Norm. I'll look at these tonight on my 27" iMac. The IQ on my work Lenovo pretend iMac isn't up to it, I'm afraid.

Nonetheless, I'd be interested to see you repeat this exercise with a D800 and a K-3, with equivalent lenses and settings. (Cat + Pigeons = ??)

I guided a photography trip last year where one of the clients took pictures in the same general area took them to with a D800, somewhere I have the link to his pictures, if I can find a couple of his pictures that are similar to some of mine... I'll give it a try.

Good to see so many good sports, you guys are true gamers.

[ChristianRock]

This is a very good thread, because it shows that after you do PP and reduce the size of your picture, it pretty much doesn't matter what lens you used - all that matters is what focal length you used You give the look you want in PP and that's it for the shot. We do worry too much about this lens vs that lens, zoom vs prime, etc.

So my guesses are just that, guesses. Just gonna try to be a good sport as well These don't look like SOC shots so there's really no way to tell which one had how much contrast and saturation and sharpening added... and so on.

Anyway, here's the guesses.

1. 17-50? I haven't had this lens so it's a pure guess, could easily be 18-135
2. I think this is the DA 35 2.4.
3. FA50? I'm really guessing
4. I'm thinking 60-250 because of the resolution and color, but it could easily be the 90 or 50
5. 18-135? I can't tell it apart from the 17-50 honestly, since I haven't had either lens.
6. I think this is the DA 21.
7. Pretty sure this is the 18-55. So I start with this one - the colors and rendering are SO like my AL II...
8. Tammy 90, by process of elimination

Conclusion
Zooms: 1,4,5,7
Primes: 2,3,6,8

[normhead]

Well looks like everyone interested has posted, I'll look things over....
If anyone wants to check and see how they did.

Here's the list.

1.- 18-135
2. 21 ltd.
3 60-250
4 FA 50 1.8
5. DA 35 2.4
6, Tamron 17-50
7. DA 18-55
8 Tamron 90 Macro

So the correct answer is Zooms 1,3,6,7
Primes 2,4,5,8

The big winners at 75% accuracy are Dice, reeftool, rbefly, and arv.. after a very quick glance, if any one else did as well of better and i missed you feel free to chime in. It seem to be a pretty even distribution, without doing a statistical analysis I'd say that, shooting with different light, different PP with the size reduced to 1080 it's pretty hard to tell. I bet if I used images that include out of focus areas it would be no contest... next time I feel like wasting a few hours maybe, I'll cook that one up.

---------- Post added 05-02-14 at 12:25 PM ----------

After another quick glance , the one that tripped most everyone up was #3 the DA* 60-250 which was picked accurately by NZunicorn, so even if you didn't get as many as some, you got the one no one else did. Another fact to bolster the notion that the DA*60-250 is a "stack of primes" lens.

[tuco]

Tiny web displays of a full image is about the worst scenario for judging the quality of a lens, no?

[normhead]

Tiny web displays of a full images are the worst case for judging the quality of lenses, no?

Ya, unless a 1080 web image is the most you ever do with your images, in which case you'd be silly to look at anything else. But from a professional viewpoint yes. But I will say as a general rule, an image that looks better full size also looks better small. As I said before, I see this as a fun way to kill a bit of time, not some kind of definitive commentary on these lenses. I would put something like this on a scale of 1-10 for usefulness on making a lens purchasing decision as maybe a 1. It might be better than something rated 0, but then, it might be more misleading than informative. The lenses are not used equally, so when I look through my library, sometimes I'm picking from thousands, sometimes I'm picking from less than a 100. I could probably write a page on why you shouldn't use this for anything more than a bit of fun. Hopefully most people will understand that, and I won't have to,

[tuco]

This plastic lens in a Holga looks way better scaled down than full size in terms of sharpness.

[Driline]

I liked picture 5 the best. The cheap little DA 35 2.4 of which I own as well. Sweet....

[ChristianRock]

My favorite was #2, which I thought was the DA 35 2.4. But it's the DA 21 - which I'm trying to talk myself out of, but it gets harder and harder to do that!

That was a thread that I enjoyed a lot, Norm. Thank you