[John Poirier]

Why would I need to do that..you can see the difference on the monitor a print is going to be even more evident.

Because you would then have actual evidence rather than an untested asssumption.

[Sliver-Surfer]

Because you would then have actual evidence rather than an untested asssumption.

Sorry Im not wasting paper time and ink. It's common knowledge that prints are more unforgiving than Monitors

[John Poirier]

Sorry Im not wasting paper time and ink. It's common knowledge that prints are more unforgiving than Monitors

It's common knowledge that many people claim that a lot of different things are common knowledge.

I occasionally challenge my own assumptions by doing real-world testing. I did a lot of that when I first got in to digital imaging and printing. Whacked myself on the forehead a few times.

You are correct in asserting that in the samples you have shown the Zeiss lens is sharper. That's pretty obvious.

However, I differ with you on the question of how apparent the difference would be for a group of observers in a 4x6 print at normal viewing distances. It might or might not be noticeable if your 1024 pixel crop was printed on 4x6. It might or might not be noticeable if a 1200x1800 crop was printed the same size. Depends on who is doing the noticing.

You might experiment with sharpening images from both lenses. Overall, of course, the Zeiss lens will always be sharper. However, you may find that the Pentax image will gain on the Zeiss image in relative terms, as the Pentax has more room for improvement. You can only go so far with sharpening an image that is already very sharp. The Pentax lens will never be as good as the Zeiss, but with proper processing the gap when viewed as prints at normal viewing distances will be less apparent.

I've only done a very quick test of a Pentax 55/1.8 on full frame. My impression is that it should be quite respectable.

More or less getting back to the original topic, the gain in image quality with lens price is a case of diminishing returns. The last few little percentiles of improvement get more and more expensive. If you have the experience to judge whether that extra quality will really make a difference that matters, and you are not incurring foolish debt, go for it. If you are just being influenced by some blowhards on the internet saying that you are scum if you don't have the latest and greatest, go away, take lots of pictures, and revisit the idea in a year or two.
---------- Post added 03-29-2016 at 10:56 PM ----------

[Nicolas06]

The problem is why would you want to print a 4x6 crop and not the whole picture?

If you print the crop, the Zeiss will look crap too. Less crap but print it to 8x12" and the lack of detail would be completely obvious from only 1024 pixels.

If you were serious about having this framing, that crop with high quality, you'd walked a bit to frame the subject or you'd have to buy a 300mm to get it... Too bad there no native 300mm for the A7... The guy that spent 10$ on a used 50mm could have also brought maybe 300$ a used 300mm lens and got a nice picture.

The reason to print the crop is the same as to display it here: show how much better one lens is rather than doing actual photography.


To have this crop show on 4x6" you'd need to print 24x36". And if you have to get people stare at it from near distance to see the actual difference. And most of that difference disapear with the move of 2-3 sliders in post prod. A bit of micro contrast, contrast and sharpness.

I don't say the Zeiss isn't better I'd say if you brought the lens for 10$ and got no AF, maybe you did it for the fun, maybe you did it to spend less money, maybe you did it for nice MF controls and video. The obvious is you are going to focus manually, you'll miss some shoots because of that. That's a matter of speed. But it will not prevent to get nice pictures, to frame them, to display them in art galeries, to win photography competitions or to sell your pictures.

The Zeiss bring in AF, well some new 50mm lenses have that for $100, that's true. It does bring more sharpness too. At f/1.8 that may be a factor, at f/5.6 that only for comparing crops among gear fanatics. Myself I am more likely to be in the 300-1000$ range for a great high end lens like the FA77, but that doesn't mean I'll ever get to the level of some photographer that have much more basic gear. People don't care of the gear, they care of the picture.

Only gear fanatics would speak of printing a crop instead of the whole picture to see if the lens is good enough or not. It simply doesn't make any sense.

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Last edited by Nicolas06; 03-29-2016 at 11:51 PM.

[Jonathan Mac]

There's a new cheaper 50/1.8 for Sony mirrorless coming out for around $250. I imagine it'll be pretty decent optically.

[Sliver-Surfer]

f you were serious about having this framing, that crop with high quality, you'd walked a bit to frame the subject or you'd have to buy a 300mm to get it... Too bad there no native 300mm for the A7... The guy that spent 10$ on a used 50mm could have also brought maybe 300$ a used 300mm lens and got a nice picture.

I have a fully functional Sony mount 300mm AF lens for my A7 and A6000 in fact I also have a fully functional 400mm AF Sony Mount lens. I can also walk with my Zeiss.

[osv]

However, I differ with you on the question of how apparent the difference would be for a group of observers in a 4x6 print at normal viewing distances.

that is idle speculation, that proves nothing, there is no point in printing a 1024px crop of anything... 4x6 prints aren't meant for showing to a group of observers, that's what big prints are for, they get hung on walls one person holds a small 4x6 in his hand and looks at it.

this entire thread is wrong, from the very first post... lenses fail on the sides, not the center, especially at the wider end of the aperture range, so that's where they should be compared.

i've had several 55/1.8 legacy lenses, they don't even become fully usable across the entire frame on 36mp, until closed down to at least f/5.6... that's exactly where the sony fe55 dominates all legacy glass, and that's why it's worth the extra money.

[Nicolas06]

I have a fully functional Sony mount 300mm AF lens for my A7 and A6000 in fact I also have a fully functional 400mm AF Sony Mount lens. I can also walk with my Zeiss.

You mean with yet another adapter?

Anyway that clearly show that the point is not print a crop of the uber Zeiss because well you need to change focal lens, not use a crop...

What count is how well the picture look overall, will people like it.

if you look there: adobe photoshop - What DPI/PPI should a 4 by 6 meter outdoor billboard be designed at? - Graphic Design Stack Exchange for a print that is 18ft high by 48ft wide, the resolution template is 5292x2052 so 10.8MP...

For cinema we use 4K, so 8MP and the screen can be a good 10-20meters wide.

The things is eyes can't see more than a given level of detail so if you want your viewers to see the whole picture the resolution doesn't need to be that high. Even if you have only something like 100dpi from a typical monitor that would still be more than good enough for people that want to go near to stare at details that still 24x36" print for 8MP...

What is important is what you lens can do at that resolution. More help to crop/reframe, but that's it. I agree 16-20MP might be needed for that and you'd keep mostly the center while croping but that would be about it.

Where osv is right is not at all to check the 36MP performance that is not very relevant, but that the key difference might be the performances at wide apertures f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8 on borders.

[ChristianRock]

that is idle speculation, that proves nothing, there is no point in printing a 1024px crop of anything... 4x6 prints aren't meant for showing to a group of observers, that's what big prints are for, they get hung on walls one person holds a small 4x6 in his hand and looks at it.

this entire thread is wrong, from the very first post... lenses fail on the sides, not the center, especially at the wider end of the aperture range, so that's where they should be compared.

i've had several 55/1.8 legacy lenses, they don't even become fully usable across the entire frame on 36mp, until closed down to at least f/5.6... that's exactly where the sony fe55 dominates all legacy glass, and that's why it's worth the extra money.

But see, you get lenses to test them... some of us get lenses, especially those with wide apertures, for rendering of subjects and OOF bokeh... corner to corner sharpness is more important to wide angle lenses... usually a lens that is sharp corner to corner at a very wide aperture, will suck in the bokeh department... see some Sigma Art lenses with their frog bokeh and harsh OOF renderings...

[Sliver-Surfer]

You mean with yet another adapter?

lol why would that be a problem.
You adapter haters remind me of this guy..it's really not that difficult to use
https://youtu.be/c07HfrLhBXw?t=8s

And please tell me How do you use a m42 takumar on a Pentax DSLR without yet another adapter?? They are quite a bit more difficult to put on and take off than the Sony Adapters

---------- Post added 03-30-16 at 05:23 PM ----------

that is idle speculation, that proves nothing, there is no point in printing a 1024px crop of anything... 4x6 prints aren't meant for showing to a group of observers, that's what big prints are for, they get hung on walls one person holds a small 4x6 in his hand and looks at it.

this entire thread is wrong, from the very first post... lenses fail on the sides, not the center, especially at the wider end of the aperture range, so that's where they should be compared.

i've had several 55/1.8 legacy lenses, they don't even become fully usable across the entire frame on 36mp, until closed down to at least f/5.6... that's exactly where the sony fe55 dominates all legacy glass, and that's why it's worth the extra money.

my point was on a 24 and especially a 36 mp camera you can pull very usable crops from almost anywhere on the image that a 55 zeiss produces. The 55 Tak can only be used non cropped and barely at that.
The 55/1.8 tak is not as good most other Tak primes. If you must buy a Tak..don't waste your money on it, Buy a 50/1.4 tak.

[osv]

lol why would that be a problem.
You adapter haters remind me of this guy..it's really not that difficult to use
https://youtu.be/c07HfrLhBXw?t=8s

And please tell me How do you use a m42 takumar on a Pentax DSLR without yet another adapter?? They are quite a bit more difficult to put on and take off than the Sony Adapters

my point was on a 24 and especially a 36 mp camera you can pull very usable crops from almost anywhere on the image that a 55 zeiss produces. The 55 Tak can only be used non cropped and barely at that.
The 55/1.8 tak is not as good most other Tak primes. If you must buy a Tak..don't waste your money on it, Buy a 50/1.4 tak.

+1 on all that, the only slow glass that i find really usable on ff is wide lenses like the m28/3.5, stopped down for landscapes, because that's all that i'll ever use it for, it's too wide for things like portraits.

the 50-55mm focal length, tho, has to work for everything... landscape, portraits, low-light, etc.

[GUB]

The 55/1.8 tak is not as good most other Tak primes. If you must buy a Tak..don't waste your money on it, Buy a 50/1.4 tak.

So you are saying that there is a big enough gap in the results of the tak 55 vs the Sony that you can fit the 50/1.4 in there and call it superior to the tak55?
What nonsense!

[Sliver-Surfer]

+1 on all that, the only slow glass that i find really usable on ff is wide lenses like the m28/3.5, stopped down for landscapes, because that's all that i'll ever use it for, it's too wide for things like portraits. the 50-55mm focal length, tho, has to work for everything... landscape, portraits, low-light, etc.

The 28/3.5 Tak is a good one. I use it when I do tilt work..I like the k version as wel for machinesl..

---------- Post added 03-30-16 at 09:19 PM ----------

[Sliver-Surfer]

I was going to do a comparison of the Super Tak 1.8/55 next, And then the Super Multicoated and then the SMC but it seems it would be pointless.

[cyberjunkie]

I've read a couple of statements that left me very cold.
1) $990 difference for AF is well worth it. Well, apart from the simple fact that paying $10 for the Tak is like paying the Zeiss less than $500... i won't give to the AF such a big value!
In practice i'm mostly using good AF zooms for cropped sensor these days, as i'm away from home most of the time, and 99% of the shots i take are travel photography.
So i do value AF lenses, but i'm also aware that if i had to shoot water birds i'd find easier to focus with a follow-focus Novoflex system, than with the (rather good) AF of my K-5 II.
The AF system can't tell the duck from the water reed to its side!
If i had to choose the AF point every time, i'd rather operate the "machine gun" trigger of the Novoflex. Quicker!
Maybe it is because i learned to photograph with fully manual cameras, sometimes (not always!) i prefer MF over AF.
I tried to photograph an afternoon concert of a dutch rock singer with the K-01, using recent AF lenses.
The light was more than enough, but it was a real nightmare! Always playing catch up...
Portraits with a super fast lens wide open aren't for AF either.
DOF is paper thin, if the subject isn't jumping around, MF allows to focus to the right spot (closest pupil).
The cheap cinese ground glass i fitted to my K10D, with microprisms and split image, allows for easy use of super fast primes

2) More on topic. I've read that the Takumar f/1.8 55mm should be better than the similar K version. As far as i know, there have been many incremental advancements in the coating technology used by Pentax. Most of the times the improvements weren't even declared.
IMHO, a newer lens is always better than an older one, UNLESS the optical project was simplified, or after the switch from hazardous optical glasses to lead-free, safer glasses.
AFAIK the f/1.8 55mm series K, and the f/1.4 50mm series M/A are very good optics, and i expect that they will still show their worth on the new K-1.
I agree that the f/3.5 28mm series M is a very good wide, a pity i sold it when i bought the Pentax/Zeiss f/2 28mm.
I see that Takumars are very fashionable these days. Nothing against it, but saying that older is better seems quite a stretch

cheers

P