Originally posted by emr As I'm just beginning my DSLR usage (and LBA?) and my current lens set is humble to say the least, I'm just wondering what _real_life_ gains does one get upgrading the lenses to stars or limiteds? I know they get better results in measurebations but does that show in photographs taken in normal circumstances? Or only in extreme conditions? When the placebo effect isn't there, have you really felt your pictures have gained from the better lens? I'm not trolling but seriously considering whether I should one day upgrade my lenses.
I know of the weather sealing of the stars. Some lenses also bring the obvious aperture benefit. And one can never ignore the street cred aspect
. But what I'm now asking is the benefits besides these obvious ones.
What you are asking is a functional, empirical, practical question rather than an abstract theoretical one about what defines a "better" lens.
From an abstract point of view, all else being equal, a lens that resolves 2350 line widths per picture height (LW/PH) is "better" than than a lens that "only" resolves 2200 line widths per picture height (LW/PH).
What you are asking, referring to the two examples above, is how much am I being limited by not have the "better" lens.
Let's put it this way:
I have a FA 35. If I started to use, from this point on, a DA 35 limited (ignoring the macro capability of the limited) would it make a noticeable, practical real world improvement in my images over using the FA 35? In my opinion
NO. In other words if I was just looking at files created by one or the other lens, without knowing which lens created which file, my expectation is that I would not me able to tell the difference with any degree of accuracy.
My photography is constrained by a lot of things but it's not the lens in this case.
Last edited by wildman; 02-18-2009 at 05:07 AM.