I had a pro tell me once that "There is not a lens made that will not
outresolve the film."
Jerry in Houston
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 11:42 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: What's good technique?
Hi Mike,
Mike wrote:
>Wouldn't you know it, at the back of Eisenstadt's _Witness to our Time_
>there are a couple of full-page, full-bleed color flower shots. I never
>noticed 'em before last night. Funny how you look at a book and see only
>what you want to see. <g>
Well, since you are undoubtedly intending to roundfile it since making that
shocking discovery, let me offer S&H and my address to relieve you of any
guilt from contaminating a perfectly good landfill with such horrible
rubbish. ;-)
>1. Lenses do other things besides being "sharp" that are important to me.
>The finicky, delicate high-rez look that passes for "sharp" these days kind
>of makes me queasy. Give me an old Pentax M42 lens over a new Canon zoom
any
>day. I like the look better.
Even as beginner, the look a lens imparts is the key thing for me, too. I
can't look at an MTF and see any of the things I'm interested in knowing
about a lens. I wish it were possible to see high quality photos taken with
each lens, best illustrating its strengths and weaknesses in terms of
bokeh, tonal rendition, distortion, flare, close focus, etc., on a few good
films of each type-that would do more for me than any number of graphs or
numbers. So, why don't magazines do that? (or do they?)
>2. "All lenses are sharp enough." Part of the reason I said what I did
about
>Eisenstadt the other day is that if you look at a bunch of his 35mm work
>from the 1930s, it becomes quite obvious that the lenses he was using way
>back then are "sharp enough," too. And, with reference to that quote of
>Cartier-Bresson's I passed on from Bob W., it's not like HCB didn't have
>sharp lenses--he mainly preferred custom-made, coated 7-element collapsible
>Summicrons, the best lens of that day and still no slouch today for B&W at
>moderate apertures. I've got some technically fantastic shots made with
that
>lens.
He sounds like a hypocrite in addition to being a snob and and a cranky old
fart. What are his negative traits? <g>
>Really, is there anything much wrong with a plain-Jane, cheap-as-mud 50/2
>SMC-A lens? Any one of us could make technically perfectly acceptable
>photographs with that. Why waste endless energy chasing after something
just
>a wee bit sharper--especially given that you'll have to argue with other
>photographers over whether it is or not?
Not at all. One is on my list of lenses to acquire, although I recently
bought an A 50/1.7 instead (I wasn't sure if the A 50/2 would be bright
enough on my bellows). I think that of the three (50/1.4, 50/1.7, & 50/2)
my personal prefence would be for the photos I've seen taken with the f2.0
and the f1.4 (though the f1.7 is by no means shabby).
>If this
>bloody scanner I bought actually _worked_, I could post a few examples to
>the PUG. I'm an artisan to my fingertips...never was worth a damn with
>compooters.
What model computer and scanner do you have, and what is the nature of the
problem?
Dan Scott
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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