Prime Lenses....

Sean Reid · Feb 1, 2005

But there are those among us (see Sean Reid's posts,

scott kirkpatrick said:
for example) whose holy grail is an unobtrusive, quiet camera

yes, I need at least one like that

with

scott kirkpatrick said:
all the picture taking characteristics of the E-1

Best characteristics of the E-1 for me are its quietness and weather seals.

scott kirkpatrick said:
and the seeing
characteristics of a contrasty 28mm lens on a 35 mm body.

Lowish contrast, actually, for digital capture (as I discussed in that lens review) but yes, FOVs of 28mm, 35mm and 50mm

(Well,

scott kirkpatrick said:
Reid seems to be questing for an 85 mm lens on a 35 mm body, but
he'll have to explain that.)

Why do you say 85mm? I'm curious. Many of my needs, actually, are mostly met by the Epson R-D1 which I am using with several prime lenses (some of which are 50 years old). But the E-1 is quieter than even an M3 and that's a big advantage. I may end up with a kit that includes my 1Ds (which, indeed, I do use with an 85mm prime - but rarely - my own sweet spot is about 40mm) my R-D1 and an E-1. I'm testing an E-1 this month, in fact.

scott kirkpatrick said:
The E-1 is already a really good tool for turning what you see into
pictures without disturbing the world around you.

Absolutely. I hope the successor camera keeps this quality. And I hope other manufacturers see the value in a quiet camera with a 4/3 or larger sensor. The digital Leica M will likely be very quiet but that won't be out until 2006.

Cheers,

Sean

a t o m i c · Feb 1, 2005

Higuma said:
On point two - Yes indeed a 25mm f1.4 would be small / semi-pancake
but this is not an issue for me...

I'm not so sure. The 'pancake' lens in trad 35mm designs was achieved by fitting a simple, Tessar-like design onto the mount. The design of the FourThirds mount demands a kind of 'extreme retrofocus' to comply with both the long back focus and telecentricity requirements, the latter (dominated by exit pupil diameter) may also limit the maximum aperture.

Higuma said:
On the other hand sometimes shooting with only 5 mp and a prime
would be a real hindrance as physical constraints can some times
severely limit your ability to get the right perspective and then
that is when a zoom shines over the prime lens... I would rather
zoom any day than crop 50% of my frame... How about you??

In theory, sure. In practice it never seems to work out like that...

Higuma said:
Further up Adrian gave me a list of primes he would like to see.. I
think it was a good list... but let me ask Adrian now for yet
another favour... Tell me - realistically - What do you expect
those fast primes to cost ?? Not pie in the sky - we are talking
Olympus who are not cheap in the optical department - but a true
realistic price for the lenses you listed complete with good focus
motors, firmware upgrading, near telecentric and etc..,

I can't predict Olympus' pricing. Back in the early '90s when I switched from Nikon to Contax, Nikon charged around £60 for their 50/1.8 AIS, Contax wanted around £150 for their Planar 50/1.7 and around £500 for their Planar 50/1.4. The Planar 50/1.7 was worth 2.5X the Nikoor for it excellent 'boke', but I never did buy a NEW 50/1.4 because it simply wasn't economic for that extra half a stop (I later got a used one and discovered that my assessment was dead right, it was actually a slightly worse performer than the 1.7). For me, no fast normal should cost more than the 50 Macro already does, which justifies its price by being an exotic design, I hope a putative 22.5/1.4 would be around £250 max, and I'd expect aspheric elements, IF and stunning performance for that much.

Higuma said:
SMALL PRIMES - who gives a rat's arss...

I'd certainly like a wide prime that's half the length of my 11-22.

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and

then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

TrapperJohn · Feb 1, 2005

Never thought I'd be agreeing with Mr. "Give me 35mm sensors or give me death", but that was my experience as well.

When I put my best old Nikkor primes up against the ZD zooms set at identical apertures and focal lengths, I really couldn't tell any difference. It was particularly telling when I put my 50-200 up against the mighty Nikkor 200 3.5 EDIF, set the ZD at 200, and cranked the aperture wide open on both to reveal any flaws. The photos were identical.

When I put the Nikkor 50 1.4 up against the ZD 50 2.0, the ZD was clearly superior. Then again, the Nikkor 50 1.4 is an old lens with old coatings, so that probably wasn't a fair comparison.

And if we look at the lens map, we can see that the planned ZD primes are all very fast, something extremely expensive to do with a zoom. But one has to admit, the 7-14 is quite an accomplishment, price notwithstanding. Olympus seems to have quite the touch with their zooms...

E1derful · Feb 1, 2005

a t o m i c said:
For the type of photographs I would tend to take, I'd love to see a
proper FourThirds normal of 22.5mm, ideally with a maximum aperture
of at least 1:1.4.

Has anyone ever made a X.5 mm lens? I know that when you deal with a 2X crop, the only way to get the SAME focal lengths as other favorite lenses is to make a X.5mm lens.

Can't you take a half step back or forth and settle for a 22mm or a 23mm?

I am not criticizing or ridiculing your desires. It just seems funny to me that you have been requesting other X.5mm focal lengths..like the 42.5mm and so on. I do not know if this will ever happen, but I think that you should only hope for integers in the focal lengths. I also do not think that Olympus will make a lens at 43mm or 42mm, you may see a 40mm or a 45mm, but a 42.5mm I doubt you will ever see.

In all of your X.5 examples, would you prefer to round UP or to round DOWN?

OzRay · Feb 1, 2005

Perhaps I did misread your intent, when you said three lenses cover 'most' situations and 'many' people find their creativity increased by using primes, so my apologies.

However, I find that my creativity has been increased by using zooms. I come from the days when all you really had were primes and that could be kind of constraining, unless you had a bucket of money for a lot of lenses. I don't wish to go back to thse days.

I don't begrudge people who want primes, but I do wish to offer another point of view, for those who aren't sure what this debate is all about.

Cheers

Ray

a t o m i c said:
OzRay said:

Adrian

So what you're saying is that anyone who uses zoom lenses in lieu
of primes is perhaps photographically challenged and lacking in
creativity?

Click to expand...

Nope, that doesn't even vaguely resemble what I wrote.

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem
to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself
in now and
then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

Photography is like a good book, you become absorbed by the image, not the syntax and sentence structure - me (unless someone said this first as well).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

BJL · Feb 1, 2005

a t o m i c said:
The 'pancake' lens in trad 35mm designs was achieved by fitting a simple, Tessar-like design onto the mount. The design of the FourThirds mount demands a kind of 'extreme retrofocus' ...

Well, not so extreme, and quietly, all the other sub-35mm DSLR lens mounts (except possibly Canon's EF-S) require retrofocus lenses for normal to wide angle lenses, due to using the back-focus distance of a larger 35mm format SLR design. Even EF-S mount seems to have the lens mount flange too far away from the focal plane, but maybe an EF-S pancake lens could recess the lens elements into the body cavity.

So normal pancake lenses are more or less ruled out: note that the Pentax DA pancake lens for its DSLRs is 40mm f/2.8, which is a "short telephoto" in that format. (Though its Tessar desing is very different from a true telephoto design!)

scott kirkpatrick · Feb 1, 2005

Sean Reid said:
Sean Reid said:

and the seeing
characteristics of a contrasty 28mm lens on a 35 mm body.

Click to expand...

Lowish contrast, actually, for digital capture (as I discussed in
that lens review)

Why give up contrast? Especially with the dynamic range of the E-1's Kodak sensor, if no other problem occurs (red noise, moire) the clarity that you get from having an MTF of nearly 1 halfway to the pixel frequency really makes a picture come alive.

Sean Reid said:
but yes, FOVs of 28mm, 35mm and 50mm

Have you worked with the 11-22? It has convenient markings at exactly 14, 18 and 22 mm, which are pretty much what you think in terms of. If they just put a slight detent in, it would feel like an old pre-zoom multifocal length lens. But it is big.

Sean Reid said:
Sean Reid said:

(Well,
Reid seems to be questing for an 85 mm lens on a 35 mm body, but
he'll have to explain that.)

Click to expand...

Why do you say 85mm? I'm curious.

I recall you saying in one of those threads that you were attracted to a 42mm prime, and that it would be for use on a 4/3 system. Did I misread that?

--
scott kirkpatrick
http://www.pbase.com/skirkp

BJL · Feb 1, 2005

a t o m i c said:
... a portrait lens of 40-45mm again at 1:1.4.

That is the common thinking about portrait lenses for 4/3: shrink the focal length of a 35mm format portrait lens to get the same field of view. But another possibility is using a somewhat longer focal length, and working from a bit further away. This has the advantage of allowing more background blurring at the same aperture ratio than a shorter lens, even though the DOF is the same,and also shows a smaller portion of the background.

Taking the example of 90mm f/2 as a guess at the forthcoming 4/3 format telephoto macro, it would blurs distant background objects more than traditional 120mm f/3.5 or f/4 portrait lenses in medium format, though also giving more DOF.

(Optical note: once you adjust subject distance and/or crop so as to fill the frame with the main subject, the degree of blurring of objects "at infinity" depends only on the aperture diameter, regardless of focal length or format. In any given format, longer focal lengths make it easier to get bigger apertures, and so softer backgrounds.)

R Stacy · Feb 1, 2005

I've never thought that was asking too much.... is it?

--

a t o m i c · Feb 1, 2005

E1derful said:
Has anyone ever made a X.5 mm lens? I know that when you deal with
a 2X crop, the only way to get the SAME focal lengths as other
favorite lenses is to make a X.5mm lens.

Why not? I pick up my little camcorder and it says "f=2.5-50mm 1:1.6" my pocket digicam says "f=8.3-24.9mm". In the old days, focal lengths were measured in cm until the miniaturisation of formats made that impractical. FourThirds is 18mmx13.5mm, therefore the normal is 22.5mm.

E1derful said:
Can't you take a half step back or forth and settle for a 22mm or a
23mm?

A smaller sensor demands greater precision, Olympus would do well to bring that to the SLR world.

E1derful said:
I am not criticizing or ridiculing your desires. It just seems
funny to me that you have been requesting other X.5mm focal
lengths..like the 42.5mm and so on. I do not know if this will
ever happen, but I think that you should only hope for integers in
the focal lengths. I also do not think that Olympus will make a
lens at 43mm or 42mm, you may see a 40mm or a 45mm, but a 42.5mm I
doubt you will ever see.

In all of your X.5 examples, would you prefer to round UP or to
round DOWN?

Why not round off to the the nearest cm? New era, new rules.

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and

then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

KostasE1 · Feb 1, 2005

BJL said:
a t o m i c said:

... a portrait lens of 40-45mm again at 1:1.4.

Click to expand...

That is the common thinking about portrait lenses for 4/3: shrink
the focal length of a 35mm format portrait lens to get the same
field of view. But another possibility is using a somewhat longer
focal length, and working from a bit further away. This has the
advantage of allowing more background blurring at the same aperture
ratio than a shorter lens, even though the DOF is the same,and also
shows a smaller portion of the background.

Taking the example of 90mm f/2 as a guess at the forthcoming 4/3
format telephoto macro, it would blurs distant background objects
more than traditional 120mm f/3.5 or f/4 portrait lenses in medium
format, though also giving more DOF.

(Optical note: once you adjust subject distance and/or crop so as
to fill the frame with the main subject, the degree of blurring of
objects "at infinity" depends only on the aperture diameter,
regardless of focal length or format. In any given format, longer
focal lengths make it easier to get bigger apertures, and so softer
backgrounds.)

Hey BJL.

I am also waiting for the 100 or 90mm f2 macro to use it as my basic macro lens and for portrait lens in many occassions.

At this time I am using as basic portrait lens my 150 f2 and I am very happy with the results. The only thing that is a little difficult is to use this lens in long distances. It is heavy and big. There is no any problem in my opinion with the perspective using a long telephoto lens for portraits.

If you shoot an object, e.q. a headshot, then the dof is the same and doesn't matter if you shot with a 50 or 150 mm lens. Anyone lens shooting the same thing gives the same dof, if you use the same aperture.

But we have the sense that the telephotos give smaller dof because they give smaller backround and so they give bigger and fatter backgroung objects and so they give us blurrer bokeh. In other words, the dof is the same, but the backround is smaller and so blurrer if you use long telephotos.

This is the reason I like to use long telephotos as my portraits lens and the reason that I will like in the future use the 150mm f2 as my favorite portrait lens.

I have also the 50 f2, but I use it only for macro photos at this time. I am not enjoying use it as portrait lens.
KostasE1.

a t o m i c · Feb 1, 2005

BJL said:
a t o m i c said:

... a portrait lens of 40-45mm again at 1:1.4.

Click to expand...

That is the common thinking about portrait lenses for 4/3: shrink
the focal length of a 35mm format portrait lens to get the same
field of view. But another possibility is using a somewhat longer
focal length, and working from a bit further away. This has the
advantage of allowing more background blurring at the same aperture
ratio than a shorter lens, even though the DOF is the same,and also
shows a smaller portion of the background.

If you're in a studio, that just isn't gonna fly.

BJL said:
Taking the example of 90mm f/2 as a guess at the forthcoming 4/3
format telephoto macro, it would blurs distant background objects
more than traditional 120mm f/3.5 or f/4 portrait lenses in medium
format, though also giving more DOF.

Working range would be quite difficult, and I think others have shown now that a portrait lens might have controllable spherical aberration correction that could really add value:

http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/0/ea6ebec9c195544585256e850029570e?OpenDocument

http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=5&productNr=1932

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and

then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

a t o m i c · Feb 1, 2005

TrapperJohn said:
When I put the Nikkor 50 1.4 up against the ZD 50 2.0, the ZD was
clearly superior. Then again, the Nikkor 50 1.4 is an old lens with
old coatings, so that probably wasn't a fair comparison.

Definitely not fair - the ZD 50 is a) very expensive b) state of the art c) complex (11 elements!!) and d) one stop slower. Nikon's highly regarded 55mm Micro-Nikkor would be a fairer comparison.

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and

then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

BJL · Feb 1, 2005

Adrian,

I agree that a "narrow field of view" portrait lens will not work for all cases, I was just throwing it up as one option that had not been discussed much.

About "defocus control" lenses, do these do anything that cannot now be simulated nicely with digital manipulation like Gaussian blur? I will try to read up on the optics of partially uncorrected SA, but you seem like you might have the answer at your fingertips (a good figure of speech for the internet, don't you think?)

Garfish · Feb 1, 2005

silent_man · Feb 1, 2005

A perfect setup would be two Canon 1D Mark II, one with a 16-35mm f/2.8 L and the other with a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L.

An additional setup of a 550EX Speedlite, four 2 Giga CFs, 2-3 additional batteries and a Epson P2000.

OzRay said:
The article pretty much reflects what I feel as well. In my early
days, primes ruled because zooms were rare beasts and very ordinary
as far as quality went.

Today's zoom optics are extremely good (if well made), that while a
very good prime will be better to a degree, the practical
implications are very much as MR states. Even Leica is now making
zooms and I quote from a Leica promotion on the R9:

'It took Leica some years before it was comfortable with the
quality available from zoom lenses, but you can be assured it is
more than comfortable with the seven zoom lenses in its range
today.'

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said
it first).

Photography is like a good book, you become absorbed by the image,
not the syntax and sentence structure - me (unless someone said
this first as well).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

--

Canon EOS 10D, Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, Canon 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon 17-40mm f/4 L, Speedlite 420EX.

BJL · Feb 1, 2005

R Stacy said:
I've never thought that was asking too much.... is it?

No probem with the f/1.4's, but the pancake is a problem: see
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=12082862
and the post before it.

As far as speed in lenses for smaller formats, I had some fun recently looking at the specifications for lenses made for small formats, in the form of movie cameras: 35mm cine is about "APS-C", 16mm is a bit bigger than 2/3" and so on.

There were some very fast lenses: a Zeiss 30-120 constant f/2 for 35mm cine, a constant f/1.2 5x zoom for 8mm cine, a bunch of 25mm f/0.95 lenses, and even a few f/0.75s.

I have no idea if those designs have the optical quality needed for a still camera, but it started some dreaming. The most attainable is probably zooms at f/2 or even a bit faster, and primes down to f/1.2 and beyond, if there is enough demand.

sclamb · Feb 1, 2005

OzRay said:
The article pretty much reflects what I feel as well. In my early
days, primes ruled because zooms were rare beasts and very ordinary
as far as quality went.

Today's zoom optics are extremely good (if well made), that while a
very good prime will be better to a degree, the practical
implications are very much as MR states. Even Leica is now making
zooms and I quote from a Leica promotion on the R9:

'It took Leica some years before it was comfortable with the
quality available from zoom lenses, but you can be assured it is
more than comfortable with the seven zoom lenses in its range
today.'

I agree. Take the Leica VARIO-APO-ELMARIT-R 70-180mm f/2.8. That lens is probably better than just about any prime on the market today bar a couple of exceptions. Not exactly a travel lens, but zooms can be right up there with primes.

Simon

Nikondude · Feb 1, 2005

Adian,

I had that the Nikon 105 DC (defocus control) lens a few years ago. It was a great portrait lens, but a b*tch to work with in the feild. A studio lens for sure.

Tony

a t o m i c said:
BJL said:

a t o m i c said:

... a portrait lens of 40-45mm again at 1:1.4.

Click to expand...

That is the common thinking about portrait lenses for 4/3: shrink
the focal length of a 35mm format portrait lens to get the same
field of view. But another possibility is using a somewhat longer
focal length, and working from a bit further away. This has the
advantage of allowing more background blurring at the same aperture
ratio than a shorter lens, even though the DOF is the same,and also
shows a smaller portion of the background.

Click to expand...

If you're in a studio, that just isn't gonna fly.

a t o m i c said:

Taking the example of 90mm f/2 as a guess at the forthcoming 4/3
format telephoto macro, it would blurs distant background objects
more than traditional 120mm f/3.5 or f/4 portrait lenses in medium
format, though also giving more DOF.

Click to expand...

Working range would be quite difficult, and I think others have
shown now that a portrait lens might have controllable spherical
aberration correction that could really add value:

http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/0/ea6ebec9c195544585256e850029570e?OpenDocument

http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=5&productNr=1932

--
Adrian

'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem
to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself
in now and
then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' - Sir Isaac Newton

--
http://www.myfourthirds.com/user.php?id=579&page=user_images

Ross · Feb 1, 2005

BJL said:
R Stacy said:

I've never thought that was asking too much.... is it?

Click to expand...

No probem with the f/1.4's, but the pancake is a problem: see
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=12082862
and the post before it.

As far as speed in lenses for smaller formats, I had some fun
recently looking at the specifications for lenses made for small
formats, in the form of movie cameras: 35mm cine is about "APS-C",
16mm is a bit bigger than 2/3" and so on.

There were some very fast lenses: a Zeiss 30-120 constant f/2 for
35mm cine, a constant f/1.2 5x zoom for 8mm cine, a bunch of 25mm
f/0.95 lenses, and even a few f/0.75s.

I have no idea if those designs have the optical quality needed for
a still camera, but it started some dreaming. The most attainable
is probably zooms at f/2 or even a bit faster, and primes down to
f/1.2 and beyond, if there is enough demand.

Tamron's website has a section for video lenses aimed at studio cameras, that are fun to speculate about. I think the optical designs and engineering probably exist and can be adapted via Optical-CAD programs. It will be a marketing/economic driven development. Hopefully the smaller lens making firms will get interested now that 35mm has kind of dried up for them. The volume of DSLR sales is bound to get someone interested. Maybe this year's PMA will give some hints. The cost of lens making isn't in the design or material so much as the assembly & testing. The DSLR profits come mostly from the lenses rather than the bodies.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx

Prime Lenses....

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