What is the sharpest lens Nikon ever produced?

You would be mistaken. Nikon's D200 is extrememly sharp. I use a Canon 1Ds Mark II at work (with the 24-70 2.8 L and the 100 Macro and 65mm 1-5X Macro) and love it. But my Nikon D200 is visibly sharper straight out of the camera with RAW files.

Canon uses pretty severe color-smearing to reduce the inherently more noisy CMOS sensor compared to CCD sensors that Nikon uses in the D2Xs and D200/D80 which have the tightest-packed image sites of any digital camera sensors - which accounts for the native sharpness being better.

As for unsharp mask being unethical, that's patent nonsense. The nature of digital imaging sensors, as part of the process of creating the image, introduces some unsharpness into an image that is corrected with a good sharpening filter.

Any publister, news or otherwise, uses judicious sharpening to make the image the best it can possibly be.

By the way, Smart Sharpen is clearly better than unsharp mask, though harder to master.

--
Eric

Ernest Hemingway's writing reminds me of the farting of an old horse. - E.B. White

....or you were too lazy to read my posts that happens to be just a few posts above yours?

The ultra-micro (& ultra-expensive) lenses were probably the sharpest Nikkors ever produced.

Take a look at this link:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/akiyanroom/redbook-e/index.html

this lens has a measured resolving power of over 700 lines per mm:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/akiyanroom/redbook-e/ultra/um2817enatsu.html

The 105mm doesn't come anywhere close.

--
Photos speak louder than words.....let's all post more photos.

specifically the ultra-micro nikkor family. or one of the printing nikkors. or the repro nikkor. or something cheaper, such as the crt-nikkor...

Well Discoben: changing a photo may be wrong if you are a newspaper reporter or a photojournalist, but what if you are trying to do “art”, to render a personal interpretation of a scene?

Removing wires is OK in my book in those pictures I take for my visual enjoyment. I am not a news reporter where even that may be questionable. I can turn the sky red if that fits “my” vision of the scene.

Just my 0.02

Regards

Eduardo

Besides, what is the definition of real word? If you say it is the world as perceived by human eyes, you are way off. Other animals, and also humans aided with man-made instruments can discover/measure/perceive a very different “real” world.

Regards,

Eduardo.

• at http://www.nikonimaging.com 300mm f2.8, followed by 400mm f2.8, then 500, 600 and 200-400 at 400.

Little else comes close, and wide angles are significantly inferior.

--
Leonard Shepherd

Usually skill in using equipment has more to do with good photography than the equipment itself.

At first I thought you were some wack job who didn't understand PP and was fighting like this was a religion. Then I wondered if maybe you were a troll (though that's thrown around a lot around here).

After reading through this long thread from end to end and listening to your points, I see where you are coming from. While I don't agree with it, I do see it and understand.

If you are looking to shoot like HCB, no PP at all, not even HSM (which I personally feel is needed for the reasons mention ad nauseum above) I think you are looking at the wrong format all together!

Chances are you're not going to be happy unless you get yourself that vintage Leica with the 50mm lens. I'm honestly not sure even the Leica M8 would do for you, as I'm pretty sure it does it's own processing internally, but it might be your best bet should you choose to stick with digital.

If the D200 with a 50mm isn't doing it for you, then move on...you're playing the wrong instrument!

discoben said:

Thanks, Frank... I do understand the effects that a Bayer filter
has on an image. What I'm saying is that, for me anyways, it'd be
like going out and shooting with drug store brand film, scanning
it, then going into PS and trying to make the image look like I had
shot with Velvia. I'd rather have a soft image.

Back on topic, though, I'm open to buying the sharpest lens money
can buy if it can let the d200 shine with all its 10.2MP as a 5D
can with all it's 12.8. Right now, though, even with the 50mm 1.8
stopped down, on a tripod, MLU, etc., the image appears more like a
20d image with its 8MP bayer sensor. If this is as good as it
gets, then it's as good as it gets.

Click to expand...

--
The Lonely Raven

Jack of all Trades,
Master of None
KC9KCZ

These lenses were made for semiconductor manufacturing. They project the image onto the wafer for lithogrpahy purposes. These images only tend to be about 10mm radius for chips manufactured back in the days these lenses would have been used. (chips these days tend to be MUCH bigger than 10mm, the image sensor of your DSLR camera being one such example..)

Unfortunatley, the resolving power of these lenses are specified for a single wavelength, instead of for full wavelength. In other words, they're meant to only project an image from a mercury-arc lamp used to project the mask image onto a wafer. Mercury vapor lamps typically illuminate in certain wavelengths, and these wavelengths are given names (E-line=546nm, G-line=435nm, H-line-404nm, etc...) when you look at the frequency response in a spectrograph. Light projected through these lenses would normally be filtered so that ONLY the E-line or whatever wavelength would be projected. Semiconductors are manufactured with a single wavelength.

What this means to you is, if you put full wavelength light through these lenses, the resolving power goes down dramatically. Conversely, if you only put a single wavelength light through a REGULAR Nikon lense, then resolving power goes UP. There would be no such thing as Chromatic abberation, since the light would all be monochromatic.

These lenses might as well have the same resolving power as regular ol' camera lenses when measured equivalently. (image circle, wavelength)

BTW the chips used in your cameras were created by projecting an image onto a semiconductor, the same way your lens would. Except, the cameras (they're called steppers in the semiconductor industry) may cost $10 million, and tend to resolve lines that are 65nm wide - around 10,000 lines per millimeter - using even more amazing tricks (deep UV light sources, phase change masks, liquid immersion..)

PS. yes I worked in semiconductor lithography.
PPS. I even designed a CMOS image sensor.

I just tested my prime lenses and the output of them:

1. Tokina (yes,not Nikon) 100mm 2.8 Macro
2. Nikon AF 300 4.0
3. Nikon AF 180 2.8
4. Nikon 50 1.8

But all above are much better than any of my zooms.

Antti
--



some pics: http://www.pbase.com/anada

Every image coming from your Digital camera is processed / sharpened, unless you shoot you use UNTOUCHED NEF's 100% of the time...

To say USM is unethical is moronic at best - JPEG is then unethical and Ansel Adams dodging and burning in the darkroom is unethical...

The image starts, not ends when you press the shutter...
--

http://www.photosig.com/go/users/view?id=241428

--

http://www.photosig.com/go/users/view?id=241428

--How would anyone here know that? This speculation is a waste of time.

joer56

Wow, I have never heard of any of these lenses...just amazing!

Cheers for the link!

Malc
--
http://www.MalcolmMay.com

discoben said:

Well, according to photozone.de, the 50mm 1.8 AF D is off the MTF
charts at f/4.
http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/nikkor_50_18/index.htm

Their list of tested lenses is not comprehensive, though, and I
wonder how a ZF 50mm 1.4 would fare.

Now, I'm in the same boat as you but I wonder if my D200 would even
take advantage a really sharp lens. I've got the 50 1.8 AF D and
shoot RAW but I'm still looking for something that'll give it the
per pixel clarity of a Canon.

Click to expand...

--Best way to guage the true sharpness of a lens is a star test. A point of light (too small to be resolved) imaged at various places in the field such that it illuminates as few pixels as possible is a brutal test.. Try the 50mm f1.4 wide open and get ready for some really bad looking points of light.
Stars in the sky or distant street or other nighttime lighting works well.

This is a 100% sized image crop. Centre is the centre of the field. Note the fan-shape of the light images away from the centre? Thats an aberration called coma.

Stopped down this goes away. BTW, the 50mm OM is considered one of the better primes out there and prime OM glass is often used on FF Canons by fanatical shooters.



-Rich

E-1, 14-45mm, 40-150mm, OM24mmf2.8, OM35mmf2.8, OM50mmf1.4, OM50mm macro f3.5, OM135mmf2.8, OM100-200mmf5, OM300mmf4.5, SHLD-2, FL-20.



http://www.pbase.com/andersonrm/

Thank you for the information. I knew they were originally designed for semiconductor imaging; however, I did not know they were designed for single wave lengths. I have seen photos taken with these lenses reverse mounted on cameras to take bug photos. I have often thought they were far more expensive than the photographic value merits.

It is just my opinion of course. I am not into macro photography and these ultra-micro lenses might as well be 10x-20x microscopes. Great if you want to take a mantis portrait.

You buy the Noct for other reasons, not for a high degree of sharpness. You buy it for the out of focus rendition, which is somewhat similar to an 85 f1.4.

dis.......
Get off this thread and start your own!!!
Tired of your ranting.

Excellent point Joe.

Ignorant question followed by pages of rude comments from those who obviously have little to do and no understanding of photography.

JoeR said:

--How would anyone here know that? This speculation is a waste of
time.

joer56

Click to expand...

They would know what is sharpest among what they have used. It's not speculation and not a waste of time except for posts like yours. If you honestly believe it's a waste of time then why even bother opening the thread?
--
This space for rent.