Is a f2.8 lens always sharper than f3.5 lens

Yes, i have absolutely no knowledge of tokina lenses and i intend to keep it that way.

Look at it on the positive side:
Me buying no cheap Tokina lenses, means more cheap lenses for you to buy!

Oh boy, those Tokina lenses sure are hot collector items in Ebay..
they just fly off the auctions...

It must be the image quality..

Choice said:

This last comment proves that you have absolutely no knowledge of
Tokina lenses. All Tokina ATX lenses are all glass and have metal
lens barrels. Tokina has been making professional quality lenses
for over 50 years, and (unlike Sony) aren't embarrassed to put
their own name on their product.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com

yuri777 said:

First hand experience with cheap Tokina lenses?
ugh.. not thanks
Canon? Minolta... not today.. thanks..

i have plenty of experience with cheap metal yashica lenses already

i will just keep on shooting through my crappy, old, metal zeiss
glass..

Click to expand...

Let us know how your plan to mount Zeiss lenses on S2 works out.

yuri777 said:

Yes, i have absolutely no knowledge of tokina lenses and i intend
to keep it that way.

Look at it on the positive side:
Me buying no cheap Tokina lenses, means more cheap lenses for you
to buy!

Oh boy, those Tokina lenses sure are hot collector items in Ebay..
they just fly off the auctions...

It must be the image quality..

Click to expand...

You are obviously talking about public image of the brand in your eyes, not the image captured on film or sensor.

I have to say i don't buy that argument. I have a Olympus C3030, producing very sharp and nice images. I also have a DSLR E20, producing soft images. I don't find the C3030 images less restrictive than the E20s to work with Photoshop. If i want to add some softness on the C3030, i apply a very small amount of blurr. Adding some sharpening on the E20s though produces some artifacts in most cases.

I have yet to see a technical explanation justifying this argument.

Seb.

Mike Russell said:

Anyways. A lot of photographers have a saying "F-8 and be there".
Or something to that effect. F-8, can be said as "Fate", but means
F-Stop 8. In general most lenses have the sharpest pics around the
F-8 area. You may want to try some pics in that area.

You may also want to try increasing the sharpening level of your S2
to "HARD". This will produce a much sharper picture out of camera,
however it may limit some post processing as well if you choose to
do any.

There is a rampant discussion of the Nikon D100 being to soft. Part
of the explanation for this is as follows.

Many people using the D100 (or S2) are coming up from Consumer
level digicams (your 707, my nikon 950). These consumer level
digicams try and produce the best possible picture out of the
camera. The manufacturers assume that the end user of a consumer
camera is not going to do any post processing in Photo Shop or else
where. Just print the image and be done with it.

These Semi-Pro/Pro camera's like the D100 and the S2 take a
different approach. They expect people to be doing post processing
and leave the image rather un-changed from what was captured. Means
a bit more work later, but gives a lot more freedom!

Hope this is clear.

Mike

yowsiang said:

Hi,
Can anyone advice me whether a f2.8 lens always sharper than f3.5
lens because it allow faster shutter speed?
And that is why my comsumer cam Sony f707 is sharper than my pro
cam S2 because sony has a f2.0 whereas I am using a tokina 24-200
of f3.5?

regards
yowsiang

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I think there are several issues being mixed up here, which is typical when one is moving from a prosumer camera like the Sony, with a custom designed lens and smaller sensor area than the Fuji S2, which has a larger sensor and interchangeable lenses. This issue came up in another thread when someone talked about how much sharper E-10 images were shot at wide apertures than the S2. I have some experience with this, as I used a Canon G1 extensively before buying a Fuji S1.

There may be some lens issues, though I'm not qualified to say how good the Tokina is. But typically with cameras like the Sony, you get much greater depth of field at a given aperture, meaning shots are more likely to be sharp across the frame (assuming reasonable light allowing for a good shutter speed, and sound handholding technique). With my G1, it was easy to shoot at f2.8 or f4, but the flip side is that it was more difficult to blur the background creatively.

With the S2, particularly with a consumer grade lens attached to it, wider apertures generally deliver softer results...most lenses start getting to their peak of sharpness around f5.6 or f8. Of course, there are many variables here, and a lot depends on what you're shooting as well...for people close to the camera, you may find that you get acceptable sharpness at most apertures, but for a landscape scene with several objects in the foreground, your camera just automatically shoots at infinity and there are areas of softness as a result.

The bottom line is...you'll have to spend more time determining the strengths of your lenses (what apertures it performs best at) and managing depth of field with different scenes...the S2 won't be as point-and-shoot as the Sony. But you'll ultimately end up with a lot more control, and there won't be any doubting which is the better camera long term. You may want to look at some prime lenses if your budget allows for it, as those will give you superior sharpness (if less versatility) than a zoom. Good ones to start with for not too much money are the 24mm 2.8, and the 50mm 1.4 or 1.8 (all Nikon lenses).

Robert

yowsiang said:

Hi,
Can anyone advice me whether a f2.8 lens always sharper than f3.5
lens because it allow faster shutter speed?
And that is why my comsumer cam Sony f707 is sharper than my pro
cam S2 because sony has a f2.0 whereas I am using a tokina 24-200
of f3.5?

regards
yowsiang

Click to expand...

Here is the workflow from Zeiss to Nikkor:

Sell Zeiss lenses -> Go to Ebay -> buy used Nikon lenses -> Take great pictures with S2 -> make fun of cheap japanese "tokina" lenses and other cheesy brands

Thanks for helping me complete the workflow!
Regards

Yuri

Choice said:

yuri777 said:

First hand experience with cheap Tokina lenses?
ugh.. not thanks
Canon? Minolta... not today.. thanks..

i have plenty of experience with cheap metal yashica lenses already

i will just keep on shooting through my crappy, old, metal zeiss
glass..

Click to expand...

Let us know how your plan to mount Zeiss lenses on S2 works out.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com

I am actually talking about the public image of the brand in MANY eyes, not mine.

The day i hear about Herb Ritts, Peter Lindberg, Patrick Demarchelier and other fashion pros, shooting with "tokina" lenses, i will pat your back.

In the meanwhile i will stick to my Zeiss -> Nikkor workflow (see post above)

Choice said:

yuri777 said:

Yes, i have absolutely no knowledge of tokina lenses and i intend
to keep it that way.

Look at it on the positive side:
Me buying no cheap Tokina lenses, means more cheap lenses for you
to buy!

Oh boy, those Tokina lenses sure are hot collector items in Ebay..
they just fly off the auctions...

It must be the image quality..

Click to expand...

You are obviously talking about public image of the brand in your
eyes, not the image captured on film or sensor.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com

Little late now... but...

Usually if you are doing any post processing sharpening is recommend to be done last. Any resizing, colour changes, cropping etc then Sharpening.. The sharpening effect is a one way process and should only be done once.

By having the camera do a lot of sharpening it means if you do choose to sample-up the photo later you will introduce more noise and artifacts. If the camera does no/little sharpening you have more freedom to post process without introducing more artifacts. Edit your photo then sharpen last.

I think I got this right!

Mike

yowsiang said:

Thanks for that explaination, but wont post processing create nmore
artifact or noise when its sharpen in let say photoshop?

Also does that explains why images from sonyf707 is very sharp but
with higher noise at the darker areas, because the camera has done
the sharperning process?

yowsiang

Mike Russell said:

Anyways. A lot of photographers have a saying "F-8 and be there".
Or something to that effect. F-8, can be said as "Fate", but means
F-Stop 8. In general most lenses have the sharpest pics around the
F-8 area. You may want to try some pics in that area.

You may also want to try increasing the sharpening level of your S2
to "HARD". This will produce a much sharper picture out of camera,
however it may limit some post processing as well if you choose to
do any.

There is a rampant discussion of the Nikon D100 being to soft. Part
of the explanation for this is as follows.

Many people using the D100 (or S2) are coming up from Consumer
level digicams (your 707, my nikon 950). These consumer level
digicams try and produce the best possible picture out of the
camera. The manufacturers assume that the end user of a consumer
camera is not going to do any post processing in Photo Shop or else
where. Just print the image and be done with it.

These Semi-Pro/Pro camera's like the D100 and the S2 take a
different approach. They expect people to be doing post processing
and leave the image rather un-changed from what was captured. Means
a bit more work later, but gives a lot more freedom!

Hope this is clear.

Mike

yowsiang said:

Hi,
Can anyone advice me whether a f2.8 lens always sharper than f3.5
lens because it allow faster shutter speed?
And that is why my comsumer cam Sony f707 is sharper than my pro
cam S2 because sony has a f2.0 whereas I am using a tokina 24-200
of f3.5?

regards
yowsiang

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

yuri777 said:

Here is the workflow from Zeiss to Nikkor:

Sell Zeiss lenses -> Go to Ebay -> buy used Nikon lenses -> Take
great pictures with S2 -> make fun of cheap japanese "tokina"
lenses and other cheesy brands

Click to expand...

So you aren't sticking with Zeiss lenses after all, not even the plastic fantastic from Sony.

yuri777 said:

Choice said:

yuri777 said:

First hand experience with cheap Tokina lenses?
ugh.. not thanks
Canon? Minolta... not today.. thanks..

i have plenty of experience with cheap metal yashica lenses already

i will just keep on shooting through my crappy, old, metal zeiss
glass..

Click to expand...

Let us know how your plan to mount Zeiss lenses on S2 works out.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com

Click to expand...

yuri777 said:

I am actually talking about the public image of the brand in MANY
eyes, not mine.

The day i hear about Herb Ritts, Peter Lindberg, Patrick
Demarchelier and other fashion pros, shooting with "tokina" lenses,
i will pat your back.

In the meanwhile i will stick to my Zeiss -> Nikkor workflow (see
post above)

Click to expand...

You can shoot grainy porn with a vintage brownie for all I care. Won't make you right.

Guys, peace,....... You're both right, Tokina makes some pretty decent lenses and the "Zeiss" glass on the Sony is great as well although it's not produced by Zeiss...

However, I don't think Zeiss would allow Sony to put bad glas into their cameras and call it Carl Zeiss..

Now back to the original question...Is a F2,8 always sharper than a 3,5. I'd say yes if you compare lenses with the same focal lengt and let's not mix D-SLR with smaller lenses for smaller CCD's ( that's another story) . To obtain a lens with F2,8 for a DSLR needs a lot better glas than for a F3,5 lens so it should always be sharper since it can capture details better especially in lower light conditions.

To make a good lens for a smaller CCD is a lot cheaper, less glas to be used and wouldn't it be great to see lenses made for todays DSLR so we could avoid the 1,5X factor and probably benefit by lower F-stop and maybe even cheaper than todays alternative...

Cheers
Jens

Jens ( Sweden ) said:

Now back to the original question...Is a F2,8 always sharper than a
3,5. I'd say yes if you compare lenses with the same focal lengt
and let's not mix D-SLR with smaller lenses for smaller CCD's (
that's another story) . To obtain a lens with F2,8 for a DSLR needs
a lot better glas than for a F3,5 lens so it should always be
sharper since it can capture details better especially in lower
light conditions.

Click to expand...

You make good points, but I can't agree with your conclusion. Faster lenses are generally designed with the primary goal of acceptable performance wide open. Stopped down 3 or 4 stops slower lense will often do better. In the end, you really need to compare individually and look simply at maximum aperture. Just compare Nikon's new 45/2.8 vs. older 50/1.2. Both are great lenses, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that 45/2.8 will blow away sharpness comparison.

So Robert how many degrees FOV would you get with the 24mm lens. I like to shoot a lot of nature landscape stuff and I am looking for a good wide angle prime lens....

Tony

Sadly, i am not sticking to my Zeiss lenses.

I can't use use them with the Contax N1 (gulp) digital.. even if i could that camera is a tremendous failure and not worth even half of what the S2/D100/D60 are.

I have already bought a nice set of used Nikkor primes.

Whether the Nikkors can match up to my Zeiss lenses is a different story.. specially the Zeiss 55mm F1.4 vs. the Nikkor 50mm f1.4..

I guess this is the price for shooting digital..

Here is some grainy porn, shot with Zeiss glass

Choice said:

yuri777 said:

Here is the workflow from Zeiss to Nikkor:

Sell Zeiss lenses -> Go to Ebay -> buy used Nikon lenses -> Take
great pictures with S2 -> make fun of cheap japanese "tokina"
lenses and other cheesy brands

Click to expand...

So you aren't sticking with Zeiss lenses after all, not even the
plastic fantastic from Sony.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com

Actually i agree with Choice on this one, we just don't share our love / hate for Tokina lenses.

Regards

Choice said:

Jens ( Sweden ) said:

Now back to the original question...Is a F2,8 always sharper than a
3,5. I'd say yes if you compare lenses with the same focal lengt
and let's not mix D-SLR with smaller lenses for smaller CCD's (
that's another story) . To obtain a lens with F2,8 for a DSLR needs
a lot better glas than for a F3,5 lens so it should always be
sharper since it can capture details better especially in lower
light conditions.

Click to expand...

You make good points, but I can't agree with your conclusion.
Faster lenses are generally designed with the primary goal of
acceptable performance wide open. Stopped down 3 or 4 stops slower
lense will often do better. In the end, you really need to compare
individually and look simply at maximum aperture. Just compare
Nikon's new 45/2.8 vs. older 50/1.2. Both are great lenses, but
I'll bet dollars to donuts that 45/2.8 will blow away sharpness
comparison.

Click to expand...

--
http://zenphoto.com