Lenses: how much do they affect color?

[tesla23]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

 

[tko]

I'm willing to be convinced, but I don't see how lens can significantly effect color.

The Canon 85mm f/1.2 has a t-value of 1.4 so you’re losing .2 stops. That means your transmitting 73% of the theoretical light for the F-stop, where 100% is as good as you can do, and losing 27%.

Lets say the particular glass uses transmits 10% more red than the other colors (hypothetically.) So, red would lose 10% less than the 27% average loss or about 24%.

Red transmission is then 76%, the same average is 73%, 4% delta for red (73/76). That's about .06 stops.

Maybe a sensitive person could see that, but a touch of post, and it will be blown away.

So now lets assume the glass transmits red twice as good as the other colors. Really, really bad glass. Doing the same math for the same lens, that's 0.24 stops. Still almost nothing.

Some people trick themselves into thinking they can see differences that don't exist.


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[Dr JLW]

The effects can be significant. Long ago when large format photography was the way for high quality images, many photographers had filter set for each lens.

With digital, it still can be significant. My Sony Nex with its kit lens produces much more vivid colors especially sky than I get from my Fujifilm superzoom. I suspect this difference is in UV blocking which I think my Sony lens does well. I get better sky color on the Sony even when I add a polarizer to my Fujifilm camera.

When i was doing film photography I used a few Angenieux lenses and the colors they produced were always better than the Nikon lenses. I don't know what they did or how they did it but it was very noticeable.

 

[namatet]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

--
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put a zeiss lens on, that will do it (and not just hue) It is the element coating and it is not the same.

This was in the days of the D700, maybe things have changed now ...but the difference to me looks less on film but only my experience, and the process I use.

ant

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

All lenses have an overall color cast, and this is easily removed via a manual white balance in the camera.

But back in the old days, some lenses had so many color-related aberrations that they weren't considered useful for color photography, although just fine for black and white, and so manufactures came out with lenses that were specifically marketed for color photography.

But things get complicated. There are lenses that have difficulty focusing blue light, particularly when shot wide open, and others that may have difficulty with red; or perhaps all wavelengths do get well focused, but the out-of-focus light is variously rendered for different wavelengths, leading to colored bokeh.

Take a look at this synthetic image, taken from the Bruce LIndbloom website:



And here is a version that appears to have been taken with a slightly soft lens that has a yellow color cast:



Notice that the blue colors look very slightly muted.

But this is what the blue color channel looks like:



Which is pretty awful.

See this highly technical thread on the subject:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58296326

--

The Refracted Light

A website about the Art and Science of Photography

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[tko]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

All lenses have an overall color cast, and this is easily removed via a manual white balance in the camera.

But back in the old days, some lenses had so many color-related aberrations that they weren't considered useful for color photography, although just fine for black and white, and so manufactures came out with lenses that were specifically marketed for color photography.

But things get complicated. There are lenses that have difficulty focusing blue light, particularly when shot wide open, and others that may have difficulty with red; or perhaps all wavelengths do get well focused, but the out-of-focus light is variously rendered for different wavelengths, leading to colored bokeh.

Not unless you talking about some Soviet decades old lens.

Take a look at this synthetic image, taken from the Bruce LIndbloom website:

What is a "synthetic" image? Computer generated? Are we seeing a photo of the printed out image?

And here is a version that appears to have been taken with a slightly soft lens that has a yellow color cast:



Notice that the blue colors look very slightly muted.

A printed out image, with an photo taken by some unknown lens? In Photoshop, this image looks very strange.The color squares are different colors in the center. It's computer generated, not a real image.

What lenses? What test? How far apart in time? What was the lighting? Same camera? Raw?

I suspect this is all computer generated using ray tracing. In which case, it doesn't have any resemblance to reality.

But this is what the blue color channel looks like:



Which is pretty awful.

No lens has this much blur at any color. I have no idea where this image comes from. Seems like a made up example, perhaps a computer generated with some weird tweaks to an imaginary lens. When I look at the blue channel of the example you posted, it's very sharp.

See this highly technical thread on the subject:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58296326

Another mental masterbation exercise degrading into a discussion of lens chromatic aberration. Tossing out random technical information (both in this thread and that one) does not make it sophisticated, it's just random garbage that makes the posters feel smart.

Here is a much better example, but still not enough facts. Light sources, time, camera. Differences are pretty small, considering we don't know the shooting conditions.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/56672909

--
no, I won't return to read your witty reply!
professional cynic and contrarian: don't take it personally

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[Mark S Abeln]

It's a synthetic computer generated image with a lot of blurring on the blue channel used to illustrate that theoretically an image can have a lot of color aberration yet still produce an image that may be considered usable.

 

[loitokitok]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

 

[Bob Janes]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

 

[hotdog321]

Pros have discussed the color difference between Nikon and Canon lenses for decades. Nikons tend more toward a slight cool blue/green/neutral, Canon tends more towards warm rendition. Both are easily shifted/corrected in post processing, but the OOC differences are pretty visible.

I think it has more to do with the lens multicoating than anything else. Certainly the reflections off a front element are quite different.

--
photojournalist
http://craighartley.zenfolio.com/

 

[loitokitok]

Lets say i used two lenses with the same basic specs on the same camera: 35mm 1.4 Sigma Art and a Canon L series. Both are premium lenses that will offer different results in terms of sharpness, vignetting etc but what about color?

I simply wonder how big of a role lenses play in producing a certain "look" (lack of a better word) . Thanks.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Variable white balance and adjustment in post processing can adjust relatively easily for a lens where there is a general shift towards blue or red. Where it becomes more difficult is if there are peaks or troughs in the spectral response. Better for the user that the lens manufacturer corrects that as far as possible in the lens.

What's difficult for a civilian to determine, from what I've read, is the spectral dispersion of a lens, since our cameras only record three wide overlapping swaths of spectrum. Unrecoverable dispersion at one end of the spectrum or the other may not even even be noticeable except for a white balance shift.

An interesting experiment would be using various narrow band color LEDs to illuminate a subject and see how the lens performs with each. But this may not be particularly useful except for seeing how such lens aberrations are changed with the aperture.

 

[OLORDJESUS]

I was searching for color differences in lens while using the same body, after viewing my low light long exposure stills from my new 14-140mm lens (coupled to my Lumix GX85). The stills were excessively warm, and quite displeasing when compared to my 20mm 1.7 prime. I tried adjusting the white balance custom to very cool, to no effect. At the very lease, I can verify that color differences between lenses exist, when using prime vs zoom on the GX85, on long exposure tripod mounted stills, for similar exposure and subject.