Doug, you are absolutely right. If the digital sensors dummy down the lens
performance, it does so with all lenses so those that start out sharper stay
sharper than those which were not as sharp to begin with. I can definitely
tell differences with my Leica lenses on a the 20D compared to my friends
lesser quality lenses on the 20D in print form and in monitor viewed files.
The fact that Leica lenses tend to perform better wide open than competitors
lenses makes them all the more attractive for manually focusing on a
digicam.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Herr" <telyt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 1:46 PM
Subject: [LRFlex] Re: Are comparision 'tests' valid?
Scott Gardner <scottgee1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Computer screen resolution is significantly lower than that of a good printing system. On more than a few
occasions, people who have posted images to the 'net say something along the lines of, "If you think this looks
good, you should see the print!"
Since most of my own work finds its final destination as in print form, I wondering if what I see on screen is a
good predictor of what I'll see on paper.
For an un-cropped image I agree with you to a large degree. The cropped bits of images in Julien's test show a significant difference in detail rendition. Whether this will show up on a print is debatable and will depend on how large the print is among other things.
OTOH, several people have written and commented on the photos I've made with my recently-acquired Canon FD 400mm f/2.8 L, how these photos are not as crisp as my other photos made with Leica lenses. My experience with prints in hand is that when the photo isn't as crisp on the screen it's also not as crisp in the print.
Before comparisons like this were made, it was argued by many that the lens resolution doesn't matter because the low-pass filter will "dumb-down" the lens so that all lenses will be equal. Now we're seeing that this assumption doesn't hold in these tests. I'm also seeing that some people can tell the difference in image quality from screen-resolution .jpg files that translates to print quality. Even if there was no correlation between the quality of the uncropped screen image and the print, the cropped image sections suggest that the 50 'cron will give more image detail that the Canon lens under the test conditions. In many situation sthis might not matter; when I'm pushing the limits, for example large prints or cropped images, I'd rather be using the lens than can put out more detail and IMHO the crops from the full image give me a clear idea which lens is more likely to produce the detail I want.
Doug Herr Birdman of Sacramento http://www.wildlightphoto.com ------ Unsubscribe or change to/from Digest Mode at: www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr/lrflex.htm Archives are at: www.freelists.org/archives/leicareflex/
------ Unsubscribe or change to/from Digest Mode at: www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr/lrflex.htm Archives are at: www.freelists.org/archives/leicareflex/