I think the "flatness" you refered others called "lack of 3d pop" Some of my lens have more 3d pop than others. Camera conspiracies recent video demonstrated 3d pop pretty well.
I have a Nikon D200 I picked up earlier this year. I recently picked up a 20-35 2.8D lens for it. I have 3 other lenses, 50 1.8, 70-210, and a vivitar 28 2.8 manual. I never thought I would like the camera, but I keep going back to it. I really like the camera and it is fun to use.
Thanks Robin, A zoom lens with some macro capabilities has to be the most useful lens on any system! And yes, the overall ‘look’ of the images matters way more than outright sharpness IMO. I LOVE the rendering of my Olympus 14-54mm f2.8-3.5ii. (Particularly on my e-500). It produces beautiful colours, just the right amount of sharpness and contrast, and lovely soft transitions to OOF areas.
I have the AF Zoom-Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8D on my Nikon D700. Its less range and you have to pull from 70mm to 35mm, despite that its a great lens and can be had for around the same price.
Hi Robin, I love your photographs, specially your street portraits. For me the general appeal of super-sharpness is fading and the softness of this lens is very flattering for portraits. I understand what you see as flatness but why do we always have to compare with other lenses. Maybe a small extra tweak of contrast in post would improve perception of these apparently flat results. Thanks for posting another interesting video.
Hi Robin, I really like the Macro Capability, good for shooting flowers on your Walkabout. I learned something new, Rendering, it's something I didn't know. You never stop learning in photography. Many thanks Robin 😊
Thanks for sharing, Robin. KL looks so good in your photos every time. You make just about as little sense as usual😀 Seriously, I did not pay much attention to any image flatness until you mentioned it.
i was confused as well until another commenter mentioned he probably meant "lack of 3D pop" instead, as in "2D-looking" flat and maybe not so much "color profile" flat
Sharpness is very subjective. Measurable is resolution and contrast. And these two together have impact on "sharpness" of a lens. There are lenses that have really fine resolution (example maybe even the old M42 Soviet Helios 58/2) but lack contrast and images feel somewhat dull unless processed a lot. There are lenses that have extremely good contrast straight from the shot, but lack the very fine resolution (example Pentax FA*24/2), but people love them, because images can be outstanding if photographer knows how to use it and thanks to contrast it feels "sharp". Some lenses have both clinically high resolution and contrast, but they lack in out-of-focus area and bokeh is not pleasant on pictures. And another chapter is color rendering. Usually simple lenses with only few elements can provide very nice color/tonality but lack in fine resolution except maybe central part of image circle. Other can be hi-res and hi-contras all around the frame, but colors are degraded a bit because such lenses tend to have complicated formula consisting of 10+ lens elements, it corrects optical issues, but the number of glass/air transitions affects the tonality. The nice thing about older film/early DSLR era lenses is, that there was zero option for in camera correction, so some hi-end lenses have excellent image straight from the hardware analog side. While some recent mirrorless lenses without corrections have really ugly distorted image full of aberations and other nasty stuff.
I got back my Sony NEX C3 which I had many years ago and fitted it with the16-50 kit from my a6700 to make a pocketable camera. The NEX C3 has no in-camera corrections - at least not with this lens, and not that you can see on the LCD. At the wide end, the corners are completely chopped off to the point they are pitch black. The distortion is so bad it's funny. Sure, it can all be fixed, a little over a decade ago they would not sell even a kit lens that had faults like this. Even higher end lenses like the 18-105 G (which I also own) are similar in this regard. Optical viewfinders would expose these flaws even if everything was already fixable in post with DSLRs, but also resolution mattered a lot less with 10 or 12mp sensors, so I guess they have to do what's necessary to produce a useful image while keeping weight and price under control.
DSLR zoom lenses from the film era tend to have this problem. It's not helped with Nikon's by default colour science compared with a Canon too. You kind of have to bump up the contrast or saturation to get some pop in your images.
Saw a really interesting video about this a long time ago... It was talking about Zeiss lenses and how they basically always have blurry corners. The reason was something to do with field curvature? That lended to the Zeiss 'pop'? I don't remember it well and don't know how real any of that is.
Yeah, I guess the rendering matters a lot to me as well. I am honestly 'usually OK' with the resolution of lenses even with RAW files from some 1/3", 15mm FOV ultrawide in a phone, as well as M43 f/11-16 images that are obviously diffraction limited. (Obviously the resolution needs would increase if I had to crop the image some more.) But for the rendering, as a hobbyist all I need is images that are pleasing to my eyes, so it gets very subjective yet is a primary consideration. I like the way the 35-100 f/2.8 renders, plus the aperture (being fairly important for M43 cameras) have made me get this over the 40-150 f/4 pro. Same for any other format if I were to use them. Like how in the Nikon Z system, I would probably choose the 'cheap' Nikon 40mm or 50 1.4, simply because I have tried them out in their showroom, and similar to the 35-100mm, there seems to be a 'pop' that I like especially when there is some bokeh. It doesn't need to be massive blur - not a fan of that - but some lenses just seem to make the subject more distinct from the background. In fact the 40 was even on the APS-C Z30 so more DOF than FF, but the way the toy dog popped out on the display table, I just like it. And for 'flat' lenses - I may even prefer the rendering of my phone's 50mm FOV lens. Even something as tiny as a phone lens can have interesting rendering apparently.
Thanks for making and sharing the video. I would like to have a DSLR system just for fun and different user experience (mainly OVF). I am split between Sony A mount because Minolta lenses are true dirt cheap and I can get 35mm FF or CCD sensors, the Pentax K mount because they have over 70 years of universal compatibility lenses but 35mm FF K-1 is still quite expensive and heavy, and the Four Thirds system where I can get compact DSLRs, CCD, and lenses that I can use on my OM-1 with very little downsides. IBIS is extremely important to me that's why I am thinking of only the DSLRs that have them (with probably a couple of zooms and a couple of primes).
No worries, my pleasure to share. I must comment on one thing, if the DSLR is too old, say more than 10 years old, there is a high chance that the image stabilization unit is faulty or broken, the older tech do not last that long. Other than that, the older DSLRs are so fun to shoot with!
Digital Pentax era was always based on APS-C + 645MF. Fullframe K1 was just some crazy Ricoh idea to try to capture some part of already dead FF DSLR market. That crazy idea took them years to develop, cost tons of money and almost killed the brand because everything else was neglected for years and many traditional APS-C customers left the boat and switched to other systems. As a result it is FF Kmount system with very limited lens options lacking a lot on all fronts. K1 sensor is 2012 D800 era, but AF is not even close to D800 and completely obsolete when compared to any recent mirrorless camera including lowend cheap ones. If you are crazy enough and you still want DSLR from Pentax, just get K5II, K5IIs, K3 or maybe KP and lenses you find interesting depending on what you shoot. Check DA12-24/4, DA16-85, DA18-135, FA35/2, DA40/2.8, DA70/2.4, DA55-300WR, 50/2.8 Macro or 100/2.8 Macro. Sigma also had some interesting options you can find on 2nd hand market with good price now like the mighty 18-35/1.8A, general purpose fast 17-50/2.8, universal 17-70/2.8-4 and for example the 70-200/2.8HSM and superb 100-300/4 for telephoto. But if you already have some M4/3, Olympus DSLR would make more sense because they had some excellent fast lenses that can be adapted to EM1/OM1/EM5III/OM5 cameras with AF phase detect and still work well. Zuiko 14-35/2, Zuiko 35-100/2, Zuiko 50-200/2.8-3.5 SWD, Zuiko 90-250/2.8 and others.
@@xmeda Thank you. Pentax K200D was the first camera I ever had back in 2009 and I loved it but I had to sell it. I recently tried it again but the aging sensor was hard to use with the Pentax 18-135mm because it was losing the light so fast from wide to telephoto. I do like the K-5 and K-3 cameras (even the K-7 that used to be my dream camera back in the day). The most interesting lenses on Pentax are the Sigma 18-35mm f 1.8 Art, 60-250mm f 4 and 300mm f 4. From 4/3s I used to have and quite loved my Oly 14-53mm II and 50-200mm non SWD lenses. The lenses you mentioned tend to be quite rare and some stupidly expensive. But I am intrigued about E-300, E-620 and E-3/5 cameras.
Hi Robin. Is there any chance you could do a review of the new TTartisan 75mm f/1.5 Biotar remake on a Micro 4/3 camera? There are some rave reviews of it out there but all on ff or medium format bodies. How does it perform on the smaller sensor?
@@Homer-0 Of course I’m not talking about of all time but in the last 10-15 years they have gone the sigma route of tons of elements in their lenses to flatten it out in the name of sharpness. Last amazing 3D pop lens canon made was the 2008 85mm f1.2. The RF version is no not close for depth rendering (3D pop)
Robin! Respectfully, this lens sounds like a real dud-even for only $150! We could get much better used MFT lenses at that price. But fun video as always!
Yes, i also see what you say! As i see the pictures in the Video, before your conclusion, in think by me "not impressed". And in the most other of your Videos i think not so. Not a lens for me for my conclusion.
I think the "flatness" you refered others called "lack of 3d pop"
Some of my lens have more 3d pop than others. Camera conspiracies recent video demonstrated 3d pop pretty well.
Hi Robin, Yes I can see what your talking about witth flatness. Thank you.
I have a Nikon D200 I picked up earlier this year. I recently picked up a 20-35 2.8D lens for it. I have 3 other lenses, 50 1.8, 70-210, and a vivitar 28 2.8 manual. I never thought I would like the camera, but I keep going back to it. I really like the camera and it is fun to use.
Because You are such a Great Photog!!!!! The sharpness is not even noticed :) :) :)
Thanks Robin,
A zoom lens with some macro capabilities has to be the most useful lens on any system!
And yes, the overall ‘look’ of the images matters way more than outright sharpness IMO.
I LOVE the rendering of my Olympus 14-54mm f2.8-3.5ii. (Particularly on my e-500). It produces beautiful colours, just the right amount of sharpness and contrast, and lovely soft transitions to OOF areas.
I have the AF Zoom-Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8D on my Nikon D700. Its less range and you have to pull from 70mm to 35mm, despite that its a great lens and can be had for around the same price.
Hi Robin, I love your photographs, specially your street portraits. For me the general appeal of super-sharpness is fading and the softness of this lens is very flattering for portraits. I understand what you see as flatness but why do we always have to compare with other lenses. Maybe a small extra tweak of contrast in post would improve perception of these apparently flat results. Thanks for posting another interesting video.
Hi Robin, I really like the Macro Capability, good for shooting flowers on your Walkabout. I learned something new, Rendering, it's something I didn't know. You never stop learning in photography. Many thanks Robin 😊
Thanks for sharing, Robin. KL looks so good in your photos every time. You make just about as little sense as usual😀 Seriously, I did not pay much attention to any image flatness until you mentioned it.
i was confused as well until another commenter mentioned he probably meant "lack of 3D pop" instead, as in "2D-looking" flat and maybe not so much "color profile" flat
This flatness is complaint about at the oly 17mm 1.7 by some people.
Its why i see more recommendations of the lumix one
Sharpness is very subjective. Measurable is resolution and contrast. And these two together have impact on "sharpness" of a lens. There are lenses that have really fine resolution (example maybe even the old M42 Soviet Helios 58/2) but lack contrast and images feel somewhat dull unless processed a lot. There are lenses that have extremely good contrast straight from the shot, but lack the very fine resolution (example Pentax FA*24/2), but people love them, because images can be outstanding if photographer knows how to use it and thanks to contrast it feels "sharp". Some lenses have both clinically high resolution and contrast, but they lack in out-of-focus area and bokeh is not pleasant on pictures. And another chapter is color rendering. Usually simple lenses with only few elements can provide very nice color/tonality but lack in fine resolution except maybe central part of image circle. Other can be hi-res and hi-contras all around the frame, but colors are degraded a bit because such lenses tend to have complicated formula consisting of 10+ lens elements, it corrects optical issues, but the number of glass/air transitions affects the tonality.
The nice thing about older film/early DSLR era lenses is, that there was zero option for in camera correction, so some hi-end lenses have excellent image straight from the hardware analog side. While some recent mirrorless lenses without corrections have really ugly distorted image full of aberations and other nasty stuff.
I got back my Sony NEX C3 which I had many years ago and fitted it with the16-50 kit from my a6700 to make a pocketable camera. The NEX C3 has no in-camera corrections - at least not with this lens, and not that you can see on the LCD. At the wide end, the corners are completely chopped off to the point they are pitch black. The distortion is so bad it's funny. Sure, it can all be fixed, a little over a decade ago they would not sell even a kit lens that had faults like this. Even higher end lenses like the 18-105 G (which I also own) are similar in this regard. Optical viewfinders would expose these flaws even if everything was already fixable in post with DSLRs, but also resolution mattered a lot less with 10 or 12mp sensors, so I guess they have to do what's necessary to produce a useful image while keeping weight and price under control.
Great review. Just goes to show what great value, and good quality, older lenses can be 👍
DSLR zoom lenses from the film era tend to have this problem. It's not helped with Nikon's by default colour science compared with a Canon too. You kind of have to bump up the contrast or saturation to get some pop in your images.
Finally I See you again 😊
Saw a really interesting video about this a long time ago... It was talking about Zeiss lenses and how they basically always have blurry corners. The reason was something to do with field curvature? That lended to the Zeiss 'pop'? I don't remember it well and don't know how real any of that is.
Yeah, I guess the rendering matters a lot to me as well. I am honestly 'usually OK' with the resolution of lenses even with RAW files from some 1/3", 15mm FOV ultrawide in a phone, as well as M43 f/11-16 images that are obviously diffraction limited. (Obviously the resolution needs would increase if I had to crop the image some more.)
But for the rendering, as a hobbyist all I need is images that are pleasing to my eyes, so it gets very subjective yet is a primary consideration. I like the way the 35-100 f/2.8 renders, plus the aperture (being fairly important for M43 cameras) have made me get this over the 40-150 f/4 pro.
Same for any other format if I were to use them. Like how in the Nikon Z system, I would probably choose the 'cheap' Nikon 40mm or 50 1.4, simply because I have tried them out in their showroom, and similar to the 35-100mm, there seems to be a 'pop' that I like especially when there is some bokeh. It doesn't need to be massive blur - not a fan of that - but some lenses just seem to make the subject more distinct from the background. In fact the 40 was even on the APS-C Z30 so more DOF than FF, but the way the toy dog popped out on the display table, I just like it.
And for 'flat' lenses - I may even prefer the rendering of my phone's 50mm FOV lens. Even something as tiny as a phone lens can have interesting rendering apparently.
Thanks for making and sharing the video. I would like to have a DSLR system just for fun and different user experience (mainly OVF). I am split between Sony A mount because Minolta lenses are true dirt cheap and I can get 35mm FF or CCD sensors, the Pentax K mount because they have over 70 years of universal compatibility lenses but 35mm FF K-1 is still quite expensive and heavy, and the Four Thirds system where I can get compact DSLRs, CCD, and lenses that I can use on my OM-1 with very little downsides. IBIS is extremely important to me that's why I am thinking of only the DSLRs that have them (with probably a couple of zooms and a couple of primes).
No worries, my pleasure to share. I must comment on one thing, if the DSLR is too old, say more than 10 years old, there is a high chance that the image stabilization unit is faulty or broken, the older tech do not last that long. Other than that, the older DSLRs are so fun to shoot with!
Digital Pentax era was always based on APS-C + 645MF. Fullframe K1 was just some crazy Ricoh idea to try to capture some part of already dead FF DSLR market. That crazy idea took them years to develop, cost tons of money and almost killed the brand because everything else was neglected for years and many traditional APS-C customers left the boat and switched to other systems. As a result it is FF Kmount system with very limited lens options lacking a lot on all fronts. K1 sensor is 2012 D800 era, but AF is not even close to D800 and completely obsolete when compared to any recent mirrorless camera including lowend cheap ones.
If you are crazy enough and you still want DSLR from Pentax, just get K5II, K5IIs, K3 or maybe KP and lenses you find interesting depending on what you shoot. Check DA12-24/4, DA16-85, DA18-135, FA35/2, DA40/2.8, DA70/2.4, DA55-300WR, 50/2.8 Macro or 100/2.8 Macro. Sigma also had some interesting options you can find on 2nd hand market with good price now like the mighty 18-35/1.8A, general purpose fast 17-50/2.8, universal 17-70/2.8-4 and for example the 70-200/2.8HSM and superb 100-300/4 for telephoto.
But if you already have some M4/3, Olympus DSLR would make more sense because they had some excellent fast lenses that can be adapted to EM1/OM1/EM5III/OM5 cameras with AF phase detect and still work well. Zuiko 14-35/2, Zuiko 35-100/2, Zuiko 50-200/2.8-3.5 SWD, Zuiko 90-250/2.8 and others.
@@xmeda Thank you. Pentax K200D was the first camera I ever had back in 2009 and I loved it but I had to sell it. I recently tried it again but the aging sensor was hard to use with the Pentax 18-135mm because it was losing the light so fast from wide to telephoto. I do like the K-5 and K-3 cameras (even the K-7 that used to be my dream camera back in the day). The most interesting lenses on Pentax are the Sigma 18-35mm f 1.8 Art, 60-250mm f 4 and 300mm f 4.
From 4/3s I used to have and quite loved my Oly 14-53mm II and 50-200mm non SWD lenses. The lenses you mentioned tend to be quite rare and some stupidly expensive. But I am intrigued about E-300, E-620 and E-3/5 cameras.
Love the Robin
Hi Robin. Is there any chance you could do a review of the new TTartisan 75mm f/1.5 Biotar remake on a Micro 4/3 camera? There are some rave reviews of it out there but all on ff or medium format bodies. How does it perform on the smaller sensor?
Your portaits look great to me, like always. Couldn‘t tell what camera or lens you used.
This is why I love Fujifilm out of all the big 4 they care the most about POP in their lenses
You probably have to do a little bit of research on the lenses Canon and especially Nikon has produced the last 70 years :)
@@Homer-0 Of course I’m not talking about of all time but in the last 10-15 years they have gone the sigma route of tons of elements in their lenses to flatten it out in the name of sharpness. Last amazing 3D pop lens canon made was the 2008 85mm f1.2. The RF version is no not close for depth rendering (3D pop)
Robin! Respectfully, this lens sounds like a real dud-even for only $150! We could get much better used MFT lenses at that price. But fun video as always!
What editing software do You use??? Please n thanks :) :) :)
Hi Robin, please review Sigma 56mm F1.4 for MFT
Sure. Send one to me. I will it immediately
@@robinwongI‘m tempted of doing that.
I can't really see the flatness, but I call that a 'me' problem!
Yes, i also see what you say! As i see the pictures in the Video, before your conclusion, in think by me "not impressed". And in the most other of your Videos i think not so. Not a lens for me for my conclusion.