Fixed Focal length Lenses are Glorious, The Best Zoom Lenses are Divine!!!
Mar 31 '02 (Updated Dec 08 '03)
The Bottom Line Top quality 35 mm format zoom Lenses supplemented with a rectilinear superwide angle lens (e.g. 14 mm - 17 mm) are what most sane and productive photographers need.
FINE FIXED-FOCAL-LENGTH-LENSES (FFLLs) ARE GLORIOUS.
All the major camera makers have made many of them in various focal lengths in years past but there are even differences in quality between FFLLs with different maximum apertures from the same manufacturer. Todays makers have cut way down on the number of these lenses made and concentrate on specialized FFLLs such as: superwides; macro; perspective control and supertelephoto. Great to use and fun too but renting such specialized lenses is an economic necessity for many photographers including many of the professionals.
ZEISS AND LEITZ GLASS
Cost is a factor in the quality of any lens produced. This is why lenses from Carl Zeiss and Leitz have such a reputation for sharpness and color saturation but at such a cost. But getting back to the planet Earth, very few of us have the bucks to own or use Leitz or Carl Zeiss lenses. So what to do?
OLDIES BUT GOODIES
Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax and Olympus fill the bill for fine FFLLs no doubt. Some of the most durable manual focus FFLLs ever built are vintage Nikon, Canon, Minolta and Pentax lenses as well. These tank like FFLLs are rugged, machined beauties and in my opinion unmatched in build quality. Modern day lenses use too much plastic. Gone are the days of brass and aluminum helicoid focusing in this day of Autofocus. Manufacturers have even achieved disposable lens status these days, Heavens!
THE BEST ZOOM LENSES ARE DEVINE
Today we have optical and manufacturing advances that were not available when most of our older manual focus FFLLs were built, e.g.: 1) Die molded aspheric glass elements, & aspheric elements made by bonding resins to glass; 2) ED type glass and many other exotic glasses; 3) Large diameter Synthetic Florite crystal for lens elements; 4) improved lens coatings; 5) optical image stabilization; 6) CAD (Computer Aided Design) quantum leaps here; 7) desktop workstation super computers for analysis and choices of materials and coating; 8) Decades of Post WWII experience to name a few.
These factors have gone a long way to eliminating the objections to using high quality zoom lenses as modern everyday optics. One can even get high speed fixed aperture zooms today as well, in the f2.8 class.
f2.8 IS FAST, AND DONT FORGET THAT!
F2.8 is in general a plenty fast aperture, bump up to ASA (ISO/DIN) 400 color print film as a standard print film speed to minimize slow shutter speeds and blurred pictures related to (r/t) slow shutter speeds that are too slow to hand hold (longer than 1/15, sec for a wide angle lens and 1/focal length, sec for a telezoom. If you use aperture preferred exposure automation with the lens wide open or closed 1/2 f-stop, you will always get the fastest shutters speeds possible for the light on hand and film speed in use at the time. This decreases the risk of blurred photos from slow, hand held shutter speeds and will help soften distractive backgrounds r/t reduced depth field, good for portrait work. Any over exposure of 1-5 stops will not prevent getting a useable image with color negative film.
User shiftable programmed exposure automation can maintain proper shutter speeds with the added advantage of closing down the lens as much as possible. This helps improve depth of field, usually very desireable for the travel photographer or someone taking "grab" shots (AKA snapshots).
FILL FLASH, YES!
If you use fill-flash day and night for most of your photographs, like I do, they will have richer colors, more beautiful skin tones, prettier eyes and hair color, nicer detail in clothing and more. Using anytime automatic fill-flash allows the photos to have people in the foreground nicely illuminated while allowing ambient light to show the environment indoors or outdoors that surrounds the main subject in the foreground. Always looks great to me. Plus the people in the foreground are sharp because the electronic flash tends to freeze their movements. Heavy exposure automation is needed to do anytime automatic fill-flash quickly and consistently (indoors or out). You will need programed exposure automation for maximum consistency and ease of use with anytime automatic fill-flash.
COMMUNICATION THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY ARTISTICALLY.
Photography is all about communication and art, so distortion measurements don't count much, if at all. Zoom lenses are extremely fun to own and use. Perhaps carry a 35 mm f2.8 lens as a back up in case you drop your zoom. And a 105 mm f2.8 macro lens too but don't take my zooms away. Don't get left behind by your tour group or family while trying to get that perfect shot. You'll be getting left behind or in for a lot of relationship strains if all you are doing is changing lenses. If one insists on several FFLLs then you had better have a camera body attached to each one or you'll miss the shot while the zoom-lens shooter already got the shot and is moving on. Cumbersome carrying all those camera bodies but somebody has to do it, I guess. But no one has ever said to me: "Ah ha using a zoom for this slide shot, What a rubbish image. Humph. I would have used FFLL of x mm". Yeah! Sure Pal, in your dreams. A carefully chosen zoom can stand in for most photographers worldwide. A few specialized FFLLs like superwides, macro, supertele, and perspective control lenses are indispensable. Top quality wide ranging zooms will produce images that satisfy almost everyone. If not, then why aren't we all shooting with medium format, or large format for that matter? This is where we may have to go to get the best quality photos. But alas these cameras are not portable enough and too costly so we're forced back to 35 mm format & top quality zooms supplemented with a rectilinear 14 mm super wide angle lens (too costly though) or rectilinear 17 mm super wide angle lens (more affordable) for most sane and productive photographers.
DISABLED PHOTOGRAPHERS
Note: For those photographers who have become disabled. Top notch Autofocus Zoom lenses such as a 24-85 mm f3.5-4.5, a 24-105 mm f3.5-f4.5, a 28-105 mm f3.5-4.5, or a 28-200 mm f4-5.6 placed on an autofocus camera body set on auto everything ... make it possible for the disabled to lift themselves up and with some effort still take an occasional great photograph. These zooms go from wide angle to 2x or 4x power telephoto, a kind of supernormal do it all lens. These type zoom lenses are the very ones I had in mind when I wrote my original article.
RECTILINEAR SUPER WIDE LENSES
Rectilinear means that the lens is well corrected not to distort when held parellel to a building face or perpendicular to the floor as a reference. Rectilinear super wide angle lenses render normal looking photos when used well.
Rectilinear Super wide lenses (i.e. 14-17 mm) allow a photographer to get almost on top of the subject of interest and still get everything desired into the shot. At the same time the crowds are often eliminated from the picture because they can't focus as close and include all of the desired subject matter. Thus the crowd is forced back behind a superwide user by their optical limitations which includes their own eyes, out of most of the super wide user's photographs if so desired.
Watch out for radical, gross, user-induced distortion here because tilting these lenses causes major viewfinder vertigo and you photograph what you see thru the SLR lens.
This is an added bonus for superwide users. This user induced distortion can be really wild and great fun to use.
MOST DIGITAL CAMERAS CANNOT PROVIDE THE RECTILINEAR SUPERWIDE EFFECT
Why is it so very difficult to get superwide photos with digital cameras? Answer: Lens magnification caused by use of a sub-35 mm format (i.e. partial-frame 35 mm format) digital imaging sensor. It has been extraordinarily expensive to develop a full-frame 35 mm format digital imaging sensor to replace film in digitally adapted 35 mm SLR camera bodies. Any 35 mm lens placed on a partial-frame digital SLR camera automatically gets lens focal length magnification by a factor of 1.4, 1.5 or 1.6. Focal length magnification turns rectilinear superwide angle 35 mm format lenses into much narrower wide angle lenses. The partial-frame digital SLR photographer needs a 24 mm lens to get the moderate wide angle effect of a 35 mm focal length lens. Partial frame digital SLRs require a very costly 14 mm rectilinear superwide angle lens to produce the super wide effect of a 21 mm lens on full-frame 35 mm format. The 17 mm lens on a partial-frame digital SLR will equate to a 24 mm wide angle lens on a full-frame 35 mm format, but 17 mm glass is much more affordable than 14 mm glass. It is a very costly lens option to get the superwide angle effect on partial-frame digital 35 mm SLRs. Partial frame digital SLRs can only get as wide as a 21 mm lens on full frame 35 mm format related to focal length magnification and the fact that the widest rectilinear SLR lens available is about 13 mm.
Contax is the first to announce the release of an autofocus SLR with a full-frame 35mm format digital imaging chip. The full-frame 35 mm format digital imaging chip is the revolutionary development needed to preserve the lens investment of many a 35 mm format photographer wishing that they could go digital without focal length magnification. Other major camera brands will follow with full-frame 35 mm format digital sensor SLRs. Hopefully soon.
Author's favorites
Just an FYI from the author.
NOTE: As a general rule I prefer to own and use OEM (original equipment manufacturer) lenses but I have had excellent success with Tamron Adaptal-2 mount lenses. These interchangeable mount lenses are manual focus and very ruggedly built.
Nikkor variable aperture Autofocus (AF) zoom lenses seem to be as well built as their pricy fixed-aperture AF Nikkor zoom lenses. This does not seem to be true of all Canon EOS lenses. The fast fixed-apeture Canon EOS L-series zoom lenses are professional and beautifully built. The low-cost EOS variable aperture zooms seem mechanically much less robust and easily damaged. Well... zoom lenses don't like to get knocked around anyway but you get what you pay for.
The variable aperture AF zoom Nikkors generally cost more than the same specification Canon EOS lenses. But the AF Nikkors are heavier and more robust in construction when examined. The author wants Nikkor type durability when the going gets tough. Not everyone needs the speed of the Canon EOS L-series zooms. We can all use L-series reliability plus the lower weight and cost of the variable aperture zoom.
So Canon step up to the plate and make your EOS variable aperture zoom lenses as well as you make your professional EOS L-series zooms like NIKON DOES with its Nikkor zooms. The CANON EOS system is easy to use, superb optically and technically advanced. However, this niche is one area where aftermarket AF lenses may have a real advantage over inexpensive Canon EOS lenses.
To Nikkor or not to Nikkor? That is the question.
Dare we suffer the Slings and Arrows of other camera makes? Absolutely! You Bet! Sure enough! Nikkor lenses are ready for you! There are lots of great Nikkor lenses out there on the used market.
Top Pro Nikon SLR bodies have always been the standard of SLR bodies since the introduction of the Nikon F in the 1960s.
Nikon is rugged, nonobsolescent, quirky but always ready even when bashed.
I love all the great camera makes but cost keeps most of us using mainly one 35 mm format system. It can be very expensive to change 35mm camera systems. This is one reason Nikon has such staying power on the market, the lenses are not obsoleted. Yes, I buy used Nikkor lenses and zooms too, but carefully. Occasionally an older Nikkor just needs new lube in the focusing helix. Don't try this at home, as only qualified camara repair technicians can do it and still hand you a working lens in the same cosmetic condition as recieved. Many lenses see virtually no use before placed on the used market so one can find many gems, if you look.
EQUIPMENT ENVY DOESN'T MAKE IT.
It doesn't matter what equipment others have, all that matters is that the photographer knows how to use their own personal equipment.
I have also used Tamron, Sigma and Tokina AF variable-aperture zoom lenses and been generaly pleased with slides shot with such lenses. Some have not always been as reliable or durable as my OEM lenses.
11-30-2003
Addendum: Film lives on so don't think you are in the stone age if you are not shooting with some digital camera. Sure it is more expensive to shoot film and make prints and then throw away the bad ones. I can assure you that we all hate that wastefulness. Film processors have never encouraged frugality on printing of pictures, good, bad and the ugly. So digital has enormous appeal related to many factors such as almost instant review, printing of only the most desirable shots on ones' personal computer and has the potential of nearly eliminating the need for most polaroid films and cameras. If you don't own a PC then the digital camera user is now at the mercy of the emerging digital photo print makers and mini labs. Digital imaging now allows near total expressive and artistic freedom to the image maker and with virtually no censorship. There is much to be thankful for and the emergence of high quality digital cameras is one of them. That being said, film burners aka film shooting cameras do not become obsolete over night like all digital cameras seem to do at an ever dizzing pace. So you film shooters wait longer for prints and spend lots of money on film and film processing but the results can be archival and of course spectacular in quality. The quality of film based photographs is so enormous with such unrestrained devotion to the art of producing photographic products that only just recently have digital prints become able to rival film based photographs within 10x12" or even 16x24" in some cases. digital is here and will grow , film may fade away, but now images can live forever. Amen, So be it.
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