Other Do New Lenses Lack Character?

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I have started shooting with a few older generation lenses. I find them to produce some very nice images. My favorites are the SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.4, SMC Pentax DA* 16-50 SDM, and Canon EF 16-35 F2.8 L II USM. The colors seem to richer, more contrasty, and the images seem to have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to them. When edited in a slightly retro look the aesthetics really pop.

Unfortunately I can’t always say the same about some of the modern RF lenses. To me, after shooting with the RF consumer level lenses, specifically 24-105 STM, 50 & 85 STM, I find those lenses to sometimes provide a very clinical, sterile if you will, image. That’s not to say I haven’t produced some lovely images with them. I surely have. I’ve done some great work with them, and yes, the files edit just fine. However, sometimes I come away from them feeling like something in the image is missing, especially after I’ve been shooting with one of my older lenses (The Canon EF 16-35 lives on my R6MkII.)

The RF 70-200 F4 L does render very nice images and I really love that lens. I don’t think it has the same clinical and sterile qualities as the aforementioned STM lenses. The files are malleable, the images clean, very clean, maybe….too clean?

My photographic journey started as self therapy. It has evolved into a side business. What started as my search for the technically superior, optically perfect, best of the best, I find my tastes have circled around to the vintage. There’s something about an old lens. Heck, sometimes a DSLR just hits the spot. This itch for the imperfect has me searching for Pentax and Canon film cameras, just so I can stick 50s on them and capture the world.

Perhaps imperfection is where the art lies. The unrealistically vibrant colors. The dreamy imperfect bokeh, slightly soft image created by a 50+ year old lens. Or even the coatings and manufacturing processes of even the previous generation of lenses. Sometimes I wonder if the optically perfect lenses of today are making the art of photography too sterile, too sharp, too perfect. Does anyone else share these sentiments?

 

[Archibald]

Interesting thoughts. I have that SMC Takumar f/.4 somewhere, probably seriously yellowed by now. I should give it a try.

My experience with these fabled old (and very expensive in the day) lenses is that they are good but lack the resolution of modern optics. No doubt they add some "character" and we might like that character. Maybe it is a bit like the harmonic distortion added by old tube amplifiers which gave a certain resonance that we missed when technology improved.

 

[RazzleH]

I have started shooting with a few older generation lenses. I find them to produce some very nice images. My favorites are the SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.4, SMC Pentax DA* 16-50 SDM, and Canon EF 16-35 F2.8 L II USM. The colors seem to richer, more contrasty, and the images seem to have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to them. When edited in a slightly retro look the aesthetics really pop.

Unfortunately I can’t always say the same about some of the modern RF lenses. To me, after shooting with the RF consumer level lenses, specifically 24-105 STM, 50 & 85 STM, I find those lenses to sometimes provide a very clinical, sterile if you will, image. That’s not to say I haven’t produced some lovely images with them. I surely have. I’ve done some great work with them, and yes, the files edit just fine. However, sometimes I come away from them feeling like something in the image is missing, especially after I’ve been shooting with one of my older lenses (The Canon EF 16-35 lives on my R6MkII.)

The RF 70-200 F4 L does render very nice images and I really love that lens. I don’t think it has the same clinical and sterile qualities as the aforementioned STM lenses. The files are malleable, the images clean, very clean, maybe….too clean?

My photographic journey started as self therapy. It has evolved into a side business. What started as my search for the technically superior, optically perfect, best of the best, I find my tastes have circled around to the vintage. There’s something about an old lens. Heck, sometimes a DSLR just hits the spot. This itch for the imperfect has me searching for Pentax and Canon film cameras, just so I can stick 50s on them and capture the world.

Perhaps imperfection is where the art lies. The unrealistically vibrant colors. The dreamy imperfect bokeh, slightly soft image created by a 50+ year old lens. Or even the coatings and manufacturing processes of even the previous generation of lenses. Sometimes I wonder if the optically perfect lenses of today are making the art of photography too sterile, too sharp, too perfect. Does anyone else share these sentiments?

My long-time assessment was firstly based on 'do I like it', followed by ''do others like it'. Today I read that 'sharp focus', 'correct light', 'correct placement of the image in its frame', etc are the new measures. For me, 'do I like it' still comes first along side 'do I need to keep the memory'. Yes I love it when the focus and light are tops, but 'do I need the memory' remains major.

 

[Bryan Conner]

I started out with a Pentax Spotmatic II film camera and I had a lot of "good lenses". Eventually I moved up to Canon EF film lenses and finally, I completely lost my mind, and started shooting weddings. Before going digital in 2003, I was using a Mamiya C220 with a variety of Mamiya lenses....which just completely ooze quality and character, in a good way, when properly exposing high quality film. I used it for my "important" shots and my Canon DSLRs for the detail shots and the more action type shots at receptions etc.

Then I discovered that I could make the digital images look like the medium format images in Photoshop/Lightroom. You can take a very "sterile, very sharp" image shot with modern lenses and add the character too them. You can soften them down a bit etc. to give them the "look"of a vintage lens. But you can't take a vintage lens and make it sharper than what it is.

But....on the other hand, there is something special about shooting with one of the old Takumar lenses, or even a nice Canon FD mount lens. In my opinion, the "character" of the lens is more in the user experience and the feel of an all, or mostly metal lens that was designed to give the best manual focus experience. That is what I have not figured out how to emulate with modern lenses.

But, then again, I don't own any lenses from Zeiss etc. Maybe one day.

 

[BasilFawlty]

I started out with a Pentax Spotmatic II film camera and I had a lot of "good lenses". Eventually I moved up to Canon EF film lenses and finally, I completely lost my mind, and started shooting weddings. Before going digital in 2003, I was using a Mamiya C220 with a variety of Mamiya lenses....which just completely ooze quality and character, in a good way, when properly exposing high quality film. I used it for my "important" shots and my Canon DSLRs for the detail shots and the more action type shots at receptions etc.

Then I discovered that I could make the digital images look like the medium format images in Photoshop/Lightroom. You can take a very "sterile, very sharp" image shot with modern lenses and add the character too them. You can soften them down a bit etc. to give them the "look"of a vintage lens. But you can't take a vintage lens and make it sharper than what it is.

But....on the other hand, there is something special about shooting with one of the old Takumar lenses, or even a nice Canon FD mount lens. In my opinion, the "character" of the lens is more in the user experience and the feel of an all, or mostly metal lens that was designed to give the best manual focus experience. That is what I have not figured out how to emulate with modern lenses.

But, then again, I don't own any lenses from Zeiss etc. Maybe one day.

I have a few old FD lenses that I still use with my Canon T70 film SLR. I bought an FD-RF adapter and have had some fun using them on my R5. Of course they are manual focus but I like the look of some of these old lenses.