What WR has just posted below is very true, BUT IT CONTRADICTS his earlier strong opposite position in another long thread where I stated that in general, 35mm lenses are sharper than MedFormat lenses and he took me to task in saying that I was wrong. Nice try, William Robb. Have you now changed your position on the lens sharpness vs format (coverage) issue to agree with me? It sure looks like you have.
JCO -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of William Robb Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 2:38 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: NO FS this Friday? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom C" Subject: Re: NO FS this Friday? > I'm curious if there are any lens test sites that compare chromatic > aberration and other factors of DA lenses with their closest legacy > equivalent. I haven't looked but I'd be interested in seeing some > data on the subject. The "exclusively designed for digital cameras" > phrase is certainly a marketing term, which leaves me feeling a little > sceptical, the same way the 22-bit A/D converter and Prime engine, do. > It sounds good but > tells me nothing substantial. Not that I've seen yet. I have a few samples of both older lenses and newer in similar focl lengths, but I can't be bothered with doing formal tests at this point. My impression is that the DA lenses that I own are doing a better job of rendering images to the sensor than the older ones in similar focal lengths. > > It doesn't make sense for Pentax (or other mfrs.) to tout backwards > lens compatibility and at the same time promote the "digitally > optimized" lenses as being especially desirable or preferrable to all > those compatible lenses, > which is also a selling feature. It makes a weird sort of marketing > sense, > but I'd like to see numbers and photos showing exactly how the optics of > the > newer lenses are *demonstrably* better than the legacy lenses, especially > considering the image circle from a legacy lens is from the sweet spot > when > projected on an APS sized sensor. Many years ago, I shot Nikon 35mm and Pentax 6x7. One of the selling points that I took into account when I switched 35mm sytems was the ability to mount my 6x7 glass onto Pentax 35mm cameras. Unfortunately, I found that the 6x7 glass didn't render images to the smaller film format as well as I would have liked, so I ended up buying glass optimized for the 35mm film format. We are in a similar situation now with digital. It is a different format with different lens quality requirements. That we can use older lenses is nice, but, like being able to mount a 6x7 lens onto an LX, there are compromises involved in doing so. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
