paulraphael
Member
I'm posting here so as not to start a brouhaha in the MF forum ...
There's been some talk lately about some of the new lenses for 35mm being better (in some ways) than equivalents in MF. Meanwhile, what's always attracted me to tech cams is the lenses*, which in most examples I've studied just spank the pants off of any small format lens I've used. This based on both images and MTF curves.
I'm assuming the biggest advantage of MF is in wide angle, where they don't have to use retrofocus designs (or in the case of Rodenstock, use moderate RF designs and charge four times the equivalent FF lens).
I used to assume that Schneider and Rodenstock were just better than Canon and Nikon; now I'm wondering if it's been more a question of these technical limitations, and limitations on what people have historically been willing to pay.
This last hurdle seems to be going away, now that cameras like the d800 are bridging the gap between formats. $2000 seems like the new $500. When Schneider and Zeiss's new offerings hit the market this year, our sense of normal might get stretched even farther.
Any thoughts on this trend? How do those of you with both formats see the quality of the glass evolving?
*Not as strongly as the price has repelled me; I still don't have one.
There's been some talk lately about some of the new lenses for 35mm being better (in some ways) than equivalents in MF. Meanwhile, what's always attracted me to tech cams is the lenses*, which in most examples I've studied just spank the pants off of any small format lens I've used. This based on both images and MTF curves.
I'm assuming the biggest advantage of MF is in wide angle, where they don't have to use retrofocus designs (or in the case of Rodenstock, use moderate RF designs and charge four times the equivalent FF lens).
I used to assume that Schneider and Rodenstock were just better than Canon and Nikon; now I'm wondering if it's been more a question of these technical limitations, and limitations on what people have historically been willing to pay.
This last hurdle seems to be going away, now that cameras like the d800 are bridging the gap between formats. $2000 seems like the new $500. When Schneider and Zeiss's new offerings hit the market this year, our sense of normal might get stretched even farther.
Any thoughts on this trend? How do those of you with both formats see the quality of the glass evolving?
*Not as strongly as the price has repelled me; I still don't have one.