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Mild Rant - What the $%&^ Does "Lens is Too Clinical" Mean?

Quick and dirty comparison on a rainy day (for a change in Spain).

One lens bought 1982, Canon FDn 1.4/50 (with Novoflex adaptor)
One lens bought 2015, Sony FE 1.8/55

Shot on A7R.


You should have done a blind test on this one :D. Would be fun to see the analysis.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
"Old fondler lenses don't do well on modern Leica digitals. Even Leica have moved away from those and have been designing better lenses."

Rarely do I want to reply 'that's just wrong,' but I guess I'll try it.

IMO if you made the point correctly it would be that Leica is now making lenses that optimize for higher resolution and contrast, period. But this doesn't for a moment imply that older fondler/Mandler lenses "don't do well on modern Leica digitals."

It only means that modern sensors and older fondler/Mandler lenses, when combined, offer the advantages/disadvantages of lower resolution, lower contrast, and other things you don't happen to value.

Kirk

View attachment 113325

Homage to August Sander; MM with Mandler lens – not quite as old as these two guys
I welcome pics instead of mere words. :)

Don't get carried away with presumptions, Kirk. :)

I like all lenses. Just don't like empty lyrics waxed on old stuff. Good to know they work for you.
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

Much of the myths are related to lens designs in the fifties. It was possible to design lenses with high resolution, but it needed many lens surfaces leading high internal flare levels. So designs focused on having few air to glass surfaces, designs with few elements and the elements often cemented into groups.

So, there were complex designs having high level of flare and simple designs with low levels of flare, that is high contrast. Modern antireflex coating was invented at Zeiss and it allowed for more complex designs with higher overall contrast.

Modern lenses use many air to glass surfaces. Each surface can be used to address a given aberration. There are now a couple of sorts of glass enabling moulded aspherics, which are easy to produce.

A major issue confronting optical engineers is spherical aberration it can be overcorrected or undercorrected. Overcorrection is causing double contours in the background, yielding bad background bokeh while undercorrection gives bad foreground bokeh.

Aspherical lenses are a magic wand fixing many issues, but it has been said that they are not so good at producing a great bokeh.

It is often said that Zeiss puts emphasis on contrast and Leica is more focused on resolution, but the opposite is also common folklore.

Erwin Puts, the author of the Leica Compendium, says that Zeiss has a focus on designs that can be built with reasonable tolerances while Leica focuses on achieving maximum sharpness in compact designs.

So, what is resolution and what is sharpnes?. Resolution is the ability to separate two objects at a minimum of contrast. We can observe detail but it is not very clear. If we look at larger detail we may see it better separated from the surrounding, that may be what we would call high contrast.

Let's think about a classic 50/1.4 lens. Those lenses are reasonably well corrected but not very sharp. Most decent 50/1.4 lenses probably resolve around 200 lp/mm on the optical axis when stopped down. When the lens is fully open it will still have a high definition from the central section of the lens bit it will be surrounded by blur from the outer region of the lens that may even have a different plane of focus.

So, a classical 50/1.4 lens is typically a lens having high resolution at low contrast when fully open. Stopping down removes the parts of the lens causing most of the aberrations so the stopped down lens typically high contrast and high resolution.

A typical 50/1.4 lens used to be a seven element design, two by and large symmetrical triplets and a seventh element acting as field flattener. This is the basic "double Gauss" or "Planar" design. Modern lenses like Sigma Art 55/1.4 or Otus 55/1.4 are much more complex designs often achieving significant contrast at the pixel level. These lenses uses all available optical tricks, including aspherics and lenses with anomalous dispersion characteristics and they also use many air to glass surfaces.

Best regards
Erik
 

ohnri

New member
This is more or less what I was getting at with the original post. If a lens is clinically perfect... what's wrong with that?

It all comes down to the extent of post processing one wishes to do. Personally, I PP EVERY shot, no matter what. Obviously some shots require more effort than others, and I have several tools at my disposal. Clicking the shutter is the most critical part, but (for me) that's just step one.
Plenty of lenses produce various effects that are difficult, time consuming or impossible to reproduce with PP.

Not to mention the serendipity which often occurs when using such lenses.

Clinically perfect lenses limit you to a subset of possible artistic outcomes.

Not to mention, PP is allowed no matter what lens is used. When I use my Noctilux, pushing the shutter is generally a prelude to PP as well even though I am starting from a vastly different place than if I use my 50/2 Summicron.

Step away from my 50 DR, I refuse to acknowledge superiority of your Uber Zeiss.

-Bill
 
V

Vivek

Guest
No presumptions – just difference of opinion about words like "don't do well" and "better"!

:):)Kirk
I know from my experience that the fandler afficianados "like" an image when it is labelled as Mandler lens, even if it is a current Ka Xinda from China with better qualities at a fraction of price. The power of suggsetion plays a big part.
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
You should have done a blind test on this one :D. Would be fun to see the analysis.
Didn't think about that, but I'm sure there would be mixed results ;)

The FD has a tiny wee bit harsher bokeh, but it is close, real close. Furthermore the 30+ years Canon lens is sharp too and no CA to talk about. It is surprisingly good on the 36mp cam. I bought a 1.2 many years ago, but my 1.4 was a much better lens at all apertures, so the faster lens went out the door again. Could be that I have stellar 1.4 but it really shines on the Sony....
 
...
Clinically perfect lenses limit you to a subset of possible artistic outcomes.
...
-Bill
And your Noctilux does not? I guess that's why labeling a lens as "clinical" gives such a bad connotation. Somehow the less perfect seems to give you endless possibility. The truth is, they all can only work for certain vision/idea/artistic values. If all you want is a lens with shallow DOF, dreamy look, aberrations-laden, etc., certainly the 50 APO would not fill that role.

Now if you say you have more creativity options with the Noctilux because it can open up to 0.95, I would agree.
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
This thread turned out to be very interesting. Thanks everybody.
If you indulge me, here is an image of sunflowers I happen to like.

Question: How would you characterize the lens and its performance the image was shot with? TIA.

 
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This thread turned out to be very interesting. Thanks everybody.
If you indulge me, here is an image of sunflowers I happen to like.

Question: How would you characterize the lens and its performance the image was shot with? TIA.

I like it: low LoCA, no purple fringing or veiling haze, the brown head pops out of the yellow petals, pleasant bokeh (the out of focus sunflower, second from the right, is very painterly)

I think if we really want to solve this riddle, a "character" lens and a "clinical" lens should be used to take a variety of scenarios and laid side-by-side for comparison (just like the recent M9 CCD vs. M240 CMOS).

But then it might not be fun anymore. Myth and legend is half of the excitement.
 

ohnri

New member
And your Noctilux does not? I guess that's why labeling a lens as "clinical" gives such a bad connotation. Somehow the less perfect seems to give you endless possibility. The truth is, they all can only work for certain vision/idea/artistic values. If all you want is a lens with shallow DOF, dreamy look, aberrations-laden, etc., certainly the 50 APO would not fill that role.

Now if you say you have more creativity options with the Noctilux because it can open up to 0.95, I would agree.
Of course the Noctilux limits my options. Who would ever think otherwise?

That is part of being an artist. Making creative choices.

And a lens that is 'too clinical' often does not readily lend itself to certain artistic choices. Artistic choices that I may really like.

Go ahead, Defenders of the Otii, tell me once more that clinical perfection is better because it can do so much more. Well, it doesn't always do what I want.

I am going to go fondle my Nikon 135 DC. Your Zeiss 135/2 doesn't scare me.

-Bill
 

f64

New member
It might be a Meyer Trioplan, a lens that I am working with lately and that I like very much. A lowly triplet. (I hope I am not a spoilsport)

Btw, the debate on boring perfection and exciting imperfection is not really confined to digital. In the largeformatphotography forum a number of photographers express their dislike for the boring perfect German plasmats as contrasted with older designs. I have used a Rapid Rectilinear lens (a mid xix century design) and it has more than adequate sharpness and a quite nice tonal rendition. At least at still life distances, haven't tried it for landscapes.

Finally, I am not convinced that PP can simulate everything. It might be true in line of principle but I still have to see a convincing simulation of an ambrotype. Or of a GAF 500, for that.

The Luddite
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
I think it's a term Canikon fanboys made up after they found E-mount lenses were better than theirs, and they have no other evidence to criticize them.
You are wrong. It is a term made up looonng time ago about lenses too sharp/cold/grittybokeh. Some zeiss lenses are too clinical, either on Canon or Nikon body. Too clinical might be because some lenses have hard time to make a perfect transition between in focus and out of focus areas. The zeiss otus, for example, is master in this, as well as some Leïca glasses (not all): they are not clinical at all. The Sigma Art lenses are clinical.

Finally, I am not convinced that PP can simulate everything.
PP actually CAN simulate everything. I can show you some virtual landscapes I'm codding... you won't notice they are made out of calculations. Even sea or rivers. The scary thing is that it is limitless. Some applications are so powerful that only imagination can be a brake (and computing power also).
 
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Of course the Noctilux limits my options. Who would ever think otherwise?

That is part of being an artist. Making creative choices.

And a lens that is 'too clinical' often does not readily lend itself to certain artistic choices. Artistic choices that I may really like.

Go ahead, Defenders of the Otii, tell me once more that clinical perfection is better because it can do so much more. Well, it doesn't always do what I want.

I am going to go fondle my Nikon 135 DC. Your Zeiss 135/2 doesn't scare me.

-Bill
Bill, I think none here is saying the well-corrected lens is superior for all artistic scenarios. I think it's the "character" side that somehow implies that the technically better lens is not a good choice. Just quote you again :"a lens that is 'too clinical' often does not readily lend itself to certain artistic choices." I think it should read "a lens that is 'too clinical' often does not readily lend itself to my artistic choices." I doubt that there is a universal, pre-defined, accepted by the majority list of certain artistic choices that "too clinical" lenses would not fit.

Let's just compromise and say it's all down to personal preference. For me, I'm happy that I don't have to think of a way to fix that purple fringing on my model's hairs without making it unnatural, or to fix that mid-zone resolution drop in a landscape. I'm also happy that whatever effect I put on a picture via post-processing, I can replicate the same look in another if I want to.

Overall, I like the predictability of my tools.
 

f64

New member
PP actually CAN simulate everything. I can show you some virtual landscapes I'm codding... you won't notice they are made out of calculations. Even sea or rivers. The scary thing is that it is limitless. Some applications are so powerful that only imagination can be a brake.
I was not clear. I meant that just because you can do it, it does not mean it's simple. Visual rendering has gone a long way, but you are using complex programs: a whole different world from dumb me manually PostProcessing. Or, let's say, nobody has yet come up with a good program for that.
 
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Hulyss Bowman

Active member
I was not clear. I meant that just because you can do it, it does not mean it's simple. Visual rendering has gone a long way, but you are using complex programs: a whole different world from dumb me manually PostProcessing. Or, let's say, nobody has yet come up with a good program for that.
Ho yes, it is not simple and the programs aren't easy to use. For pure photography there is a vast choice of software and plug-ins but none are perfect, so far. I prefer the rendering of some specific sensors/lens combinations than relying on pp to obtain what I want.
 
You are wrong. It is a term made up looonng time ago about lenses too sharp/cold/grittybokeh. Some zeiss lenses are too clinical, either on Canon or Nikon body. Too clinical might be because some lenses have hard time to make a perfect transition between in focus and out of focus areas. The zeiss otus, for example, is master in this, as well as some Leïca glasses (not all): they are not clinical at all. The Sigma Art lenses are clinical.
So we are getting it all wrong then :grin:. Would you define too sharp, cold, gritty bokeh, perfect transition between in focus and out of focus? I guess it's another problem that the term is not clearly defined. For me, whenever I heard of the term "clinical," I think of a corner-to-corner sharp @ WO lens with a good to excellent aberration correction.
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
Clinical = Lack of character.

If all lenses start to be telecentric and "corner-to-corner sharp @ WO lens with a good to excellent aberration correction", then yes, all will be clinical.

Planar or heliar designs aren't clinical. Distagon is clinical.
 
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