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Rants of the Year 2014

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
Please, can no manufacturer of interchangeable lens cameras (below MF in sensor size) release a new camera line without launching some FAST primes at the same time?

I am a little fed up with F/4 zooms or even F/2.8 "fast" lenses. F/2 is not truly "fast". Fast means at least F/1.4.

My second rant is corner sharpness, or lack thereof. For goodness sake, its not that difficult to achieve. Sigma did it with the DP2M. My Hassy 50mm II is great. Some work OK, most are said to be "acceptable" which usually means pretty crap.

So, fast primes, great edge / corner sharpness. No more mediocre "good enough" junk. Please.

Perhaps I should buy a Leica after all...
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Please, can no manufacturer of interchangeable lens cameras (below MF in sensor size) release a new camera line without launching some FAST primes at the same time?

I am a little fed up with F/4 zooms or even F/2.8 "fast" lenses. F/2 is not truly "fast". Fast means at least F/1.4.

My second rant is corner sharpness, or lack thereof. For goodness sake, its not that difficult to achieve. Sigma did it with the DP2M. My Hassy 50mm II is great. Some work OK, most are said to be "acceptable" which usually means pretty crap.

So, fast primes, great edge / corner sharpness. No more mediocre "good enough" junk. Please.

Perhaps I should buy a Leica after all...
How "fast" is the Sigma lens in the DP2M and how much real estate does it cover? :)
 

jonoslack

Active member
Please, can no manufacturer of interchangeable lens cameras (below MF in sensor size) release a new camera line without launching some FAST primes at the same time?

I am a little fed up with F/4 zooms or even F/2.8 "fast" lenses. F/2 is not truly "fast". Fast means at least F/1.4.

My second rant is corner sharpness, or lack thereof. For goodness sake, its not that difficult to achieve. Sigma did it with the DP2M. My Hassy 50mm II is great. Some work OK, most are said to be "acceptable" which usually means pretty crap.

So, fast primes, great edge / corner sharpness. No more mediocre "good enough" junk. Please.
micro 43 do it Quentin both fast primes and sharp corners. Mind you, I couldn't agree more, BUT the corollary for full frame cameras like the A7 is that those lenses will be BIG. Added to which I still suspect that the E mount is smaller than it should be (as the sigma boss pointed out)
Perhaps I should buy a Leica after all...
Certainly. you always should have :)
 

Tim

Active member
Can I please join in with the lack of native Superwide primes for mirrorless.
Thankfully we have a few other mfgs filling in the void.
Fuji get points for the 14mm X-series lens.
 

jonoslack

Active member
But, do they really have sharp corners?
or, is it due to their distortion correction designs that makes it all possible?
They really do have sharp corners - certainly the distortion correction is important for some lenses, but not for the longer focal lengths. . . . . and . . . perhaps it doesn't matter how the feat is performed as long as it is! Almost everyone uses distortion correction designs for zooms these days - if they didn't, they'd be even bigger.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
f/2 isn't a fast lens? Only f/1.4 and faster qualify? Sheesh! :)

mFT with the Voigtländer lenses qualifies except on format. They have a 10mm f/0.95 coming up soon, as I understand it. There are 17, 25, and 42.5 mm currently, all f/0.95 at present.

You're not going to find that kind of speed in so many lenses for any other format at present.

G
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Photography 101a. Fast glass is not small nor is it light weight. Asking for it is like asking to be 20 years younger it ain't gonna happen. LOL

I qualify fast as 1.4 or faster.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I wonder when Leica will come out with the Noctilux 35mm and 21mm f/0.95 lenses? Never mind the Noctilux 90mm ... I don't think I could lift that. ;-)

I know I could never pay for any of them! =8^O

G
 

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
I don't mind a bit of heft with the glass. A fast prime is often about the same weight or less than some of those lugubrious weighty zooms we have all become used to using.

We are being sold second rate solutions. Rise up I say and rebel! :salute:
 
V

Vivek

Guest
I have not bought the slow zooms for the A7/7r. I only have fast primes that are compact and just fabulous. I rebel in my own way. Not to give into the hype of Fuji, saying no to the Sony slow zooms, keeping away from the atrociously priced Leica stuff and the hideous Sigma P&S cams. YMMV.

The choices are there for every rebel/user. :)
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
If we omit the word "new" from the OP's rant:
In my corner of the world, a certain Japanese camera and lens manufacturer based in Sendai have since 2010 released 4 x f/1.4 primes (24, 35, 58 and 85mm) and 5 x f/1.8 primes (20, 28, 35, 50 and 85mm), all of them for the FX format. At least one more f/1.8 prime (135mm) is rumoured to be under development. They are for an ancient camera system that is only used by dinosaurs nowadays. Full frame varieties of the bodies start at over 700 grams, so you need to be strong too... a fit dinosaur :lecture:

Fuji have also launched a few fast primes, although for a smaller, but new, system, and Sigma, 3 x f/1.4 primes for full frame and an f/1.8 zoom for crop sensors, but that's for vintage cameras too. Voigtländer offer no less than 3 f/0.95 primes for m4/3, all of them launched during recent years. Leica of course offer a whole bunch of fast primes, although most are not recent developments, and the cameras are older than Methuselah, or at least they look as if they were. Canon as well as the earlier mentioned Sendai industry have a catalogue full of older, fast primes. Many of them actually still work.

The problem is with companies that try to make camera bodies smaller than a Walkman. That becomes kind of pointless if the lenses are as large as old DSLR lenses, and large aperture lenses are large, particularly the modern variety with built-in AF motor and a bunch of other electronics. Still, the new f/1.8 Nikkors weigh from 185 (50mm) to 345 (20mm) grams. Even small dinosaurs can carry those

 
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