lens character

[mbaginy]

Many years ago I used the Leica 80/1.4 with my (analog) SL and Minolta 85/2.8 Variosoft with my X700.  Should have never sold them.

I've found wonderful lenses in the Canon EOS 135/2 and Fujifilm 56/1.2, but they can't compare with the rendition of the two former lenses.

I used the (discontinued) Zeiss 85/1.4 manual focus lens with my Canon 5D and was thrilled when I got focus right.  Achieving focus manually with wide open aperture was too difficult for me.  So I sold the lens.  Sadly, Canon don't seem to take manual focusing seriously, else they'd offer split image or some far better focus screens as options.

[Jack Hogan]

I think we love lenses, like people, for their imperfections.  We may admire a lens for its perfection - but to love it bring aberrations, vignetting, fuzzy rendering and other imperfections on.  That's what makes them unique and gives them their character - the reason we love them.  Some of the stuff we could add in post, some we could not.  A related series of posts by Jim Kasson.

Jack

[bluekorn]

Thank you all very kindly for your generous responses.
Peter

[AnthonyM]

I don't have the ability to do a scientific comparison.

But I do experience different lenses in different ways.

I am heavily into Fuji X.  For a long time, my favourite lens was the 14mm, an outstandingly accurate and distortion free lens, as is generally acknowledged.  Then I acquired the Fuji 16 mm.  This is now my favourite lens.  It is not the AoV.  The images I make from this lens make me catch my breath in a way that the wonderful, accurate, 14 mm images do not.

Help!