The different looks of lenses

[larkis]

There are often discussions among photographers about the various "looks" different lenses give. Ranging from how they render tonalities, bokeh, contrast and the like. Can anyone who has a lot of experience with this clarify and quantify what types of "looks" there are and which lenses are a good example of the various extremes to be found out there. Maybe someone can do a series on this subject for LuLa ? From what I heard nikon lenses tend to be high contrast, zeiss are "smooth" and lower contrast, canon is somewhat in between, how about pentax or mamiya ?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to learn more about this subject in order to be able to notice the subtle differences between optics apart from sharpness and resolution.

[bill t.]

There are good lenses and not so good lenses.  There are also zooms and primes.  And there are perspective differences based on focal length.  On looking at a well exposed, well processed, well presented image I can usually make those types of characterizations pretty accurately.  But those are the only "looks" I would be willing to bet money that I could discern.

Although I can do an excellent job of imagining that I can see this or that technical quality in some image, particularly if I know what equipment was involved.

[Rob C]

larkis -

The only two things that I can remember that stood out quite clearly were these: doing prints from an M3 using a 21mm (no longer know if it was Schneider Super Angulon or Leica-in-house model) along with other prints from Nikon F using various Nikkors, the Leica images did, without doubt, have a unique set of black/white print values. The Leica stuff just looked better. Trouble was, we required 100% framing certainty and only the F would give that, which was why, when I eventually went out on my own, I never owned a Leica. The other memorable thing was about the Zeiss lenses for the Hasselblad 500 series: the 150mm was generally hopeless in backlit situations - it flared like hell. This was the silver model of its day.

On the other hand, Norman Parkinson is reputed to have turned down the successor to that lens when, I believe, it was offered him by Hassy because he felt it was simply too sharp for his work: brutally cutting about ladies skins and imperfections there lingering.

The old British Journal of Photography once did some brief comparisons between lens marques, but even then, when stuff has been put through a reproduction process in order to appear in a 'reaonably priced' magazine, you can't really expect too much in the way of high fidelity... But yes, there certainly were characteristics unique to specific brands, but who other than magazine writers ever bothered to do such exeriments?  When you'd committed yourself to a camera system it took far more than some writer's opinion to force a change - at least in the pro world it did!

Rob C

[telyt]

My primary experience is with long lenses (280mm to 600mm) and there are very clear differences to my eyes apart from sharpness/resolution.  Visitors to my website have also commented on the differences without knowing that different equipment was used.

The most significant differences have been bokeh (out-of-focus properties) and color rendition.  Bokeh is often debated so I won't go in to that but color rendition doesn't seem to get as much forum space.  Some of the lenses I've used have color rendition I'd describe as 'pastel'; these lenses tend not to produce a full tonal or color range.  Using these lenses I struggled to get deep, detailed blacks, clean detailed highlights and full gradation.  Other lenses I'd say produce rich, saturated colors with full gradation from extreme black to brilliant white and (for me) are a joy to work with.  More often than not the lenses that produce the better color rendition have been Leica lenses, especially the APO lenses.