jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I was browsing reviews, and I came across a "Nikon 50mm Lens Comparison" by Ken Rockwell. "Your choice of aperture is far more important than your choice of lens!" He has five shots of the same cropped area taken at different apertures. In this example, f/5.6 is the definite winner. I know the topic of a lens's sweet spot has been discussed before, but it would be worthwhile to set up a tripod and find out what camera and lens combination gives the best results.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

See item #4 on the list of ideas mentioned here: How to obtain sharp images in digital photography

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

There is so much more to an image other than sharpness. A kit lens can produce remarkable images. I don't think that you purchase a fast lens because you expect it to produce the sharpest images, IMO you do so for low light shooting or portrait effects.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

When we start talking about the newest and most expensive designs, we're also now talking about both.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Yeah, I have the Sigma Art 50/1.4, a thousand dollar nifty fifty, not so sure that it was a good investment, but I can say that it is sharp at 1.4 and beyond.

Hip Coyote

I think he may have never compared Oly Pro lenses vs the consumer lenses. Quite a large difference at any aperture.

User ID

Worthwhile ?!? ROTFL.

kmielen Loc: Eastern NC

Good one. I actually had to look that one up!

User ID

Cuz I care about sharpness I dont shoot at f:1.4, not even with your miracle lens. Cuz sharpness matters I have no use for a "no DoF" aperture that puts nearly all details quite out of focus.

Loooooong ago, an f/1.4 lens offered a really bright view thru an SLR. It also provided more accurate focus due to being very much larger than the usual shooting stops. A generation ago SLR screens were "modernized" such that theres little to no advantage with lenses faster than f:2.8.

OTOH, f:1.4 can benefit SLR AF systems if you then shoot at smaller stops.

therwol Loc: USA

Ken Rockwell did his testing of various Nikon 50mm lenses in 2006 using a Nikon D200 10.2 megapixel camera. The camera is an antique by today's standards. The lenses were mostly old designs even then. I own three of the lenses he tested, and they're decent lenses, but I don't think that the ancient camera is good enough to discern subtle differences you might see in a more modern camera. Furthermore, none of the lenses tested would likely hold up against more modern designs on a high megapixel camera, maybe at their optimum apertures, but certainly not wide open or nearly wide open.

I respect him for his knowledge of equipment and history. I always read his reviews of new cameras and lenses and find them to be informative. One of the things he admitted to me personally is that he just doesn't have time to go back and clean up his web site of all of the old and obsolete (useless) stuff. (I questioned him on a digital versus film article in which he compared the results from a 6 megapixel digital camera with those of a 4x5 film camera.) He has gotten somewhat better in going back to insert comments into some old reviews to point out that something better has come along. Not in this case.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

What I got from that was not which 50-year-old lens to buy but the fact that a lens works better at one aperture than another. That's not a revolutionary idea, but it is confirmation of that idea.

As for "cleaning up" his website, that would be a mistake. Suppose someone is considering buying old equipment, it would be nice to see reviews of that gear.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

I am sure the majority of us know that 50mm lenses are among the best corrected lenses for optical aberrations. I have a single coated, early 70's, 50mm Nikon lens that is as sharp as I wanted it to be. I admit I have not cared about the corners so I do not really know how good it is wide open and honestly I could not care less. I seldom use it wide open and most of the time I am at f5.6 or beyond.

Before this lens I had a Nikon 50mm f1.8 that was also very sharp and once again I never tested the lens for its resolution in the corners. Till now I have enlarged images to 12x18 inches from my lenses and the corners never bothered me. I certainly believe that modern lenses are very sharp due to the advances in optics and coatings. My old 50mm lens cannot be pointed at a source of light because flare is simply horrific, result of a single coating. Even the sharpest lens means nothing without good shooting techniques and the rule of stopping the lens down about three apertures from wide open still applies to most lenses. If depth of field is not important that f5.6 will render the sharpest images but if f16 is what we need that will be the aperture we should use and the results most probably will be the same regarding sharpness. As we close the lens to its smaller apertures diffraction takes place but nothing that at least in my case will make me feel it will spoil my images.

Tripods and VR are making lenses better than ever...IF we use good techniques when shooting.

tcthome Loc: NJ

True. But if happen to desire a really sharp image, it would be nice if you could. Of course you could always over-sharpen in post if so desired.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind