"I've seen lots of great images made with second tier lenses- but they're still not as good as the same image would be with a tier-1 lens."
Really? Now that is interesting and might just prove your point. So, if you could direct me to wherever these shots exist, I'd be glad to check it out.
If I still had crappy glass, I'd happily show you the shots- but it wasn't worth my time to continue to shoot with even above average but not top-tier glass like the Sigma 50-500 when I put my money into the Nikon 400mm prime. But it's easy to check out- just find a lens rental place that offers a lens with a good MTF curve for say sharpness and one that's not so good, then rent them both and take some shots that require edge-to-edge sharpness. On the better lens, you'll see better sharpness for more of the frame, and if you print large, you'll see more detail in the prints. It's physics, so the physical effects are quite visible.
See, my point is this....whoever has a given lens and knows how to use it best, most efficiently and for the best shot at that time....compared to whoever owns Lens B and knows the same amount about his lens, shooting at the exact same location, lighting, subject, etc....
If both shooters are the same caliber....would there be enough subjective difference to determine which lens was which? Maybe...I agree, maybe it
It's not subjective difference that I talk about, it's objective differences. Can I get better images with poorer equipment than some people- yes- and I've sold lots of images from poorer equipment, but the people who follow my fine art work and who've seen prints from earlier and later shots can see an objective quality difference in my prints, not just a subjective one.
could be done....but ONLY on specific type of shots comparing different lenses and their capabilities....IE, Faster shots (Sports, wildlife) vs. Landscape....where one lens may best another. Believe me, I was more than impressed when I got my first piece L glass (70-200 2.8IS) many years back...the most amazing lens I had ever put on my camera....it felt amazing, looked incredible, focused quick and took Awesome Pictures!!! BUT, I've seen shots others have taken with the Sigmas, Tamrons, Niks, etc....even old Olympus and Minolta 35mm film shots that are amazing! Top tier shots do NOT have to be shot with "Top Tier" lenses. That's just not a fact.
Again, I fear you have a comprehension problem- what I have stated is that top-tier shots are
better when taken with top-tier lenses. Nowhere have I stated that one can't get good, or even saleable images with less than stellar glass- in fact I've pointed out that I've done so.
"For instance, the Nikkor 80-400VR is a second tier lens. I've taken images with it, I've sold images taken with it, but it'll never beat an image taken with my 400/2.8 except in the rare case that the two stops of light don't bring enough to get a shot from a moving platform."
Completely irrelevant to this conversation...I would NEVER argue that a second tier zoom could compete with a 1st tier prime. That has nothing to do with this conversation!
"99.999999998% of the time, it's images will be visibly worse than those from the prime. "
Really? Not 100%
"If you learn to read MTF charts, you can see it in the charts..." I know how to read MTF charts...
"...otherwise, if you shoot two lenses, you can see the differences in the images."
This isn't about two lenses....this is about lenses from third party companies with the same attributes....focal length, speed, and build....as lenses from C and N.
No, it's not- at least the post you're replying to isn't. My points were exactly the following:
The lens test reports that talk about the Sigma talk about it in relation to the same lenses from Canon and Nikon and at least in the last version that Sigma posted MTF charts for it was clearly inferior to those manufacturer lenses. It's not a sample variation issue, it's an optical formula issue, hence my pointing to the Sigma 120-300 to show it's not the manufacturer (so you see, your comprehension aside, I wasn't saying bad things about Sigma, just the difference between what the 70-200 vs the alternatives produce in terms of reviews.)
The Sigma n-500 lenses don't rate "amazing" on my scale because i've seen too many images from lenses that do to be swayed. They're very good, especially very good value, but they're not and won't ever be Tier-1 lenses, not matter how much you personally like them.
Once you've spent some time with Tier-1 lenses and excellent images from them, your basis for evaluation changes.
That's what my response was about, it's pretty easy to read IMO, and I've written enough for magazines that I find that editors don't tend to do much to change my meanings, so I'm going to have to say that the comprehension problem is on your end.
"Most people aren't that critical when it comes to IQ, or they don't have years of looking at samples from hundreds of lenses to be able to compare."
Precisely, and MOST people aren't pixel peepers...and MOST people are OUR customers🙂 You're correct....MOST people don't look at sample from hundreds of lenses....including me! I have less than a dozen lenses and it's how I have made my living for quite a while now. In fact, I don't know many professional photogs that spend their time doing that....they spend most of their time perfecting shots with the gear they have!
It's not pixel peeping, it's about your own acceptance of IQ. My levels, and the level of quality I represent to a client have a bar that's set higher than most.
Most "professional" photographers are shooting school pictures, little league and places where IQ doesn't need to be stellar. Yet a good percentage of them still choose to shoot with Tier-1 lenses rather than kit lenses. A fair number of them market themselves on quality- all along the line. Just like some of us used to develop our own film to get the results we wanted while others were shipping to pro labs and still others were going to the grocery store- to me it matters, perhaps to you it doesn't.
You can look at say an exhibit of Ansel Adams work, and you can see how poorly his images were printed in the beginning, and how much better they were printed in the end- and even which images he chose to reprint when he got better and his tools got better:
Objectively, his enlarger lenses got better
Objectively, his papers got better
Objectively, his filters got better
Objectively, his chemicals got better
Subjectively, the negative was the exact same negative
That's my point- when you take the same subjective level of photography then there is a visible, and sometimes quite marked difference in results when you change equipment anywhere in the equation- but Adams was one of those people who cared about quality in his work, so reprinting on newer VC papers made sense to him.
"So, they get a lens, it produces better images than they're used to seeing, and they think everyone who finds fault with it is a lens snob, or that they've somehow gotten a sample that outperforms the optical formula."
I don't know if any of that made any kind of sense whatsoever....but I do agree with you about this. However, i don't think it was the OP's question or intent🙂 He was more curious about pros/cons on buying third party lenses.
I didn't respond to the OP's posting though...
"I suspect it's much like wine- I'm impressed with wines I like, but many of them are horrible to a true wine connoisseur, who's experience and palate run circles around mine, and who can say "Oh, if you like that, then try *this*" and produce something a lot better- sometimes better than my ability to appreciate it."
That seems a bit far fetched to me. Good lenses are obvious. The build quality, the optics, when you twist it on and look through the VF for the first time, the speed, the AF, the end result....ultimately, the picture....all very obvious, even to the novice, I would assume.
The difference is that the novice's basis for comparison leads to the OP's "sample variation" defense. The OP likely hasn't spent a lot of time looking at prints from Tier-1 glass. Let's say that the OP had a Tier-3 kit lens, then they move up to a Tier-2 lens- they're looking at lens evaluations from folks who've shot Tier-1 lenses and are comparing it to a Tier-2 lens and find the Tier-2 lens lacking in certain aspects. Our intrepid novice doesn't get what they're seeing because the Tier-2 lens is so much better than his Tier-3 lens was, more importantly there's nowhere near the same level of difference between a Tier-2 lens and a Tier-1 lens. Once our novice gets some real-world experience with, or sees comparitive shots then perhaps they'll see what the lens evaluators did up front. That's been true of the Sigma 70-200 (though I haven't seen the latest version from Nov of last year) and it's been true of the Sigma N-500mm lenses.
Finally, the correlation between lens testing and the real world can depend heavily on what you shoot- and your ability to translate. For instance, I don't think anyone would advise using even the soon-to-be-released Nikon 70-200 to shoot art reproduction on a FF sensor body- sharpness on anyone's 70-200mm lens falls off sharply (NPI) 15mm from the center of the frame. Knowing where your lenses' sweet spots are and where they fail makes knowing where to frame a shot, how to frame a shot, what aperture will work for the best results, and when you're compromising a property in an image to get a shot or when you simply should rent or buy a different lens for a particular shoot become more important if you start to compete for things like wall space in a gallery or page space in a publication- because the people making the choices in those sorts of markets will have seen Tier-1 images from Tier-1 glass, and that may make all the difference in the world as to if they choose your image or images- in some cases more so than your salesmanship.
