Every now and then I watch a review of some lens and then the reviewer says it has “that something”, “the look”, “soul” or some other stupid bullshit that people use when they can’t define what they are talking about but still want to be taken seriously.

At some point I started interpreting such statements as “the lens is shit”, and that usually turns out to be exactly right. When someone can’t define why something is good, it probably means it’s shit in a way that reminds them of their faded-out family photos taken with a similar camera, that was also shit.

Also, there are terms like “micro-contrast”. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Micro-contrast is the ability of a lens to capture subtle tonal variations and details within an image, enhancing the richness and vibrancy of colours and transitions between light and dark areas.”

Yeah, that’s also known as “resolution”, defined as the ability to distinguish between pairs of black and white lines. Subtle tonal variations and details… What is that supposed to mean? The colours aren’t muddy because the lens is sharp and apochromatic, meaning the photons of different wavelengths go where they’re supposed to. Lenses are physics, not bullshit. In physics, when something happens, there’s an actual phenomenon causing it.

I hear that shit regularly whenever something from Zeiss or Leica is reviewed. Oh, it has “that something”, it has the “3d pop”, it has “micro-contrast”. Then you put the image from a Zeiss lens next to some other lens and they look the same and then you think “what the hell are those guys smoking”. I don’t know, but it’s not doing them a great deal of good. “3d pop” is a combination of sharpness, contrast and depth of field. Contrast is usually a function of resolution and anti-glare coating. In case of Zeiss, I think the coating might actually suppress the dark tones, boosting contrast at the expense of tonal gradient, which is, interestingly, the only actual characteristic that I can attribute to Zeiss lenses that isn’t complete fiction. Other than that, yeah, they are sharp. So is almost everything else today. They are contrasty and have good coating. So does almost everything else. I actually prefer the coating on the Sony GM lenses because it doesn’t suppress tonality in deep shadows as much as T* coating seems to, and for some reason the images from the Zeiss lenses feel “cooler”, while the Sony lenses feel “warmer”, and it’s not a white balance thing or a colour cast. I’d say it has to be caused by the way T* coating deals with wavelengths; what is reflected, what is transmitted. It’s a very subtle thing, and that’s how you get the impression of micro-contrast; if you have a bush with light and dark parts of the leaves, and the dark parts are suppressed, you get the impression of increased contrast in the details, which can create the impression of three-dimensionality in the image. However, that might be the last thing you want if you’re shooting portraits, and it actually seems to boost extreme colours at the expense of gradient, which is also not something you might want in portraits.

Sony A7II, FE 16-35mm f/4 Zeiss Vario-Tessar

Sony A7RV, FE 24-105mm f/4 G

So, basically, “that something” the Zeiss lenses have is the Zeiss badge, which makes the reviewers go ape shit with hyperbole. The coating suppresses the shadows, giving you contrast and cooler tone at the expense of tonal gradient. That’s great if you want it and shit if you don’t, but it’s not some mystical, magical property.

The reason I love the GM lenses so much is partially because the coating seems to do the exact opposite from T*; it doesn’t suppress, the way a polarizing filter would. The tonal gradient across the spectrum is preserved, and when you combine that with extreme sharpness, apochromatic design and incredibly smooth rolloff into bokeh, you get a combination properties that “clicks” with me so much that I basically went out and bought all of them.

Sony A7CR, FE 35mm f/1.4 GM

But it’s not a GM feature. Sigma Art lenses are doing the same thing, for the most part. It’s a function of extreme sharpness, modern coating and excellent bokeh. Put those properties together and the result appears magical, but it’s just good optics; more than just good, in fact. You can say they have “that something”. Yeah. Something is somethingating into quite a bit of somethinglings that somethingiggulate.