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<\/a>FE 28-60mm f\/4-5.6<\/p><\/div>\n
I find this line of thinking extremely annoying. OK, I understand there are insecure people who are trying to turn everything into a status symbol, and it\u2019s probably some aspect of aspirational buying characteristic for people of a materialistic worldview, who think possession of things gives them value. It\u2019s also why sharpness became so overused in assessing picture quality; it\u2019s measurable, and it\u2019s also highly dependent on equipment, and as such, you can make it into a pay-to-win proposition; he who has sharpest pictures wins, and he who has the most money will be able to buy equipment that makes the sharpest pictures. So, obviously, my proposition that a 200 EUR lens can be as sharp at f\/8-11 apertures as any expensive GM lens is something that is seen as so incredibly offensive to the materialistic worldview, that it needs to be rejected as outright preposterous and clearly a coping mechanism of someone who can\u2019t afford the GM glass.<\/p>\n
Only, I can. I have a pretty extensive collection of high grade lenses, and I do actually know what I\u2019m talking about. As far as sharpness and resistance to flare are concerned, the cheap 28-60mm zoom really does hold its own against glass of the highest grade. This makes it ideal for some use cases. People should be happy about it \u2013 after all, if a cheap lens can do the job, they don\u2019t have to waste money on an expensive one, right?<\/p>\n
You would think, but that\u2019s hardly the case. It\u2019s as if being inexpensive automatically makes a lens suspect. Even if people are happy with the lens itself, they will \u201cupgrade\u201d from it as soon as possible, simply because it\u2019s cheap and they don\u2019t wish to be associated with cheap equipment. It\u2019s for the beginners, for people who don\u2019t really know.<\/p>\n
<\/a>FE 50mm f\/1.8<\/p><\/div>\n
Do you know what I did after I bought the FE 50mm f\/1.2 GM lens? The best, sharpest, brightest 50mm prime? The replacement for my FE 50mm f\/1.8 \u201cnifty fifty\u201d? I kept using the cheap f\/1.8 whenever I needed a light, inconspicuous, versatile lens. As for the f\/1.2 GM, it\u2019s absolutely great. Completely free of the optical flaws the cheap lens manifests wide open and against the light. Autofocus is instantaneous and incredibly accurate, unlike the cheap lens, whose AF is its worst aspect. But the secret is, from f\/2.8 onwards the two lenses are mostly indistinguishable. The cheap lens is optically extremely good when you use it the way you should for most things. Of course I kept using the 50mm f\/1.8 for things where it\u2019s actually better; things like keeping it light and not looking like a professional.<\/p>\n
So, I didn\u2019t \u201cgraduate\u201d from a cheap 50mm lens to a professional one. I didn\u2019t replace the cheap lens. I merely added a new high-quality tool to my arsenal. The cheap lens is still excellent and I use it when the advantages of the more expensive lens are irrelevant. For instance, if I am shooting landscapes in good light, both lenses are going to be used at f\/8. Autofocus is going to lock instantly on both in this use case. Sharpness is going to be the same. However, one is going to be lighter to carry. As for the image quality, I already had situations where I looked back at the pictures and thought \u201cah, the f\/1.2 GM is so incredibly sharp here\u201d, only to look at the EXIF and find out that the picture was taken with the cheap 50mm f\/1.8. So yes, I will have to disappoint the crowd that sees this as a pay-to-win competition where most money gets you the sharpest pictures. Sharpness is in fact one of the easiest things to achieve inexpensively. You do, however, have to know what you\u2019re doing, which is a different matter entirely.<\/p>\n
But if you can get sharpness at high resolution with inexpensive lenses, why did I even get all those expensive GM lenses? Because there\u2019s sharpness, and there\u2019s sharpness of that one single crisp detail in a sea of blurred-out colour.<\/p>\n
<\/a>FE 50mm f\/1.2 GM<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>FE 50mm f\/1.2 GM<\/p><\/div>\n
Because I hate chromatic aberrations messing up my shots at contrasty details against the light. Because I like shooting in low light, when the colours are particularly \u201cmeaty\u201d, and I like shooting wide open, at extreme apertures, while still retaining critical resolution in landscape shots. My photographic style is such that I can actually use those extreme optics for what they are made. I want things blurry, and yet clear and crisp at the same time.<\/p>\n
<\/a>FE 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6 GM<\/p><\/div>\n
That\u2019s the part that\u2019s hard to get, and I had to pay through the nose for it. It\u2019s just what it is. If I could get away with a cheap lens, be completely sure that I would have used one. In fact, I do have a few cheap lenses that I use regularly, because they are what works the best in some cases. They are not inferior lenses \u2013 merely inexpensive because there\u2019s a compromise that doesn\u2019t matter for my intended use case. For instance, I have a Sigma 24mm f\/3.5 DG DN, which I bought very inexpensively, but its picture quality is stellar, build quality is incredible, and it\u2019s very small and light.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Sigma 24mm f\/3.5 DG DN<\/p><\/div>\n
The compromise? It\u2019s a f\/3.5 lens, so aperture is limited compared to the more expensive lenses. I don\u2019t care, because I shoot it mostly at f\/8-11. It\u2019s a wide angle lens; I don\u2019t care to have extreme aperture on it, and I also already have one extreme aperture wideangle for the situations where I want to use it hand held with the stars visible in the sky. I need this one to be crisp, resistant to flare and light, which it is. It\u2019s just not a bokeh monster. However, if you want optical quality, it\u2019s absolutely top notch. It\u2019s the lens I use when I want pictures to look as if they were taken with a smartphone, only without the stupid artefacts.<\/p>\n
Being inexpensive, however, seems to be an unforgivable crime for some people. If a piece of gear is guilty of that crime, no amount of stellar performance can absolve it, and it needs to be avoided so that people wouldn\u2019t suspect you of not having enough money to afford the \u201creally good stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been thinking about this mentality a lot lately, since I keep encountering it. It\u2019s as if some people have a desperate need of showing everybody that they have money. One would expect it to be something poor people do in order to hide their desperate financial situation, and they do. It is also, however, something very rich people do if they happened to have a really shitty financial situation earlier in life, like Andrew Tate. When he goes to a restaurant, he orders the most expensive steak. When a waiter asks him for his exact preference, it turns out that \u201cmost expensive\u201d is his preference. One would expect a rich person to just order what he wants to eat that day, and not care about prices at all, and I am certain that most do. Some, however, always need to have the most expensive thing, so that people wouldn\u2019t suspect them of being poor, because they were so traumatised by being poor, they started acting in the most ridiculously ostentatious manner once they got into money. I find such behaviour distasteful. If you can\u2019t wear an excellent Seiko because of what people would think, or you can\u2019t drive a normal car because of what people would think, you can\u2019t have furniture from Ikea because of what people would think, and you can\u2019t be seen with an excellent \u201ckit zoom\u201d on your camera because of what people would think, trust me, you have bigger problems than what people would think.<\/p>\n
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I had a weird experience on a photographic forum in the recent months. Essentially, I was praising the optical qualities of a cheap lens, the Sony FE 28-60mm f\/4-5.6, and someone reacted as if the very possibility of a cheap … Continue reading