Decent shots with cheap lens? A discussion/shoot between me and a friend.

[Kopite4Ever]

Good afternoon all.

I was having a chat with a friend (who isn't really a gear snob) but someone who is trying to convince me to not bother going out with my simple cheap 18-55 kit lens and another cheap nikon 55-200mm I got for about £80. I do like to do a lot of walking especially the lakes since my partner works there so I trek round with these lenses simply for portability reasons, they are light and if I bash them not to expensive to replace. Full disclosure I have other more expensive lens in the same range like the 17-55mm 2.8 but its a heavy lens albeit amazing in clarity IMO.

So as it was amazingly warm this week I went out with said "cheap" lenses and took some shots to show him and asked to guess which one of my lenses (from my full collection) I took them with. Safe to say he was wrong in the most part and was convinced my Herdwick sheep images where with my more expensive glass I am just a much better photo editor than him

Thought I would post here incase anyone is interested, share the love/joy and all that.

Tarn How & Herdies-4 by Leigh Cowie, on Flickr

Tarn How & Herdies-2 by Leigh Cowie, on Flickr

Tarn How & Herdies-3 by Leigh Cowie, on Flickr

Tarn How & Herdies-8 by Leigh Cowie, on Flickr

Not strictly landscape but one more to prove my point to him.

Tarn How & Herdies-6 by Leigh Cowie, on Flickr

 

[justinminns]

Good landscape photography is about light, composition and atmosphere put together with a bit of thought from the photographer... you don't necessarily need the best gear to do that (imo)

 

[john.margetts]

I find a lot of people are horribly prejudiced about kit lenses. For normal work in good light, they are well better than adequate. An interesting story with a kit lens will always be better than a boring story with an excellent lens.

 

[West Camera]

You said you are more comfortable carrying your cheap lenses rather than the expensive ones. By implication aren't you saying that the best lens is the one you have with you rather than the one you left at home? Seems to me that is exactly what you are saying. The artist works with the tools he likes best, and by them does his best work. We can debate endlessly about which is the best tool. But, that really is not the issue. Rather it is which is the best tool for one to do his best work with. That is the issue. And, the answer to that is it is the tool he is most comfortable with in using. Good shooting.

 

[West Camera]

Something I learned long ago - the photograph is within the scene. The scene is not the photograph. The photographer's eye sees the scene. The photographer's mind sees the photograph. And, that is the art of photography.

 

[john.margetts]

We can debate endlessly about which is the best tool.

People will do this and not just in photography but it tends to be people who do not do much. I used to build wooden boats for a living many years ago. No one in the yard ever had this discussion about our tools (but nobody liked the Black and Decker tools provided by the yard!) but we all knew who did the best work. Yet I knew amateur DIYers who got very fixated on having the best tools, frequently much more expensive tools than I could justify buying.

 

[Kopite4Ever]

You said you are more comfortable carrying your cheap lenses rather than the expensive ones. By implication aren't you saying that the best lens is the one you have with you rather than the one you left at home? Seems to me that is exactly what you are saying. The artist works with the tools he likes best, and by them does his best work. We can debate endlessly about which is the best tool. But, that really is not the issue. Rather it is which is the best tool for one to do his best work with. That is the issue. And, the answer to that is it is the tool he is most comfortable with in using. Good shooting.

Couldn't agree more

 

[SFTPhotography]

On a technical note at this res you couldn’t tell what lens/body was used never mind if it was a good or not so good one.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

I find the first two images the most interesting.

For this subject you could only really see the difference in the lens if you try to print it above A3. The corners, image sharpness may show some difference. Distortion and aberration is now luckily mostly taken care by software (bare in mind it takes away a little extra sharpness) and obviously the real difference would be seen opening aperture up, tracking fast action and shooting in dim light... On aggregate good subject matter and beautiful light are most important ingredients.

 

[ancient_mariner]

I am just a much better photo editor than him

And that's a big part of it too. There's a lot you can do in post to overcome apparently lower sharpness & contrast, cooler/warmer colours etc. I'm sure that if your partner was presented with the raw files then he'd know pretty quickly which image came from which lens.

But that's not really the point of taking pictures, is it? You obviously prefer to carry the lighter, cheaper lenses, so you're more likely to produce better work with them.

 

[Eljay]

A couple of my favourite shots have been taken with cheap (under £90) lenses and printed 36" wide with no issues. Way too much snobbery regarding kit. I have a huge number of older Nikon Ais lenses that cost not very much and did an article for Outdoor Photography on the subject.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Way too much snobbery regarding kit.

Quite right. On the other hand some tools provide just that little bit extra that the user is looking for. We each need to find our own balance.

 

[saltireblue]

Over 90% of all photos I take are with the so-called kit lens - Fuji 18-55 f/2.8-4...Why? Because it is a little belter and doesn't deserve to be classified as 'just' a kit lens.

 

[Caerus]

It can be near impossible to tell sometimes but I still don't want a lens that cant let in enough light for my liking and has horrible variable aperture that I hate.

The most difference I seen myself was in color fringing, bad bokeh and soft corners.

 

[Mintchocs]

I think one has to differentiate between older cheap lenses and modern cheap lenses. Modern cheap lenses are quite good, have better quality control, better coatings but tend to be slower in AF speed and maximum wide aperture.

 

[reheat module]

Just enjoy what you are doing.
If the results are pleasing to you, what else matters?

 

[ah5168]

When it comes to landscape photography there's very little difference in performance between a cheep Nikon lens and an expensive one. Generally with landscape work you will be shooting at smaller apertures where most modern lenses work well. More expensive lenses give you wide constant apertures, fast focusing, weather sealing durability, good control of distortion and Chromatic aberration. Most of these more expensive features are not particularly relevant to image photography in landscape photography.

If you look on the Imaging Resource website and compare the 18-55 at about £130 to the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 at about £1400, there's very little difference in performance in the at f/8 - f/11 range which is what you would probably use for a typical landscape shot. These graphs show how sharp each lens is at f/8, sharpness is measured in blur units 0 being the sharpest.

 

[FishyFish]

There's a big difference between cheap lenses and poor lenses too. Poor lenses are poor irrespective of cost, whereas some cheap lenses can perform very well optically (although they may fare less well than an expensive lens if you drop them on the floor or get them wet or something. )