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One could argue that the sensor plane is irrelevant when showing the relative size of a camera-lens combination, but the lens hood can't be an error or ignorance.
Wide Aperture Lenses: Are We Being Taken for A Ride?
- Thread starter adrianday
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My issue is this...
50mm f/1.8g -> a 'better' 50mm f/1.4 on the same body -> same lens mounted on a mirror-less camera (no redesign). Now Imagine the size (and price) increase with a wider aperture. Stop any of these lenses down to f/4 and attempt to spot the difference.
I don't think this is quite like for like. The sigma 50mm 1.4 is pretty huge as 50mm lenses go. It's fantastic but massive.
The the two lenses on the right of this are a little fairer. That's the 1.4 version next to the 1.8. There is almost nothing in it.
https://goo.gl/images/qBuQsK
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The sensor plane makes a difference when you’re comparing a lens on an SLR to one on a camera without a mirror, the same lens (as here) effectively has a built in extender on one of those cameras.
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The 2 lenses on the right are optically identical, both Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art, the difference is that one of them has a slightly longer ‘throat’ to move the optics to the right distance from the sensor.
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On my link.
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But if you simply want to see how big 2 lens-body combinations will be side by side then it doesn't matter, however I would agree with you for the purposes of this thread.
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It wasn’t obvious.
OP
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I think this is what's been getting me. "It's fantastic but massive", costs more, weighs more and offers no perceptible difference in 99.5% of usage. But somehow we need it. We need to transition to mirrorless cameras because they afford wider apertures. We need to buy new, wider lenses. We need to spend our money.
The comparison between the Nikon and Sigma Art was intentional. A big camera fitted with a reasonable standard lens as opposed to a 'smaller' mirrorless camera fitted with a lens whose increased optical performance once stopped down is negligible.
My camera of choice at the moment is a Nikon F6. My lenses of choice are a Nikon 50mm f/1.4D and Nikon 24mm f/2.8D (and a Voigtlander 40mm f/2 when I'm in a zone focusing mood). They're tiny. They're light. And I find them fit for purpose. They're also cheap by today's standards. One body and three lenses which probably weigh less than a mirrorless body and a 'fantastic' large aperture prime.
I have no doubt that the camera companies are creating markets for items the general consumer will never really require. But then, I'm a dinosaur. Bitter and twisted about the rise of the mammals and their crazy infatuation in modern technology. Time, I think, to crawl under a rock.
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the thing that irks me about these new generation wide aperture lenses is why they're so big and heavy to have maximum edge to edge performance- I don't need edge to edge performance, i'm not shooting test charts front on at 50mm 1.4, i'm shooting real 3d subjects and my subject is framed in the centre and around the rule of thirds, I have zero interest in corner sharpness because my corners are way out of focus anyway
the sigma art lenses are stupid, I should know, I own a few of them, i'd rather have smaller/lighter lenses with compromised peripheral image quality, or smaller apertures- there is a shortage of compact high quality f2 lenses with modern rendering quality and contrast, if there was a sigma art mini line, i'd buy the whole set
the sigma art lenses are stupid, I should know, I own a few of them, i'd rather have smaller/lighter lenses with compromised peripheral image quality, or smaller apertures- there is a shortage of compact high quality f2 lenses with modern rendering quality and contrast, if there was a sigma art mini line, i'd buy the whole set
Perhaps the fashion for large wide aperture lenses is as Raymond Lin said a ‘statement’ just like mirrorless bodies seem to be a statement? Currently there appears to be a great deal of dslr bashing from those who have moved (especially to Sony?) without any regard to results - witness some of the stunning photos in the film section of this forum taken on positively ancient cameras! Perhaps having bought small compact bodies there are some who feel the need to stick a large fast lens on it to prove they’re ‘serious photographers’ - otherwise they look like snapshot takers? Cameras as fashion statements discuss......
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Not that I particularly disagree but this is just pure consumerism isn't it? It's rarely about what people 'need' as such as needs can be stripped back to basic survival and no more. We don't really need photography at all. So really all camera/lens manufacturers are doing is either responding to demand or marketing their way to create it but either way, at the end of it all, someone has to want this stuff or they go bust. I must admit, I wouldn't mind seeing a smattering of some smaller options to offer a bit more choice but there is already some stuff out there. Nikon's 1.8 prime range for example may not be tiny but they're nothing like the Sigma art range and are relatively affordable in the grand scheme of things. It does seem strange that the concept of 2.8 primes seems to have died a death in recent years but some of the mirrorless manufacturers seem to be bringing these back. I think the choice is out there.
Mr Bump
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Must say I am also a bit confused at the crazy large lenses on the M4/3rds.
I bought my Oly EM5-MK2 to downsize from a Nikon D7000 and is was a revalation.
I settles on the oly 17mm F1.8 as my lens of choice and it makes for a fantastic package at a very reasonable price.
The thought of putting one of those mahoosive wallet crushing weight 1.2 suckers just seems completely pointless.
You might as well just go back to a DSLR
I bought my Oly EM5-MK2 to downsize from a Nikon D7000 and is was a revalation.
I settles on the oly 17mm F1.8 as my lens of choice and it makes for a fantastic package at a very reasonable price.
The thought of putting one of those mahoosive wallet crushing weight 1.2 suckers just seems completely pointless.
You might as well just go back to a DSLR
woof woof
I like a nice Chianti
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Did you see that picture of a f1.2 v the 12-35mm f2.8 on page one?
You may think that the 12-35mm f2.8 is too big too but I think it's manageable and the f1.2 lens doesn't look prohibitively big next to it. Not for me anyway. With these f1.2 lenses we may be going into a bulk and weight package which is beginning to rival APS-C or FF but for someone with MFT these f1.2 lenses could well be a welcome addition for occasional use.
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I think there are a lot of customers who can afford to buy the latest best lenses and do so based on the numbers on the box and what reviewers say. I occasionally read some of the Facebook photography fora, and am quite stunned by how many people complain about the image quality of some lens they have, and love the image quality of some other photographer who has the latest very expensive lens and is raving about it, and they decide to buy it. They base their judgments of image quality on Facebook images, i.e. max resolution 2048 pixels on the long side. That's not nearly enough to show the difference between a top lens and a merely good lens, and all that's wrong with the complainer's images are that they don't know how to use their camera or process the images. But that takes time, study, practice, learning.
So they go ahead and buy the very expensive lens, and quickly discover that photographs taken with the same settings as they used for their "inferior" lens don't look any different. But the "inferior" lens doesn't have such a wide aperture, and anyone can easily see how much more blurred the background is when you widen the aperture beyond what the inferior lens could get. So that becomes the obvious indicator of the superiority of the very expensive lens, what it can obviously do that the cheaper lens obviously can't. So the owners of the expensive wide aperture lenses justify their expensive purchases by posting and enthusing about widest aperture images. That creates a fashion for the blurriest backgrounds. And so the financial merry-go-round whirls on.
It reminds me of what I used to do as a small boy looking at expensive sports cars in car parks. I looked at the speedometer to see what the car's maximum speed was.
So they go ahead and buy the very expensive lens, and quickly discover that photographs taken with the same settings as they used for their "inferior" lens don't look any different. But the "inferior" lens doesn't have such a wide aperture, and anyone can easily see how much more blurred the background is when you widen the aperture beyond what the inferior lens could get. So that becomes the obvious indicator of the superiority of the very expensive lens, what it can obviously do that the cheaper lens obviously can't. So the owners of the expensive wide aperture lenses justify their expensive purchases by posting and enthusing about widest aperture images. That creates a fashion for the blurriest backgrounds. And so the financial merry-go-round whirls on.
It reminds me of what I used to do as a small boy looking at expensive sports cars in car parks. I looked at the speedometer to see what the car's maximum speed was.
Mr Bump
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For me its creating an odd situation, most people like me move to M4/3rds for size and portability.
My Oly with the 17mm pops in my many bag and goes very under the radar, hey ho its all about the Pro-Sumer market now with loads of folk with shedloads of disposable readies and sony and oly will help them spend it.
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camerasize.com doesn't take their own pictures of the gear, they just pull it from marketing shots. Some of the fuji stuff isn't even perfectly taken from above:
http://j.mp/2MJPXPY
lol
http://j.mp/2MJPXPY
lol
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Of course they are. Didn't the late Tony Armstrong-Jones talk of cameras being adopted as 'male jewellery'? I bet that a good proportion of the photo equipment bought and owned (along with everything else) relates to self-image. It's inherent in human nature.
Ultimately, everything is globally environmental. Too many people, too many things, too much s*** - where's it headed? Materialism (shopping) is a dead end.
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I think it was Stanley Kalms, founder of Dixons (at one time the world's largest photo retailer) who coined the phrase 'male jewellery'. It's certainly true that a lot of the motivation for camera ownership, at least for the likes of us on here, has got very little to do with taking pictures.
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Curious. Perhaps I'm an exception, but the sole reason I own the cameras I do is to take pictures, and if it were not for that then they would never be purchased. I can imagine non-photographers buying cameras to look special, but surely few actual users will believe that they look cool because they're carrying a new Nikon or Fuji etc. And no woman will say "Wow, that white lens is so large, I want to have your babies".
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Curious. Perhaps I'm an exception, but the sole reason I own the cameras I do is to take pictures, and if it were not for that then they would never be purchased. I can imagine non-photographers buying cameras to look special, but surely few actual users will believe that they look cool because they're carrying a new Nikon or Fuji etc. And no woman will say "Wow, that white lens is so large, I want to have your babies".
Put it another way - owning and using nice camera equipment has the fortunate by-product of also being capable of taking photos
It doesn't apply to everybody, and it's not something that most will own up to, but it does explain a lot.It doesn't apply to everybody, but those who can say, hand on heart, that they've never had the slightest pang of unprovoked GAS, are few. Men love shiny gadgets, toys for boys. There are even magazines dedicated to our tech obsessions, like T3 and Stuff, not to mention 101 other magazines about cars, motorbikes, hi-fi, guns, computers, watches and so on. Expensive cars are not about getting from A-to-B, a posh watch is not about telling the time, and a nice camera is not (just) about taking pictures.
D
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Well thing is when you're not good enough so you can arrange the elements in the scene into your composition you can always blur them. Just like natural light photographer that really just don't know how to use lights and the guys hauling all that Profotogear actually dont know how to utilize the natural light optimally 
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I like big cameras and big lenses.
OP
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I like big lenses and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with a...
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with a...
I'll get my coat.
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Thinking about it more, if the jewellery aspect was important I probably would seek out Fuji, possibly an Oly Pen or a Leica. The last attractive camera from Nikon was the Df.