Can a person honestly tell a difference between lenses when photographing in the real world (ie: outside controlled situations where one might be looking at optical and camera system performance and the minutiae there of)?
It so happens that I have two photoshoots that I did two years apart that might help me answer this very question.
The photoshoots are of the same subject (zombies) photographed under very similar lighting (large, open, low on the horizon sunlit sky). The 2017 Paris Zombie Walk event was photographed using a Sony 50mm f/1.8 SEL OSS auto-focus optic and the 2019 event was worked using a Lens Turbo II focal reducer and a Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai. I photographed the two events with both lenses shot wide open (to give some separation from a background that I find distracting).
Optically the two lenses render the out of focus regions somewhat similarly. There are, however, subtle differences. The Nikkor shows stronger under-corrected spherical aberration behind the point of focus than the Sony. And the Nikkor, when used with the focal reducer, shows less depth of field.
For this comparison I used RawTherapee to process images from the two events. I used the same curves, lightness, contrast settings and LUTs (Kodak Portra NC).
Here are a few examples -
Sony A6000
+ Sony 50mm f/1.8 SEL OSS
Sony A6000
+ Lens Turbo II
+ Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai
Sony A6000
+ Sony 50mm f/1.8 SEL OSS
Sony A6000
+ Lens Turbo II
+ Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai
Sony A6000
+ Lens Turbo II
+ Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai
straight off the sensor
un-sharpened
straight off the sensor
un-sharpened
Sony A6000
+ Lens Turbo II
+ Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai
+ RawTherapee "Capture Sharpen"
+ RawTherapee "Capture Sharpen"
Thoughts -
As you can no doubt see, while there are differences, it is very difficult to "put your finger" on what exactly those differences are.
Because I have stared at these at full rez I feek I know how they are different. The Nikon lens' strongly under-corrected spherical aberration behind the point of focus becomes more obvious under close inspection.
The Sony lens is very crisp and clear from wide open. Without going over the top with superlatives, in my opinion Sony designed an outstanding optic when they created this particular 50mm lens. I've used this lens in various situations and every time I come away with faultless images.
However, because the out of focus rendition behind the point of focus contains less spherical aberration than the 85mm Nikkor, the Sony 50mm rendition is not quite as creamy smooth as the Nikon. Mind you, it's not 1/2 bad and had I never understood what was going on with the Nikkor I would be completely satisfied with the Sony.
Again, I feel the Sony 50mm f/1.8 SEL OSS (for APS-C Sony mirrorless) is a very very fine optic. And for the price... wow! I feel it is pro-level gear, this.
If "resolution" is important when using the old slightly software wide open Nikkor, I found/confirmed that standard "capture sharpen" functions during image processing can make the Nikon images as crisp wide open as the Sony is without "capture sharpen." For an illustration of this, see the last two sample images above and pay close attention to the nylon clip just below the zombie's right shoulder.
Having illustrated this "resolution" effect, can you image how "sharp" a Sony image would be after "capture sharpen?" Depending on the subject a Sony photo improved in this way might be too sharp.
However... going to the absolute camera-nutter extreme of extremes, going to the outer edges of the craft that no one but I may ever know, knowing that manual focusing old lenses can be challenging when working with moving subjects (these zombies changed pose and position every few seconds, of so it seems), knowing that my "hit rate" might not be 95 percent (like it is with the Sony SEL mated to the A6000's fast AF, face recognition, and eye detect ), knowing that a Sony A6000 + Lens Turbo II + Nikkor 85mm is a rather hefty setup to haul around for hours on end, and knowing I do not have OSS (image stabilization), I feel, to repeat myself, I feel I prefer the Nikkor 85mm images.
After much time spent studying these photographs the Nikkor images have an ever so subtly more pronounced "roundness", "creaminess", and "three dimensional" quality to them.
There you have it. My little look at comparing real world image output between a 40+ year old manual focus Nikon and a current autofocus, image stabilizing, all signing, all dancing Sony.
All this, of course, begs the question:
Is it worth the effort of working with and optimizing my controls and technique around the Nikkor lens for something many people will never see, nor care about?
An entire folder of comparison images can be found here.
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