Comparing Lenses of Different Formats

When I shot these photos below capturing the view through the viewfinders of cameras of two different formats, my purpose was to see if I could capture better images through the viewfinders than I had shown in my previous blog entry.  So, in short, this was initially an exercise in trying to capture better photos shot through a small viewfinder.  After capturing these photos, I noticed something else that I wanted to point out.

I should first explain that I had used my cellphone for these photos and it is difficult to hold the cellphone perfectly lined up with a clear view through the rather small viewfinders.  Then, when you touch the screen to capture the photo, the whole cellphone moves ever so slightly causing some motion blur.  It was tough keeping the cellphone lined up perfectly to capture the entire view through each viewfinder.

I really can't understand why anyone would want to shoot photos with crappy cellphones and I am reminded of this every single time I attempt to capture photos using my cellphone.  There is absolutely nothing appealing about shooting photos with a cellphone and the results are frustratingly poor.  They are the "Instamatics" of the digital world and Instamatic cameras absolutely sucked.  Instamatic cameras were for the ignorant masses who didn't want to learn anything about photography but who wanted to still capture some sort of image even if that image was rather fuzzy...  quite similar to almost all who use their cellphone cameras.  Instamatic cameras were really more like small pinhole cameras producing photos that more resembled pinhole photos...  grainy and fuzzy.  

Unfortunately, I had to use my cellphone in this case because I needed a miniscule lens such as the ones we have on crappy cellphones.  These tiny, mini, pieces of junk lenses are small enough to fit into the viewfinder of a real camera so this was my best tool for the job without buying a more appropriate lens for one of my cameras.  I could buy a macro probe lens for one of my cameras but it isn't worth it just for capturing images through viewfinders.

So, I wasn't happy with my photos in the previous blog entry because they were captured using my cellphone.  While I was lying in bed last night, I decided that I would try reshooting these photos through the viewfinders in an attempt to get better images.

With my new focusing screen on this old medium format film camera, it was very easy to get my Sony camera in perfect focus as seen below.  Of note is that this particular 40 year old film camera does have a small digital LED display showing the shutter speed and f/ratio.  (I should also point out that I really had the lens set to f/2.8, not f/16 as shown in the LED display.  The LED display defaults to f/16 and 1/1000 of a second when there is no film in the camera.)

In this photo, below, the focusing screen is showing my Sony camera out-of-focus.  I had the lens set to infinity so the deeper we look into the photo in the background, the closer that part of the image is to being in-focus.  The purpose of this photo was simply to show the difference between your subject being in-focus and being out-of-focus.  I suppose the original purpose of this exercise was for me to practice focusing accurately.

Then I captured a photo through the viewfinder of my Sony full frame camera using an old film lens (bottom image in photo below).  I chose an old film lens because they provide more character than digital lenses and the above medium format images are through the viewfinder of a medium format film camera.  I thought it might be best to compare an old film lens to another old film lens.  Digital lenses are more sterile for the most part and render images completely differently...  in some ways, digital lenses render images a bit harsher.  

What is noticeable and something I wanted to point out is that this image captured with my full-frame Sony isn't quite as nice as the first image above captured through the Pentax medium format camera.  That medium format film camera (top in photo below) is showing smoother tonality changes as well as a smoother transition from the in-focus area to the out-of-focus area.  

What we see in the comparison below is the difference in smoothness between medium format (top) and full frame (bottom).

The old film lens used in the above photo (bottom image in the comparison) is a sub-$100 lens so I wanted to compare it to an expensive digital lens of above-average quality.  Here, below, we have the view through a Zeiss lens.  This lens is very close to appearing the same as the old film lens in the above photo (bottom image of the comparison) but there are definitely some differences.  At this f/ratio, I think I prefer the rendering of the old film lens above (bottom image of comparison) but they are very close in quality.

The major advantage of the Zeiss lens used below is that I can open the aperture of this lens more, down to f/1.8.  All of the above images had their lenses at f/2.8.  Opening the aperture more would throw that background even more out-of-focus but the transition between in-focus and out-of-focus would still be a bit coarser than the smooth transition in medium format (top photo).  

So, just for the heck of it, I also captured a view through the viewfinder with the lens opened more at f/1.8.  It is pretty easy to see that this smoothed the out-of-focus areas a little more but still not as smooth as what we see in medium format (the first photo, above)...

I should point out that I could improve the focus transition smoothness of my digital Sony camera if I put another $1700 toward a lens that was designed specifically for smoothing focus transitions.  This "STF" lens (smooth trans focus) also renders results in a smoother tonality transition.  Sony has resolved this issue but it is a lens of only one focal length (100mm) and it is quite expensive.  As one would expect, this particular lens is ideal for portraiture and actually is comparable to medium format quality.  

Putting aside the very expensive STF lens, medium format cameras have better performance in this regard even with general purpose lenses so, for this reason, I've always wanted to move into medium format photography.  Don't get me wrong, lousy lenses are still lousy lenses regardless of the camera/film format but the tonality is smoother in medium format when compared to smaller formats.  Plus, medium format lenses typically are excellent to outstanding so finding a dud of a lens in medium format rarely occurs.  It is this tonality that makes larger formats like medium format special.