To be fair, the author of this article is Roger Cicala of LensRentals fame [1]; optical testing is his bread and butter. He's also the first to point out that optimal lens performance is neither necessary nor sufficient for good photography, and is famously snarky in his writing towards "spec sheet warriors" and sharpness-obsessed gearheads.
He rents lenses, and a big point of what I'm saying is these fancy lenses are very often specialist tools that are much better to rent from someone like him occasionally when you need something very special, but that doesn't make them better items to own vs the less expensive & smaller/lighter 50mm lenses.
DPReview, FStoppers, PetaPixel, and back in before the web the Popular Photography and Modern Photography magazines. There's a big market for prosumer gear that costs a lot, has ideal technical specs, and hangs around the owner's neck like a prize. Of course these outlets, and the magazines before them, get almost all their money from advertisers, and run lots of review articles (totally objective of course /s) and are of almost zero interest to anyone working in the industry.
Great photographs can be taken with any camera.
Their writing is very much in the vein of "your gear is inadequate if a new version has come out."
They are really the bottom of the barrel. They continually write about how some new piece of gear is so revolutionary because it allows you to take a particular photo and it was impossible before, as long as you didn't know about the 50-100 year old technique to get around the issue that actually works better even if you have the brand new camera.
It's big enough and has a diverse enough community that it can avoid the worst excesses of pay-per-review.
Haha... I was getting sucked into this, still am in a way. I spent about a year (2019) with a now cheap Sony Nex-5n with an 18-55 kit lens... but wanted to upgrade, more MP, higher video quality... got an A7II (24MP, 1080P) and then an A7RIII (42MP, 4K) ... I bought a 12-24mm F4 G lens at $1.3K __USED__ which to me is insane and that's not even that much in this space. It's just my car is $2K... I still can't comprehend it... I've been poor most of my life till recently, I still am poor but yeah... just interesting climbing the levels... Since the last month or two purchased 6 other lenses recently all under $1K but yeah... it's like "I need that 55mm" or "I need "12mm" just funny... then you think, this money is just sitting on your shelf not invested... idk.
I am self aware though, FIRE and make more money in general, try to avoid the above.
All my stuff is used, the latest Sony Alpha 1 is $6.5K ha a bit out of my budget.
Anyway the talk of money is bad/pointless, I saw one cinema lens that was $100K like wth... levels in life.
$2000 could easily get a 15 year old Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla or similar compact car with a reputation for longevity, without major issues. Shopping in that price range can, however be risky if you're not mechanically inclined enough to inspect the condition of the car and don't have the aid of someone who is.
Not saying you can't get a good car for that price but yeah.
Most people putting out high-production-value videos regularly aren't doing it for fun or to make the world a better place; they're closely watching how much money they make from it.
I've used a bunch of cameras ranging from smartphones to high end point-and-shoots all the way up to full frame "prosumer" mirrorless. While I have no doubt someone whose work gets featured in say, NatGeo, can take an iPhone4 and make wonderful shots, I can't help but feel the rest of us Average Joes and Janes get a tremendous boost from having better gear.
And even that NatGeo featured pro would produce much better pictures with a FF DSLR than being limited to a iPhone 4, no?
Define "better"
Kai W (& Lok) was solid when he was there, since he would trash things that deserved it and his juvenile objectivity was humorous. Now they seem more generic in the "this marginally better camera is 100% worth buying" sense.
In good light, great photographs can be taken with any camera.
The trick is knowing what can be made with available light.
This is a pretty broad generalization. There is plenty of photography that is nothing but technical. Also, the technical side of photography is what drives the innovation to enable the creative side. Do hobbyist landscape and portrait photographers need to be pouring over test data like this or even benefit in appreciable ways from these advances? Not likely. But the R&D that is done in optics begins with some of the most technical fields and trickles down.
I am pretty glad dpreview does these kind of technical reviews, it nicely completes other photographer reviews who'll dig more on the experience and real world impact side of things.
The excessive weight of these modern 50mm lens can be a real detriment to getting better photographs. It makes you less mobile, and you can only carry so much weight. If you're carring 10x more weight for your 50mm lens than an older design that is 95% as high quality you inevitably have to leave something else out of the pack.
Your point on lens weight is valid, but I don't see it as something that should be in every single lens optic review, all the more so the use case of 50mm lenses are not just street snaps for instance.
I think the closest analog might be someone that reads the reviews, buys the latest-and-greatest computing hardware... and then uses it to surf the web and play Tetris.
Besides, some people like the technical optical engineering aspect of it and are happy to follow the latest developments in the same way that some people feel the urge to read articles on the latest HPC Xeon. Gatekeeping and condescension is completely unwarranted.
The sneering is pretty typical for any hobby that lumps practitioners and collectors under the same heading. The former group tends to see the gear as mere tools, to be used as needed to achieve some other end. For the latter group the gear is the whole thing - or perhaps talking about the gear.
Neither is bad, but it would probably work better to call the hobbies by different names. Perhaps "photographers" and "camera collectors" or something. But then, being a collector doesn't have quite the same cachet as being an artist.
I agree somewhat, which is why I mostly use a cheap lens, and an ancient EOS 60D. However, I think the $3,000 lens is a red herring. The vast majority of lenses sold are kit lenses or cheap plastic. Because whilst there is an awful lot of average photographers, not all of them are millionaires. Now, to actual millionaires $3,000 are probably worth less than $300 for me, so I don't see how I would have a moral high ground.
Honestly, this is a made up problem. Some people prefer working on composition, some are better at capturing subtle lights, and some have a technical mind. These people still buy camera and take pictures, as a hobby. So why wouldn't they be called "hobbyist photographers" like the rest of us? And why does it have any importance whatsoever?
>So why wouldn't they be called "hobbyist photographers" like the rest of us?
I feel like I explained my thoughts on that in my previous comment. Basically if you're in it for the love of the gear rather than to make photographs that's fine, but your hobby is collecting rather than photography. Or, to put it another way, photography gear rather than photo-making.
>why does it have any importance whatsoever?
Sometimes the photo-makers get annoyed at being lumped in with the gear collectors. And a fair number of people get taken in reading the gearhead commentary and end up buying expensive lenses that won't actually help that person take better photos.
Yes, you did. Sorry, it shouldn't have sounded so personal. My real problem is with the community in general.
> Basically if you're in it for the love of the gear rather than to make photographs that's fine, but your hobby is collecting rather than photography.
The thing is, it is a spectrum between pinhole photographers and gear heads. There are different optima for different people along the way, but fundamentally they all do the same thing: taking pictures. So where do you draw the line, and who gets to choose who is branded a legitimate photographer instead of some weirdo with too much money?
I have never seen any evidence that "collectors" (in the sense of people who buy modern gear without taking any picture with it; there are plenty of legitimate collectors of old cameras) really are that common, or any more common than soccer moms who buy a camera to collect dust. Every time they are mentioned it is as bogeymen on a photography forum. It is puzzling that a community would show so extreme sentiments towards one of its subsets. And I am a railway modeller, so I am not stranger to strongly opinionated hobbyists.
> And a fair number of people get taken in reading the gearhead commentary and end up buying expensive lenses that won't actually help that person take better photos.
Sure, that is a problem for some people who are eager to give themselves the right tools and get to overspend. And to be honest most of us are willing to fall into that trap.
Yeah, for sure, I didn't intend to make it sound like as much of a clear cut dichotomy as I ended up doing.
>who is branded a legitimate photographer instead of some weirdo with too much money?
You ask the Internet Photography Police to render a verdict, of course! But yeah, it's not a clearcut distinction in most cases.
- Photographers - Modern Gear collectors - Vintage Gear collectors
You can have a little bit of each of these 3 you're interested in, and you won't necessarily always have the same interest in each area.
But people who are 100% interested in one of the gear collecting aspects are pretty common and are very far from the artistic side.
I do agree consumers don’t deserve condescension for geeking about technical details, but I still see it as at least ironic when somebody buys an overengineered product.
However, the entire thing feels artificial. It's hard to describe. I don't want to go back, but getting shots is so easy now that it's less of a rewarding feeling nailing a shot. Messed up ISO? Doesn't matter, sensor is ISO-invariant, just adjust exposure in post at no cost to quality. You cannot mess up focus anymore. At 10fps, you cannot miss a shot anymore (mostly).
The movie from the 70s had so many out of focus shots, tracking shots were a bit hit or miss and colors were rather poor (mostly just flat but also color balance issues between scenes).
The modern indie movie looked almost like any triple-A movie, with crisp focus, smooth tracking and with lovely natural colors, even in low light.
Not like it came as a surprise as such, but just the back to back experience highlighted the contrast. Really made me sit and appreciate the technological advances.
Imagine if content can be generated, real-time, by an AI that monitors your brain for signs of engagement. Holy shit, what if that’s what this life actually is!
I like good pictures, so I find it more rewarding when a shot succeeds and I can move on to other shots or try a harder shot for a better picture. I can play video games when I need extra fake challenge because life is too easy.
I recommend analog to people who want fulfillment from the process itself.
As a hobbyist photographer and a reader of DPReview, I can tell that you can find what you're looking for. There also guys who are in for the art, in for the studio photography or just for gear.
These kind of technical articles makes me happy and piques my interest deeply, because I love to know how things work, and why they're designed this way.
I'm personally aware that better gear makes my photography better, however I love to know theoretical capabilities and limits of my gear. Understanding my gear made my photography better and DPReview's both articles and forums helped me a lot TBH.
For the most light and scenarios, f2.8 is very suitable from my experience, esp. with latest generation of sensors (A7III, Z6/7, etc.), however in extreme dim light (I shoot tango dancing, BTW), f1.8 is really helping. Since you're away from subjects too, DoF becomes very acceptable too.
I agree that unless you've a specific need, f1.4 and f1.2 lenses are halo products. As a Sony shooter, that 2.5/40mm lens [0] is very compelling for street photography from perspective.
At the end of the day, new lenses are giant leaps when compared to older ones in terms of resolution and sharpness. Older lenses indeed have character but, newer ones are not always devoid of it.
[0]: https://www.sony.com/electronics/camera-lenses/sel40f25g
I do like reading Roger's work (here and at his LensRentals blog) just for curiosity about how lenses actually work, though.
It's perhaps my second most frequently used lens, after the 28/2 "Hollywood" Distagon (which isn't really all that sharp off-center, and sports very strong vignetting, but produces a beautiful, dramatic quality).
A few from eBay, some good deals pop up every now and then if you're patient for a few months and set up notifications based on keywords rather than thinking "I need this lens right now".
Sometimes if you see an auction on eBay with a high starting price and no bids, it's possible they have been re-listing the item for a long time, and you can message the seller and say you'll buy it right now at a lower price if they turn on that option; many would be happy to be "done with it" and sold. Sometimes if the seller is local you can convince them to cancel the listing and do an off-eBay, in-person sale for cash at a discount (eBay charges a lot of seller fees).
If you bid on an actual eBay auction, place your bid with the highest price you are actually willing to pay and ONLY in the last 10 seconds, or preferably last 3 seconds. By doing that you will either lose OR win but get it at just slightly higher than the next highest bidder's max price and significantly less than your stated price, while leaving that second bidder with no time to re-think and re-bid. By doing the single last-minute bid, you effectively turn the auction into a sealed-bid, second-price (Vickrey) auction for yourself, which is most efficient for you in a game theoretic sense.
KEH has very reasonable prices on most old lenses. Not cheap, but very reasonable.
Also, if you're willing to take apart a lens with a slight amount of haze/fungus, sanitize and clean the hell out of it (not for faint of heart), and put it back together, you can get some very, very steep discounts. Or if the lens has a couple of scratches, you can get steep steep discounts due to loss of antique value, you don't need to take anything apart, and it will have zero noticeable impact on wide aperture images.
That said, it works magic at night.
(OTOH if I open a 200mm as wide as it goes I definitely do prefer it sharp - different scenario.)
DPreview largely seems to write for the crowd that doesn't even care about the art aspect and just wants validation that they have better photo gear than others.
These new 50mm lenses often defeat the point cause they're enormous, heavy, very expensive, and have little benefit over the slower versions of old lenses since most of the time we don't walk around shooting everything at f/1.0-f/1.4, and when we do we're actually looking for some artistic weirdness.
I've mostly had Canon.. I've owned the old f/1.8, the f/1.4, currently have the newer f/1.8, and have rented the f/1.2.
Even the Canon f/1.2, it's older, and not as big/heavy as some of these more recent ones, but it's already so big it feels silly most of the time compared to the smaller/cheaper ones.
It was useful as a rental for specific scenarios, and the new huge/expensive ones are likewise. They're great though if you're going to compare your gear collection instead of your photographs though.