Re: TECH-3D digest 213

[T3D Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Peter A writes:

> It concerns
> the Kodak 10" f.l. wide field commercial Ektar lens, a vintage lens of
> mythic proportions.  

Adams shot loads of film with this lens.

> Stopped
> down, given the right light, they reported it was as good as a modern lens.
> However, the modern lens was never worse and often better.  This was not
> presented as an impartial, quantitative test.

I assume by "better" you mean better numbers; higher resolution and lower 
percent distortion (there is still much debate on whether greater than typical 
contrast numbers are "better" and if so beyond what point is contrast 
excessive). Given the nature of the original question which stimulated this 
entire discussion, I'd just like to clarify that better numbers do not 
necessarily make for "better" lenses, unless one is going to be exhibiting 
their photographs of test charts.  8^)

John Fairstein says...

> Regarding the "character" of lenses, most of my favorite 3D slides were
> taken with a 3.5 Realist. Allow me to speculate that the slight
> vignetting and fall-off of sharpness at the edges tends to draw the eye
> to the center of the image.

I've made the same comment several times on photo-3D with regard to triplets in 
general. I agree John and this is another aspect of what seperates the 
desireable character of photographic lenses from their strict numerical 
performance.

> Rambling on, one of my favorite 2D lenses, the 60mm Zeiss Distagon for
> the Hasselblad, imparts a wonderful roundness to the subject.

Cool!

Also discussed was whether lens resolution beyond the limits of ordinary 
perception was beneficial. Tangential to that... is it possible that lens 
resolution 2 or 3 times greater than that of the film is still considered 
desireable and yields visible benefits? I seem to recall this from somewhere...

Eric G.


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