"Patrick May" <pjm RemoveThis @spe.com> wrote in message
news:m13c1x4t1y.fsf@localhost.localdomain...
> Mike - EMAIL IGNORED <m_d_beger_1900 RemoveThis @yahoo.com> writes:
> > Which should I buy? Why?
>
> 1.8 -- cheap, light, and so sharp my wife won't let me take
> pictures of her with it.
>
Yep! All things being ewual, the lens designers make less optical
compromises with slower lenses, so you should expect maximum sharpness, more
contrast and less distortion with the f/1.8.
The irony is that the slower lens is usually smaller, lighter and often much
more economical than is the faster lens. Obviously, if you have a specific
need for a faster lens, this may all be irrelevent. But today's
finer-grained film emulsions offer you an alternative: use a faster film to
compensate for the slower lens.
In Medium Format, specifically Hasselblad and Rolleiflex, f/2.0 represents
the FASTEST lens that can be used. So a Nikkor f/1.8, while somewhat slower
than the 1.2 or 1.4, is still nothing to sneeze at.
My own experience with Pentax normal lenses is consistent with what I just
said. I own all 3 normal lens types: 50mm f/1.4, 55mm f/1.8 and 55mm f/2.0.
The 1.8 and the 2.0 lenses produce sharper and contrastier images than does
the 1.4, and since I've gone from using ASA 200, rather than my previous
choice of ASA 100 film, I don't miss that extra 1/2 or 2/3 stop at all.
I will tell you where my f/1.4 really is outstanding, though. That is when
shooting wide open to minimize depth-of-field. I particularly like the
technique, as it visually isolates the main subject from the background. I
favor that technique more than filling the frame, because it enables me to
include some background, which serves to give the subject a
point-of-reference, while still keeping the background from commanding all
of the viewer's attention. Plus, the Pentax normal lenses have absolutely
beautiful bokeh. So the main subject is often awash in saturated colors (if
the colors appear in the background), while the defocused background part of
the image does not compete for the attention of the viewer. For this
effect, the 1.4 lens really stands out, especially because it introduces no
apparent perspective distortion, unlike a telephoto lens would. (I happen
to favor using the normal lens because it imposes virtually no graphical
control on the subject--everything looks like it would if it were being
viewed by the human eye. I do a lot of scenics and cityscapes, and I want
to record the scene to look as I saw it, rather than with altered
perspective. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but to me, the normal
lens is indispensable.)
Nikon lenses are very sharp, but they are not on a par with Pentax when it
comes to pleasing bokeh. The classic Pentax Planar designs ("Zeiss
copies?") have sacrificed just a bit of sharpness to gain beautiful defocus.
They typically also have a bit warmer color rendition and are often
described as being the lenses closest to the classic German lens designs.
You didn't say what type of subjects you shot, so this bokeh thing may be
completely irrelevant to your situation. But, in general, the slower lens
requires less tradeoffs, and produces a superior image. Just look at the
classic German normal lenses, some of which were as slow as f/3.5 or f/4
(I'm thinking of CZJ and Schneider). They are still held in high esteem
today by many photographers. The image quality was high due in great part
to the relatively slow speed.
Even Leica admits that their first incarnation of the f/1.4 normal lens was
nothing to write home about--it was on a par with the Japanese glass of the
70s, but didn't have that margin of extra quality that Leica would have
preferred. It is easier to design a slower lens to give high quality
results.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: Nikon 50mm 1.2 or 1.4 
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is much more common.