List of sharpest Lenses 50mm and under?

V

vision_filmz

Carbonite Member
I want to know which are the sharpest/contrast lenses for these Canon dslr cameras?

It would be expensive pl mount lenses, zeis or regular L lenses by Canon?


Thanks
 
Interesting that in general still glass is sharper than cine glass. Lends some credence to the notion that for cinema a certain amount of "softness" is expected.
 
Also things like the 5D are shooting stills at just over 5k and are being blown up for prints. Video doesn't really push photo lenses very much, and unless its for an arty shot I'm always around f5. But my vote is the C/Y Zeiss 50mm for price and colour!
 
Still cameras generally capture images at a much higher resolution than do cinema cameras.

Also, an image captured with a still camera is going to be stared at in isolation, while 90% or more of the people who look at any given frame captured in a movie are going to see it fly by so quickly that they won't have time to study the details of the image.


Thus, that makes sense to me.
 
True enough. 4K is a crayon drawing compared to a 21 MB RAW file still. I guess my other point is the obsession with "sharp" lenses is a little misguided. Most decent quality still lenses are going to resolve WAY beyond what a 1080P camera can capture.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
....I guess my other point is the obsession with "sharp" lenses is a little misguided. Most decent quality still lenses are going to resolve WAY beyond what a 1080P camera can capture.
Click to expand...
I totally disagree. It is plainly evident that the sharper the lens the sharper the your output in 1080p. The difference is that we have to turn down sharpness so much with these canon's to prevent moire and aliasing with super sharp glass that they are not as effective as they could be. The tokina 11-16 and the canon 24mm 1.4 II are so sharp it's crazy in video.

Cheers,
pete
 
I think resolution is overstated, but I also think sharpness matters a lot even for 1080p video
the critical term here is acutance, which is the part of "sharpness" that's not "resolution"
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2009/06/have-you-seen-my-acutance

on my very own sharpness tests, I've noticed I have some lenses with great acutance but non-stellar resolution
e.g. I consider my Leitz Elmarit-R 90mm f/2.8 to be one of my sharpest lenses, because it has nearly perfect acutance at all apertures, even in the corners; the same can't be said of its resolution, but as I'm shooting 1080, I don't care; in contrast with this, the Helios 44-2 has both resolution and acutance issues in the corners unless it's closed down to f/9, so I'd say it's a soft lens, and I would avoid it if I was looking for a sharp normal prime
http://www.similaar.com/foto/lenstests/lenstestsv.html
http://www.similaar.com/foto/lenstests/lenstestsa.html

my guess is that those cine lenses would share those characteristics: perfect acutance, non-stellar resolution - because this is what makes most sense for an image that will be viewed all at the same time (i.e. there's no pixel peeping at a movie theatre)


edit: the lensrentals shootout I posted above only looks at resolution...
 
Things like spherical aberration will be visible at any resolution, producing a soft halo like appearance. My 28 F2.8 suffers from this quite badly wide open and it is obvious even at 720p, let alone 12mp raws.
 
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