On Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:06:02 -0500, in rec.photo.equipment.35mm you wrote:

>Neuman - Ruether wrote:

>> On Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:11:24 -0500, Alan Browne

>> <alan.browne@videotron.ca> wrote:

>> [...]

>>>Why did I post this? I get tired of people (usually Nikonites) crapping

>>>on Minolta, so I decided to see how bad Minolta was. Second place

>>>amongst Canon and Nikon ain't bad, is it? Esp. with Nikon getting a

>>>third place showing!

>> [...]

>> Hmmm....;-)

>> Well, in my little test, I bought a Minolta

>> system that its owner praised (he also owned

>> Nikon gear...). Of the four common lenses,

>> a 28mm, a 35-105, a 50 macro, and a 100-300,

>> I would have to rate all but the macro

>> "mediocre", and considerably inferior to the

>> Nikkor equivalents. The macro was excellent.

>> Minolta and others do make individual lenses

>> that are quite good, but my impression over the

>> years of trying out MANY lenses is that (until

>> fairly recently, with the cheap Nikkor AF

>> lenses) the Nikkor line consisted overwhelmingly

>> of "better-than-average-performance" lenses,

>> unlike other lines where the poorer lenses

>> occupied a much greater percentage of the line.

>> It is not just the top-end lenses that define a

>> line's quality, but the performance level of

>> the bulk of the lenses in the line. With

>> Minolta, Canon, etc., "cherry-picking" has

>> been more necessary than in the Nikon lens

>> line to assure having a set of good lenses,

>> and among Nikkors, every important FL is

>> represented by a high-quality lens version

>> (and the VERY few "dogs" that existed in the

>> line were well-known, and represented a very

>> tiny proportion of the line...). Alas, with

>> these bottom-end cheap AF Nikkor lenses, some

>> of this is gradually changing...

>> (see: www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/slemn.html)

>> David Ruether

>Hi David,

>

>I clearly stated:

>-it's just photodo, which is only sharpness.

>-I picked the lenses from the Minolta stable and then looked at how the

>Coanon's and Nikon's stood up. I own 5 of the lenses in the list chosen

>-I didn't "cherry pick" to make Nikon look bad. I selected a

>"practical" set of lenses

>-You are more than welcome to "complement" the list and publish your own

>results.

>

>Recently treated to a slide show on South America. At one point there

>was a shot of a crisp-focused, lovely colored lizard (chameleon?). The

>background reflections off the leaves looked awful. I asked the

>presenter: "Nikon 50mm, right?" He said, "Yeah, how'd ya know?" The

>Nikon did a great job of capturing the lizard, but it rendered harsh

>highlights in the background. Can't have everything.

>

>Cheers,

>Alan

Yes. But I tend to like this "look" resulting from

overcorrected spherical abberration, since it also tends

to give a crisper image at wide stops (and it contributes

toward a better feel of sharpness when stretching for

maximum DOF, also). For some photos that depend on this

"bad bokeh", see:

http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/sunplant1.html, and a few

at: http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/aht1.html (first),

http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/aht2.html (third), and

http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/aht3.html (second)...

I do not assume that a lens effect is, without context,

"bad" or "good" - it may just offer an "opportunity"...;-)