Do quality lens make a difference if only viewed on a Mac/ipad

THC_SsSsSnake

THC_SsSsSnake

THC_SsSsSnake

Associate
Joined
7 Jan 2003
Posts
1,466
Location
Leicester
If one is. Never going to make prints etc is it a waste of money to buy high quality lenses.
I'm unsure of this as some of the photos on the shop iPads took with canon 5d2 etc look super yet I've read that if only viewing on a PC etc then top quality images are wasted yet it's easy to see the difference in some photos which are say not in focus etc but say 2 photos of the same image both correctly exposed but taken with a wide quality lens difference,would you still see much difference on a monitor?
Thankyou
 
Short, answer, yes.

Long answer, ultimately crap in, crap out. That includes skills, talent, and gear plays a part too.
 
In terms purely of optical performance; maybe :p

Depending on a whole load of stuff like technique, processing and the particular lenses and scene involved.

But more expensive lenses also tend to have advantageous characteristics (depending on the lens, of course) such as larger maximum apertures, more extreme focal ranges, better close focus abilities, better flare resistance, 'nicer' rendering or bokeh, etc, which can often have an impact on image quality or other characteristics of an image such as depth of field, contrast or whatever.

You need to look at individual lens choices on a case-by-case basis and decide where your priorities lie and where your acceptable performance:cost ratio is.
 
Last edited:
It depends what you are going to do with your images, and what you are going to display them on. In general with lenses, you get what you pay for. More expensive lenses tend to provide better overall sharpness, a faster aperture and a nicer overall look (especially when it comes to bokeh/disfocus - especially with fast primes). Of course there are exceptions and second hand, older primes are a good bed if you're looking for a bargain and aren't too worried about AF etc

Of course, all this depends on your ability to use the lens to its best - you can make an 18-55 kit lens look pretty damn good if you know what you're doing in the right situation!
 
Raymond Lin said:
Short, answer, yes.

Long answer, ultimately crap in, crap out. That includes skills, talent, and gear plays a part too.
Click to expand...

Ray hit the nail on the head there. Doesn't matter what gear you have if you are aware of how to get the best out of the light presented to you. Better glass gives you the option of a more shallow depth of field, which is loved for portrait and still life genres, whilst wide focal lengths seem to be loved by landscape photographers as another example. Thats completely independent of the camera body, which of course has its own pro's and con's, such as superior ISO performance being a big factor now for most photographers.

Personally, any DSLR from the ultra basic to the top of the line will give you superb photographs if you know how to get the best from it and the light presented to you in your scene. I personally hate cheap compact camera's as the results look smudged and noisy at 1:1 pixel ratio, limiting cropping potential enormously.
 
Depending on the lens they can and do change the look of your shots (beyond perspective alone, sometimes you can even recognize which lens was used) so yes it makes a difference.

Artistic considerations aside is anyone going to complain about you using a cheap 60mm f/2.8 over an expensive 85mm f/1.8? I would say absolutely not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom