Do Manufacturers Have A Signature?
- Thread starter Martin D
- Start date
sideshowbob
Champagne fascia aficionado
No.
Different lenses give slightly different looks, but it's certainly not manufacturer specific.
Different lenses give slightly different looks, but it's certainly not manufacturer specific.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
There's more difference between a Nikon at 100 and 400 ISO than there is between a Canon and Nikon at 100 ISO.
Tony
Tony
Joe P
Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
Guess I'm going to be the contrarian here...
Vuk and I compared medium tele lenses a few years ago -- my Nikkor 105mm vs his Leica 90mm Elmarit. The slides shot with the Nikon glass were warmer and more saturated, the slides shot with the Cherman glass were cooler and more subtle.
Ironically, although Vuk preferred Leica's take on the world, his mastering after the fact brought the results in line with Nikon's way of seeing the world.
Joe
Vuk and I compared medium tele lenses a few years ago -- my Nikkor 105mm vs his Leica 90mm Elmarit. The slides shot with the Nikon glass were warmer and more saturated, the slides shot with the Cherman glass were cooler and more subtle.
Ironically, although Vuk preferred Leica's take on the world, his mastering after the fact brought the results in line with Nikon's way of seeing the world.
Joe
sideshowbob
Champagne fascia aficionado
But that doesn't demonstrate a manufacturer signature, it just indicates that different lenses look different. Which is certainly true.
Joe P
Memory Alpha incarnate | mod; Shatner number = 2
Ian,
OK, but apart from an old and now yellowish 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor, I find that my Nikon glass is warm and saturated, particularly the primes. I'm not saying the signature is uniformly equal across all lenses, but Nikon strikes me as being on the slightly warm side of neutral.
Joe
OK, but apart from an old and now yellowish 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor, I find that my Nikon glass is warm and saturated, particularly the primes. I'm not saying the signature is uniformly equal across all lenses, but Nikon strikes me as being on the slightly warm side of neutral.
Joe
sideshowbob
Champagne fascia aficionado
OK, I'm not at all familiar with Nikon. But all the Leica lenses I've used have been very different from each other, largely depending on when they were made. Older Leitz lenses are soft and low contrast, nothing like my 60s Summicron, and the newer stuff is different again. Of the Voigtlander lenses I've used, the two wides (21 and 28) are high contrast and have smooth bokeh, the normals (35 and 50) much lower contrast and a bit ugly in OOF areas. I have three Zeiss lenses for the Blad, a wide 50, a normal 80, and a portrait 150, and they are all pretty different too, despite being of similar vintage (the wide is older, the other two about the same age), largely down to them all being very different designs, I suspect. Etc etc etc. I think all I'm saying is I'm not sure worrying about a manufacturer's signature is very worthwhile, much better to concentrate on finding equipment that best does the job you're trying to do, whether that's a specific lens for a specific task, or a format, or whatever.
