Dan Hudgins
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2007
- Messages
- 1,369
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Location
- San Francisco, CA USA
- Website
- www.dancad3d.com
Lens cost vs. Camera cost
Lens cost vs. Camera cost
Larger format lenses are lower cost if you take into account the resolution in ratio to the image area.
So you may end up with higher quality results using the larger sensor models with lower cost lenses, rather than the smaller sensor models and higher priced lenses.
To get the limit of resolution of the sensor on a so called 2/3" camera, the lens must resolve close to the limit of what can be made, so the lenses cost more to make, where as on the larger sensors the lp/mm required are closer to what is needed for making an 8x10 or 11x14 print in a DSLR or SLR, so in ratio to the image width the lp/mm are lower for the larger sensor.
That turns out because the pixels are smaller on the smaller sensor, so the lp/mm needs to be higher.
With film cameras the lp/mm was more or less constant because you used the same film types in all format cameras, although Kodachrome was favored for the smaller formats, its resolution in the shadow and highlights was far less than 3K on a so called 2/3" sensor.
Because 16mm film camera and video lenses never had to resolve 3K at high MTF because film would not hold that at high MTF, older lenses may not be altogether useful on a high resolution camera. For pictorial effects they may generate soft focus effects, but in the real sense of matching what the sensor can produce the older lenses would require extra sharpen values and that brings the noise up.
I have tried many lenses I have around in various formats and even on a SD TV camera you can see that many of the lenses do not focus to a spot smaller than one SD pixel, so if you can see the softness on a SD camera its not going to make a spot the size of a 3K pixel.
There are some SLR lenses that are close to SD on a 2/3" video camera, I have a good 60mm Macro lens that looks almost usable, but since you are taking a small crop from the center of the SLR frame, most of the time it will look like an optical zoom and you can always tell those from other shots where the image circle fits the frame area.
So you trade lens cost vs. camera cost, if you add $6000 for better lenses on the 2/3" camera, and $2000 for good used SLR lenses on the FF camera, the cost is more close, and the FF camera with the good used lenses may give a better over-all image.
Small sensors are better for a compact system to shoot with in remote places maybe, so there are factors other than overall image quality to think about.
In another post on this subject I gave some pirce info on the new 10MP Goyo Optical C mount lenses, they might be sharp enough to use, but their cost is higher than the Mini-Primes, so lenses close to 200lp/mm are not going to be as easy to get as less sharp SD quality 16mm movie camera lenses, perhaps?
Lens cost vs. Camera cost
Larger format lenses are lower cost if you take into account the resolution in ratio to the image area.
So you may end up with higher quality results using the larger sensor models with lower cost lenses, rather than the smaller sensor models and higher priced lenses.
To get the limit of resolution of the sensor on a so called 2/3" camera, the lens must resolve close to the limit of what can be made, so the lenses cost more to make, where as on the larger sensors the lp/mm required are closer to what is needed for making an 8x10 or 11x14 print in a DSLR or SLR, so in ratio to the image width the lp/mm are lower for the larger sensor.
That turns out because the pixels are smaller on the smaller sensor, so the lp/mm needs to be higher.
With film cameras the lp/mm was more or less constant because you used the same film types in all format cameras, although Kodachrome was favored for the smaller formats, its resolution in the shadow and highlights was far less than 3K on a so called 2/3" sensor.
Because 16mm film camera and video lenses never had to resolve 3K at high MTF because film would not hold that at high MTF, older lenses may not be altogether useful on a high resolution camera. For pictorial effects they may generate soft focus effects, but in the real sense of matching what the sensor can produce the older lenses would require extra sharpen values and that brings the noise up.
I have tried many lenses I have around in various formats and even on a SD TV camera you can see that many of the lenses do not focus to a spot smaller than one SD pixel, so if you can see the softness on a SD camera its not going to make a spot the size of a 3K pixel.
There are some SLR lenses that are close to SD on a 2/3" video camera, I have a good 60mm Macro lens that looks almost usable, but since you are taking a small crop from the center of the SLR frame, most of the time it will look like an optical zoom and you can always tell those from other shots where the image circle fits the frame area.
So you trade lens cost vs. camera cost, if you add $6000 for better lenses on the 2/3" camera, and $2000 for good used SLR lenses on the FF camera, the cost is more close, and the FF camera with the good used lenses may give a better over-all image.
Small sensors are better for a compact system to shoot with in remote places maybe, so there are factors other than overall image quality to think about.
In another post on this subject I gave some pirce info on the new 10MP Goyo Optical C mount lenses, they might be sharp enough to use, but their cost is higher than the Mini-Primes, so lenses close to 200lp/mm are not going to be as easy to get as less sharp SD quality 16mm movie camera lenses, perhaps?
