35mm (Equivalent) focal length issues..

[johant]

@Jürgen Heger: You know... the thing is:

Nosegunner came here, boldly stating things that were clearly wrong. That the XF 23mm F/1.4 R was optically bad and slow focusing (which he revoked already), and that a lens like the 23 F/1.4 could be built smaller without compromising image quality, which is just wrong. Making it smaller or lighter will increase vignetting, distortion, abberations or astigmatism. Or the maximum aperture needs to be decreased.

The first answers he received were informative and friendly (not mine), informing him about the lens in question and his misinformation. But as he got more and more agressive and stubborn about the lens being too big and fujifilm needing to make a smaller one no matter what, so were the answers from the community.

 

And then came you, attacking everyone on a personal level by writing stuff like "Never criticise in a Fuji forum anything that Fuji does", implying that everyone here is unobjective and just wants to silence critique. Just look around the forum, it's full of critique and suggestions for improvement! And here you are again, calling this a "bashing of Fuji critics". It's not what this is about. Had the OP started a thread themed "Who wants a little 23/2 to accompany the 35/2", the response would have certainly been different.

 

That sums it up rather nicely.

[Jürgen Heger]

@qunci

I apologize for my late reply but I was offline the last days.

 

 

I did neither attack all members of the forum or the thread nor was this my intention. I just said in general that if someone critizies Fuji he is likely to get bashed.

 

In the end all what Nosegunner wants is that Fuji does with the 23 the same that they did with the 35. To me this is not that stupid. Make a lens with f/2 instead of f/1.4 and increase the sharpness in the center slightly, significantly in the corners and size and weight will come down automatically. Exactly what happened with the 35/2 at least to a review where I saw the pictures if both lenses side by side

 

Almost everyone accepts that the quality of 90/2 is better than the 23. So if someone says he wants better quality than the 23 than why not. Others in this forum do not stop to praize the quality of the X100. Especially in German reviews the common sense is that the center quality is good but the sides and the corners are very poor, too poor for the price.

 

So quality is very subjective. If someone is not happy with a certain quality we should not try to convince him that it is good enough. I know that Nosegunner now is not criticizing the optical quality of the 23 any more complains about size and weight. But this is how it all started.

 

@johant

Probably we are not that much apart. I would like to see a more friendly atmosphere in this forum. That is why I was very generaland did not address anyone directly. I tried not to insult anyone personally. Obviously I failed miserably.

[frod]

It is not really possible to 'do what they did with the 35' because as we go to a wider angle of view it requires a different grouping of lenses that doesn't really lend itself well to this kind of idea. As mentioned above, although doable in principle (lighter/smaller), I really don't think you would like the resulting changes to distortion or resolution; imagine a poorer and larger version of the lens on the X100, given that they would have to cope with additional back focus distance due to having to incorporate the lens mount.

 

From what little I know of optics, the 27mm is probably the limit of the simpler double gauss design before extra lenses are required for correction (or quality suffers, cf. the 18mm). It's just unavoidable physics; look at other ~63 degree angle of view lenses; cheap, small, quality: pick one.

[cug]

Okay, let's take a look at this.
 

I did neither attack all members of the forum or the thread nor was this my intention. I just said in general that if someone critizies Fuji he is likely to get bashed.

 
Which of course isn't true. People get bashed when they come in and criticize Fuji based on made up arguments. I'm trying to be polite here and call it arguments even though my personal opinion is "slightly" harsher.
 

In the end all what Nosegunner wants is that Fuji does with the 23 the same that they did with the 35. To me this is not that stupid. Make a lens with f/2 instead of f/1.4 and increase the sharpness in the center slightly, significantly in the corners and size and weight will come down automatically. Exactly what happened with the 35/2 at least to a review where I saw the pictures if both lenses side by side

 
So, to put it very bluntly, the 35/1.4 is optically superior in every way I have tested the two lenses from f/4 and up. It is optically equal from f/2.8 and up. It is comparable in the center at f/2 and it beats the crap out of the new one at f/1.4 because you're not getting a photo from the new one at all. 
 
I have seen examples now from various photographers taking photos from a tripod from the same place and they all show the same: the old one is optically better. Plus it is optically corrected which immediately makes it larger.
 
If you want optically inferior, software corrected, slower lenses that are smaller - that's fairly easy of course. 
 

So quality is very subjective. If someone is not happy with a certain quality we should not try to convince him that it is good enough. I know that Nosegunner now is not criticizing the optical quality of the 23 any more complains about size and weight. But this is how it all started.

 

Quality is normally measurable and obvious differences are fairly easy to show. It's raining cats and dogs here today so I might go and build a quick sharpness comparison setup for the two lenses I have here if nothing else comes up that I can waste my time with. 

 

The size and weight are definitely a factor. But size and weight and certain optical traits are related to each other. You'll have to live with physics involved. 

 

So, I don't know what your goal is right now, but obviously wrong arguments (unfortunately, you can't really question physics here) isn't helping the discussion.

 

Let's put it this way:

 

Yes, I want a smaller XF23. I am willing to take the downsides of a physically smaller design, which means the lens will be slower, it will be less optically corrected, it might have some sharpness traits in the center, but will not beat the bigger lens. That's okay. I want it smaller, so I'm willing to accept the optical downsides of making a lens smaller. Is that what you're getting at? If yes, then why trying to bring up the weird discussion again that you can make a lens optically better AND smaller? We already know that this doesn't work that easy.

[milandro]

A naughty thought crossed my mind.

 

At Fuji they were sick and tired of the whining on all the fora about the 35mm f1.4

 

You know this thing of the lens being slow at focussing, hunting, noisy ( not that I ever found that about my copy when I had one), so they commissioned one of the junior designer to go and fish out one of the discarded design which they had considered but not produced before going on with the production of the f1.4.

 

As long as it was sightlier quicker and less noisy.

 

He came back with the blueprints (I know there are no more blueprints but it’s a thought of an older person) for the 35mm f2  and told everyone that if they marketed it right, they could make a lot more money on this lens because the discarded lens was going to cost a lot less to make. Senior designers looked at it with contempt but the marketing department was immediately convinced and even thought that some people were going to buy the two lenses.

 

The junior designer was given a promotion a corner office and from now on he was going to be in charge of the new lenses for the X line.

 

[davidmold]

Admiring Light has a wonderful comparison of the 35mm f2 and 35mm f1.4 which shows image samples at different apertures, and importantly also different distances, and allows the reader to make up their own mind about the suitability of the two lenses for their particular needs.

 

http://admiringlight.com/blog/fuji-35mm-f1-4-vs-fuji-35mm-f2/