In Praise of Cheap Lenses

  

         This is a more-than-100-percent crop from the photo below. Sharp enough?

 

Fuji X-T20 camera, Fujicron 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 lens.

 I'm not a lens snob.

 In fact, I mostly tune out the never-endiing discussions of rendering, edge sharpness, bokeh, etc., that seem to be the bread and butter of many blogs and web sites. I have difficulty seeing the fine distinctions they make, and wouldn't care much if I could. A lens is to take pictures with. If it does a reasonable job of that (as in, do the photos look okay?) nothing else is required.

 

I began my full-time professional career in 1978 with a pair of Nikkormats, a 50mm Nikkor lens, and two Vivitar lenses -- 28mm f2.5 and 100mm f2.8. They were fine. A year or so later, I switched to the Olympus OM system, which I used for 12 years with great satisfaction. I had quite a few lenses for the OMs, and all were satisfactory except for the 35-70 f3.6.

By 1993, aging eyes necessitated a switch to autofocus, so I bought into the Canon EOS system and used various bodies and lenses for the next 24 years. Along the way, I owned a number of Canon's top-rated "L" lenses, including the 28-80 f2.8-4L, the 28-70 f2.8L, and the 24-70 f2.8L. I also owned the 24-105 f4L. But I kept going back to the 24-85 f3.5-4.5 and the 28-105 f3.5-4.5, neither of which is an L lens, but both are small and light, fast enough for the work I do,  and again, sharp enough for the work I do.

Not long after my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era was published, I walked into my local pro film processing lab and found another photographer standing at the counter leafing through my book, which is in 9x12-inch coffee-table format. Having learned from the lab owner that I was the creator of the book, he asked if I had made the photos on 5x7-inch film. When I told him no, he said, "Oh, 4x5?" When I explained that all but one (the cover) were made with 35mm cameras, he had difficulty believing it. But in fact, almost all the photos in the book were shot with the Canon EF 28-105 f3.5-4.5 or the 24mm f2.8. As Kirk Tuck says, there are very few lenses that aren't sharp at f8!

In 2017 I sold my Canon gear and bought into the Fuji system. I will tell you that I do not own their more expensive and highly rated lenses, but the ones I have do the job for me just fine.

I don't do weddings anymore, but the photo at the top of this pose is from a wedding in 2018, taken with a Fuji X-T20 and the 16-50 f3.5-5.6 kit lens. Looks sharp enough to me. 

 

(This post was adapted from a post originally made in 2019.)

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     cameras    Fuji X-T20   Fujicron XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 lens     Olympus OM cameras     Nikon     Nikkormat     Vivitar lenses      Canon EOS cameras     Canon L lenses