The first camera club slide show that I attended as a teenager contained images taken with lenses such as Nikkor, Zuiko (Olympus), Leica, Zeiss, Canon, Rokkor (Minolta) and Takumar (Pentax). Week after week, I began to notice that pictures taken with different lens brands looked slightly different. Leica-made images seemed higher in resolution but looked less contrasty than those taken using a Nikkor. A Rokkor's image seemed to have its own particular pictorial quality. Could lenses vary this much?
Lenses not only come in brands, but also in myriad optical designs, such as Planar, Tessar, Sonnar and Gaussian types (e.g. Super-Angulons). Experts will tell you about their strengths and weaknesses and how their optical performance varies. Experienced photographers can be very loyal to particular types of lenses, as can subjects:…
