New Lenses needed for higher MP cameras

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The launch of the Canon R5 got me thinking although not specifically related to that camera

With the increase to high MP sensors does this highlight any optical flaws that would not be noticeable with lower MP? If so does this mean potentially existing lenses may also need to be upgraded
 
Depends how critical you are and what your existing lens lineup is.
I used a variety on my Nikon D850 ... from the older 80-200 AF f2.8 & 28-70 f2.8, to the newer Irix 15 f2.5, Nikon 200-500 f5.6, 500 f4 and never had any complaints. :)
 
Generally yes, all optics have a resolution before it "loses it's shapness", it depends on the lens. Generally most Canon lenses made in the past 5 years should be good enough for the R5, like the 35L mk2 or the 24-70L ml2.
 
Generally yes, all optics have a resolution before it "loses it's shapness", it depends on the lens. Generally most Canon lenses made in the past 5 years should be good enough for the R5, like the 35L mk2 or the 24-70L ml2.
Thanks for that. It's my fault for not fully clarifying. I would expect any recent L lens to perform well. I was thinking more of the reasonable quality but non L lenses in my question
 
Depends on the lens in question, I'd say the Sigma Art series would be good enough, the Canon 50/1.4 less so. Most consumer zooms probably wouldn't pass mustard either.
 
I think I am now in a position to comment on this with some authority after the purchase of Canon 5Ds, which is at 50MP or slightly more than the R5. On tripod there is almost nothing between them. Of course Sony, Nikon and Panasonic have their own high MP models.

Before that I had (and still have) 5D mark III. They are very sharp with all decent and proper lenses, like anything from that last decade with red ring on it. Specifically 16-35 f/4, 24-70 II, 100mm macro, 70-200 f4 IS, 400 5.6 + Sigma 35. Pretty much the problem areas were only 16-35 at 35mm in the periphery and that is ever so minor.

On 5Ds things change substantially. Centre remains pin sharp with careful focusing with pretty much every lens above. I must stress critical focus again. I had a few slightly misfocused 24-70mm shots particularly in very low light and they look rubbish until downsized to 22MP, where they look perfect. The far edges on 24-70mm pretty much leave me wanting more, a lot more... 16-36 is still great at 16 but at 35 I would prefer to swap lenses, ideally for the Sigma. Sigma is the only wide lens in my kit that is pixel perfect down to corners at f/8 (and perhaps 5.6).

Long lenses show a whole different story. 70-200mm looks nearly perfect except for more pronounced CA. LR deals with it seamlessly though. I haven't tried 100 yet, but don't expect anything unusual. 400mm is a corner to corner perfection if you avoid any shake.

So no 1. it seems these cameras love primes and long lenses. There is nothing wrong with cheaper zoom like 24-105 but you are basically reverting back to 2XMP images outside of centre part, while clogging up your cards, hard drive and so on.

No 2. is all about critical focus and depth of field. This applies for landscapes, macros, products anything where entire image needs to be sharp. I noticed it is next to impossible to get sharp landscape with foreground at 35mm, and to a lesser even 24mm presents problems. Thus the solutions is a focus stacking nightmare or tilt and shift lenses where one is even available. Good luck with 35mm or 70mm on Canon!

Handheld expect to use at least double shutter speeds. Even with IS and IBIS you still face the exaggerated subject movement.

The cameras enable very high res shots to be recorded, but at the same time the process becomes no longer fun day out like with 2XMP camera but quite a PITA if you try to make the most out of it. Worst case it won't be any worse than the lower MP alternative, but it might not be much better either without extreme care.

Canon 50/1.4 less so

I don't have one now, but from experience this would be terrible until f/2.8 but absolutely stellar at f/5.6. I think the cheaper and better made 1.8 STM version makes more sense with those considerations.

I'd say the Sigma Art series would be good enough

If you don't mind stopping down a bit and swap them every 5min it will be hard to beat. The 35mm wide open to f/2.8 does leave a bit to be desired in a landscape setting; this could be focusing accuracy in the bloody darkness too.


For general purpose or all-rounder I think something between 20-30MP makes most sense with FF sensor. That easily gives you clean A1 prints already. 50MP can fill the whole wall, or I suspect is a convenient number for 8K video capture.
 
The launch of the Canon R5 got me thinking although not specifically related to that camera

With the increase to high MP sensors does this highlight any optical flaws that would not be noticeable with lower MP? If so does this mean potentially existing lenses may also need to be upgraded

The obvious answer would be that it'll depend how close you look.

If you normally view whole pictures on screen and rarely print or when doing so only print relatively small and that is possibly the norm for many these days the chances are that you'll rarely if ever notice any difference between 40+mb and 8 or even fewer. If however you pixel peep or crop heavily and that also seems to be the norm for many these days then you may see issues with lenses with a lower resolution. When pixel peeping some hi res pictures things may not be all that pretty at 1:1 anyway regardless of how good the lens is.
 
It depends the lens. Very basic rule, no with a quality lens, don't be surprised if using a cheap lens.
Cheap filters suffer for the same reason.
 
The easy answer is yes, as cameras get more demanding lenses need to be improved to accommodate this if you want to maximise the resolution and outright detail that can be achieved. Therefore it's no surprise to see that a lot of the modern mirrorless lenses are optically better than their older DSLR counterparts.
 
It depends the lens. Very basic rule, no with a quality lens, don't be surprised if using a cheap lens.
Cheap filters suffer for the same reason.
Or indeed yes.
simple physics, lens tests have contained lpmm figures for all my 30+ years in photography.
Simple calculation, if the resolution of your sensor exceeds the resolution of your lens, then your lens weaknesses will show. If OTOH your lens out resolves your sensor, it won’t show.
Same maths no matter how much you paid for your kit - though clearly you’ve a good chance of high IQ with an expensive lens and less with a cheaper one. But there’s some optically inferior expensive lenses, and some superb inexpensive ones.
 
Just purchased ther Tamron 24-70 G2 version for my Nikon D810 and a definate improvementet from the Nikon 24-70G
 
I think I am now in a position to comment on this with some authority after the purchase of Canon 5Ds, which is at 50MP or slightly more than the R5. On tripod there is almost nothing between them. Of course Sony, Nikon and Panasonic have their own high MP models.

Before that I had (and still have) 5D mark III. They are very sharp with all decent and proper lenses, like anything from that last decade with red ring on it. Specifically 16-35 f/4, 24-70 II, 100mm macro, 70-200 f4 IS, 400 5.6 + Sigma 35. Pretty much the problem areas were only 16-35 at 35mm in the periphery and that is ever so minor.

On 5Ds things change substantially. Centre remains pin sharp with careful focusing with pretty much every lens above. I must stress critical focus again. I had a few slightly misfocused 24-70mm shots particularly in very low light and they look rubbish until downsized to 22MP, where they look perfect. The far edges on 24-70mm pretty much leave me wanting more, a lot more... 16-36 is still great at 16 but at 35 I would prefer to swap lenses, ideally for the Sigma. Sigma is the only wide lens in my kit that is pixel perfect down to corners at f/8 (and perhaps 5.6).

Long lenses show a whole different story. 70-200mm looks nearly perfect except for more pronounced CA. LR deals with it seamlessly though. I haven't tried 100 yet, but don't expect anything unusual. 400mm is a corner to corner perfection if you avoid any shake.

So no 1. it seems these cameras love primes and long lenses. There is nothing wrong with cheaper zoom like 24-105 but you are basically reverting back to 2XMP images outside of centre part, while clogging up your cards, hard drive and so on.

No 2. is all about critical focus and depth of field. This applies for landscapes, macros, products anything where entire image needs to be sharp. I noticed it is next to impossible to get sharp landscape with foreground at 35mm, and to a lesser even 24mm presents problems. Thus the solutions is a focus stacking nightmare or tilt and shift lenses where one is even available. Good luck with 35mm or 70mm on Canon!

Handheld expect to use at least double shutter speeds. Even with IS and IBIS you still face the exaggerated subject movement.

The cameras enable very high res shots to be recorded, but at the same time the process becomes no longer fun day out like with 2XMP camera but quite a PITA if you try to make the most out of it. Worst case it won't be any worse than the lower MP alternative, but it might not be much better either without extreme care.



I don't have one now, but from experience this would be terrible until f/2.8 but absolutely stellar at f/5.6. I think the cheaper and better made 1.8 STM version makes more sense with those considerations.



If you don't mind stopping down a bit and swap them every 5min it will be hard to beat. The 35mm wide open to f/2.8 does leave a bit to be desired in a landscape setting; this could be focusing accuracy in the bloody darkness too.


For general purpose or all-rounder I think something between 20-30MP makes most sense with FF sensor. That easily gives you clean A1 prints already. 50MP can fill the whole wall, or I suspect is a convenient number for 8K video capture.
Thanks for sharing this. It's always good to have some real world experience and feedback.

I guess we won't have to wait too long for the howls of my R5 doesn't take sharp pictures.......
 
Thanks for sharing this. It's always good to have some real world experience and feedback.

I guess we won't have to wait too long for the howls of my R5 doesn't take sharp pictures.......
Depends if they use RF lenses or not.
 
Depends if they use RF lenses or not.

? I think the new 1980s style 600mm f/11 "mirror" lens might prove to be quite a disappointment for many adventurous souls! They are releasing quite a lot of consumer-grade level suspects as well as mega pricy ones with quite little in between! Where is the 16-35mm f/4 or 50mm f/1.8 for example? I know their thinking is probably let them really spend the money first before the ones like me dare to buy in to it.

You'll probably find it will still be all about the technique in the end.
 
? I think the new 1980s style 600mm f/11 "mirror" lens might prove to be quite a disappointment for many adventurous souls! They are releasing quite a lot of consumer-grade level suspects as well as mega pricy ones with quite little in between! Where is the 16-35mm f/4 or 50mm f/1.8 for example? I know their thinking is probably let them really spend the money first before the ones like me dare to buy in to it.

You'll probably find it will still be all about the technique in the end.
Not sure why you quoted 1980's lenses? Modern lenses are being made to resolve more detail and so are able to show more of the high MP sensor potential (y)
 
Not sure why you quoted 1980's lenses? Modern lenses are being made to resolve more detail and so are able to show more of the high MP sensor potential (y)

I'm not sure if you are aware of the new 600mm and 800mm f11 lenses that have dreadful official mtf curves, as well as all the other pointless f7.1 zooms. In the 1980s they used to make similar nonsense and the long mirror lenses were the prime example of it. Iq was terrible, but you had this long and thin lens to spy your neighbors or something like that. It looks like people forgot them already.
Back to 7.1 zooms. They will sell in large numbers because not everyone can afford 28-70mm f2! Neither can I but at least I still have ef 2.8 version. It looks like they even made 24-105 f4 a very premium choices with 7.1 as new default.

P.s. no I do not think that f/7.1 consumer grade super zooms have any chance of resolving well even on 20mp. Just like there is no 100mp smartphone camera
 
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I'm not sure if you are aware of the new 600mm and 800mm f11 lenses that have dreadful official mtf curves, as well as all the other pointless f7.1 zooms. In the 1980s they used to make similar nonsense and the long mirror lenses were the prime example of it. Iq was terrible, but you had this long and thin lens to spy your neighbors or something like that. It looks like people forgot them already.
Back to 7.1 zooms. They will sell in large numbers because not everyone can afford 28-70mm f2! Neither can I but at least I still have ef 2.8 version. It looks like they even made 24-105 f4 a very premium choices with 7.1 as new default.

P.s. no I do not think that f/7.1 consumer grade super zooms have any chance of resolving well even on 20mp. Just like there is no 100mp smartphone camera
I am, and I do think they're an odd choice by Canon tbh. My comment was a generalisation though and there are some lenses that aren't great, but on the whole modern lenses do tend to resolve more detail than their older DSLR counterparts.
 
I am, and I do think they're an odd choice by Canon tbh. My comment was a generalisation though and there are some lenses that aren't great, but on the whole modern lenses do tend to resolve more detail than their older DSLR counterparts.
They do and the Nikon Z lenses are testament to that over their F mount counterparts.

Fortunately there are still plenty of F mount lenses that more than Resolve the D850 sensor! But as with the OP there are plenty of lenses showing their age on sensors higher than 24mp.
 
They do and the Nikon Z lenses are testament to that over their F mount counterparts.

Fortunately there are still plenty of F mount lenses that more than Resolve the D850 sensor! But as with the OP there are plenty of lenses showing their age on sensors higher than 24mp.

Good to hear the Z stuff peforms well. I am happy with the longer stuff and the Sigma ART primes. 14-24 still ok on a 36mp body but a lot of the F mount stuff does fall away IQ wise in the edges badly, even the much fabled 14-24. I'd argue for landscapers centre to edge sharpness is just as important as front to back.
 
I wouldn't necessarily generalise new vs old. I think anything top of the range Canon and Sigma produced since 2010 will be hard to demonstrably top on the new mirrorless mount. It makes sense to look at case by case scenario where primes in many cases still hold their own against zooms, and fast zooms vs slow superzooms, etc. If we are talking about the masses we have to be looking at the kit lens, and this is 24-105mm f/4-7.1 and also 24-240!

So old vs new https://www.the-digital-picture.com...meraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0
Maybe it is not fair to compare f/4L vs f/7.1 but there it is. The latter is £459 lens at the moment and I could probably buy EF II from ebay for just 100-150 more with some patience. EF vs RF f/4L is more direct you may argue, but then I would also add that pro's will likely opt for the optically better 24-70mm f/2.8 versions or primes. That still doesn't save one from too shallow depth of field issues or camera shake.

And here is the MTF https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/lenses/24-105mm-stm.htm (scroll down a fair bit). It doesn't look fantastic to me.

On a tight budget I think you would do much better even with the adapted Tamron 24-70mm VC mk1 from ebay or a few basic 1.8 and 2.8 primes. But that is not what most of them will get.
 
I wouldn't necessarily generalise new vs old. I think anything top of the range Canon and Sigma produced since 2010 will be hard to demonstrably top on the new mirrorless mount. It makes sense to look at case by case scenario where primes in many cases still hold their own against zooms, and fast zooms vs slow superzooms, etc. If we are talking about the masses we have to be looking at the kit lens, and this is 24-105mm f/4-7.1 and also 24-240!

So old vs new https://www.the-digital-picture.com...meraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0
Maybe it is not fair to compare f/4L vs f/7.1 but there it is. The latter is £459 lens at the moment and I could probably buy EF II from ebay for just 100-150 more with some patience. EF vs RF f/4L is more direct you may argue, but then I would also add that pro's will likely opt for the optically better 24-70mm f/2.8 versions or primes. That still doesn't save one from too shallow depth of field issues or camera shake.

And here is the MTF https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/lenses/24-105mm-stm.htm (scroll down a fair bit). It doesn't look fantastic to me.

On a tight budget I think you would do much better even with the adapted Tamron 24-70mm VC mk1 from ebay or a few basic 1.8 and 2.8 primes. But that is not what most of them will get.
Again, you can always find examples to go against the trend but looking at like for like I think that you will find that on the whole newer lenses will perform better than older ones, at least from a technical perspective with things such as sharpness, resolution, CA etc etc. Bokeh will always be subjective, and then of course there's that elusive 3D rendering which has far more to do with design and little to nothing to do with age.
 
Good to hear the Z stuff peforms well. I am happy with the longer stuff and the Sigma ART primes. 14-24 still ok on a 36mp body but a lot of the F mount stuff does fall away IQ wise in the edges badly, even the much fabled 14-24. I'd argue for landscapers centre to edge sharpness is just as important as front to back.
Well one particular Sigma art F mount prime beats any Z mount lens but Sigma made it that way and it’s the size of a small country.

Cough ‘40’
 
Within reason yeah (y)

Between 20 and 50mp prints and respective lenses from 1m wide onwards standing 1m you will start to notice a difference. That's about it. Subject matter and execution are more important
 
If you take pictures of interesting things, rather than resolution charts, nobody will notice.
Yes but that is of course a different thread entirely! This thread is about high res sensors showing flaws in lenses.
 
Yes but that is of course a different thread entirely! This thread is about high res sensors showing flaws in lenses.

I remember an article about this on Luminous Landscape when the Canon 50D came out, that's a 15mp camera.

I do think this is largely academic and irrelevant for most people other than of course when pixel peeping.
 
I do think this is largely academic and irrelevant for most people other than of course when pixel peeping.

It's a bit more than that. These high MP cameras cost about double than the "regular" breed with often few other significant differences (i.e. R5 vs R6; Sony A7RIV vs A7III, Nikon Z7 vs Z6), so there is a natural expectation that the difference is more than academic. I totally get your point though.

There are now rumours of the next Canon R having a whopping 90MP crammed into 35mm sensor. If that is true I wish them all the best luck but I can't see anything resolving even close to it apart from the very centre apart from maybe a few select primes and the big whites. I'm out of the MP race bandwaggon at this point. 45-60MP is plenty to give me both plenty of choice and headache.
Maybe this is going do develop first into actually useful digital "teleconverter" or digital zoom / APS-C / M43 mode (call it anything you like) where you can amplify centre area some 2X and still get very reasonable wildlife shot with a premium lens; while the rest is effectively stuck at say 8K lens-limited resolution. Eventually the sensor is going to become analogue-like when resolution is solely determined by lens. With increasing storage that maybe a good thing, because why not. I think we are already nearly there with the current ones. Meanwhile we will have to let the concept of 100% pixel peeping go away and adopt certain standards and magnifications for good sharpness like 4K, 8K screen or A2, A0 print; etc.
 
It's a bit more than that. These high MP cameras cost about double than the "regular" breed with often few other significant differences (i.e. R5 vs R6; Sony A7RIV vs A7III, Nikon Z7 vs Z6), so there is a natural expectation that the difference is more than academic. I totally get your point though.

I can be as geeky as they come but I do try to keep a foot in reality by reminding myself what I do with my pictures. I used to print to A3 now and again (and my 6mp Canon 300D seemed adequate for that) but they all came off the wall when we redecorated and I liked the clean minimalist look so they never went back up and now we only have a few framed A4 and smaller scattered about on top of things and of course in albums. Quite a few of my pictures get zapped off electronically at 2000 pixels wide at 500k or so and the rest are viewed by us on our phones, tablets and pc possibly even as 100% crops. A 100% crop from my A7 gives 1260 x 740 or there abouts and they look fine when viewed normally on screen or in print.

Just on the pictures that get zapped off electronically, 2k on the longest edge. I went to a friends house abroad and she'd had a load of shots printed and they were framed and mounted on the wall all the way down the stairs. They looked nice.

I think my comment about all this being academic for some people will be true if they can be honest about their needs and can stop themselves pixel peeping and suffering gear lust.
 
I can be as geeky as they come but I do try to keep a foot in reality by reminding myself what I do with my pictures. I used to print to A3 now and again (and my 6mp Canon 300D seemed adequate for that) but they all came off the wall when we redecorated and I liked the clean minimalist look so they never went back up and now we only have a few framed A4 and smaller scattered about on top of things and of course in albums. Quite a few of my pictures get zapped off electronically at 2000 pixels wide at 500k or so and the rest are viewed by us on our phones, tablets and pc possibly even as 100% crops. A 100% crop from my A7 gives 1260 x 740 or there abouts and they look fine when viewed normally on screen or in print.

Just on the pictures that get zapped off electronically, 2k on the longest edge. I went to a friends house abroad and she'd had a load of shots printed and they were framed and mounted on the wall all the way down the stairs. They looked nice.

I think my comment about all this being academic for some people will be true if they can be honest about their needs and can stop themselves pixel peeping and suffering gear lust.
I think we need to look at MP differently these days. Obviously it's been used as marketing tool, and it's amazes me how many people still think MP are the be all and end all of image quality and that the more MP they have the better their images will be. However, as alluded to I think the use of high MP will/should be used in a way to allow cropping modes whilst maintaining decent MP count. As some will know that's the exact reason I bought the A7RIV, allowing me to do a 2x crop and as a result ditch my m4/3 system and just have the one system do it all. For general shooting it would be great imo if we had high resolving lenses that allow heavy cropping so that we had a nice small lightweight "all-in-one" lens.
 
I can be as geeky as they come but I do try to keep a foot in reality by reminding myself what I do with my pictures. I used to print to A3 now and again (and my 6mp Canon 300D seemed adequate for that) but they all came off the wall when we redecorated and I liked the clean minimalist look so they never went back up and now we only have a few framed A4 and smaller scattered about on top of things and of course in albums. Quite a few of my pictures get zapped off electronically at 2000 pixels wide at 500k or so and the rest are viewed by us on our phones, tablets and pc possibly even as 100% crops. A 100% crop from my A7 gives 1260 x 740 or there abouts and they look fine when viewed normally on screen or in print.

Just on the pictures that get zapped off electronically, 2k on the longest edge. I went to a friends house abroad and she'd had a load of shots printed and they were framed and mounted on the wall all the way down the stairs. They looked nice.

I think my comment about all this being academic for some people will be true if they can be honest about their needs and can stop themselves pixel peeping and suffering gear lust.

Reading this clearly summarises that the user needs can vary greatly from a small A4 to A3 max print and mostly online sharing to A1 and A0 and larger prints, etc. In many cases older breed of cameras already perfectly satisfy most requirements - for example in your case an A4-A3 print or, in my case - real estate output from 5D3. For that only true 16bit DR could be the reason to upgrade; until then I still need to work with multiple exposures, maybe just 1 fewer... so no real improvement, and in fact EVF would be a massive downgrade for me personally (you don't need to try and convince me otherwise, same as I prefer white over black cars).

There are really 3 categories of "premium" camera buyers now:

1. Pros, pushing the boundaries. --> Latest, most premium gear.
Of these: only high res working requirements really demand R5 over R6 or the Sony A7RIV. All the rest are likely much better off with 1DXIII, R6, A9 II, etc. The job spec dictates the gear here.
Anyone in video work is probably right here.

2. Advanced amateurs with £££££ to spend, gearheads, review sites --> All the latest and coolest gear, usually of day 1 or release, even if not actually required.

3. Lower spec satisfies the requirements, needs or wishlist (pros and amateurs). --> Stick with the old if sufficient, buy discounted last gen. model, etc.

And then there is the mobile phone crowd at over 95% or maybe more, which is great news for us when they fail to cover their own photography needs. Compacts are mostly gone; I guess thats a fair conclusion, the rest to follow might be the low end "premiums" if the bitten apple and Smagung totally get their way.

I think I'm somewhere between 3 and 1, but maybe closer to 3.
 
Reading this clearly summarises that the user needs can vary greatly from a small A4 to A3 max print and mostly online sharing to A1 and A0 and larger prints, etc. In many cases older breed of cameras already perfectly satisfy most requirements - for example in your case an A4-A3 print or, in my case - real estate output from 5D3. For that only true 16bit DR could be the reason to upgrade; until then I still need to work with multiple exposures, maybe just 1 fewer... so no real improvement, and in fact EVF would be a massive downgrade for me personally (you don't need to try and convince me otherwise, same as I prefer white over black cars).

There are really 3 categories of "premium" camera buyers now:

1. Pros, pushing the boundaries. --> Latest, most premium gear.
Of these: only high res working requirements really demand R5 over R6 or the Sony A7RIV. All the rest are likely much better off with 1DXIII, R6, A9 II, etc. The job spec dictates the gear here.
Anyone in video work is probably right here.

2. Advanced amateurs with £££££ to spend, gearheads, review sites --> All the latest and coolest gear, usually of day 1 or release, even if not actually required.

3. Lower spec satisfies the requirements, needs or wishlist (pros and amateurs). --> Stick with the old if sufficient, buy discounted last gen. model, etc.

And then there is the mobile phone crowd at over 95% or maybe more, which is great news for us when they fail to cover their own photography needs. Compacts are mostly gone; I guess thats a fair conclusion, the rest to follow might be the low end "premiums" if the bitten apple and Smagung totally get their way.

I think I'm somewhere between 3 and 1, but maybe closer to 3.
I think that is a pretty good summary. Hopefully I'm also in category 3 but the R6 does seem tempting and I could move in the new year to mirrorless
 
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