Hello All,
I have been reading a number of posts relating to the great images captured with the D7000. My impression has always been that the quality of the glass is the crucial factor in image quality, not necessarily what body you are using.

While I understand issues such as AF, ISO capability and other features it would seem to me that much of what is being attributed to this fine piece of equipment is really a function of the lens used and the ability of the photographer.

Has something changed or am I missing something?

Hoping to learn from this open discussion.

POC

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

The result you get on paper is the minimum of the lens, the camera, the composition, the support, the capture technique, the post processing, the printing and the display. In general the limits of both the camera and lens are significantly higher than most of the rest of the elements in the chain.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Yeah, good answer.

I was also going to add that the lens determines the quality of the resolution but the camera decides how good the picture is, if that makes any sense. the lens does need to be up to ther task but the camera decides the contrast, whiote balance, the noise and the final clarity of the picture.

Think of the lens as being equivalent of your eyes and the camera is like your brain.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

So which is the absolute best lens for the D7000's capabilities?

The kit lens is okay, reasonably sharp and all, but is there one that's been especially optimized for the camera?

> which is the absolute best lens for the D7000's capabilities?

The one that captures your vision.

> is there one that's been especially optimized for the camera?

No.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Any recommendations for a combination to cover most situations?

Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. <><

I don't understand the question at all. Please reword?

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Regret any confusion. I was wondering what focal lengths would be good to have as a group of lens to handle most situations. I presently have a 70-300VR, 50 f/1.4 and 18-135 (about 2 years old). I do family pictures, wildlife and some vacation views. Thanks.

John

Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. <><

Without knowing more about your type of photography, I'd say that you have the ones you need for the most part. The 18-135 is pretty good at most general purpose stuff: family, vacation, etc. The 50/f1.4 is nice for portraits. Wildlife, depending on your tastes (birds vs large mammals, vs insects), is probably reasonably covered by the 70-300VR. You can't really be that effective with LBB's (little brown birds) or insects, but you didn't really mention those.

Maybe the 35/f1.8 for family at home and the like, but I'm more inclined to recommend a flash unit (and a good book on the subject) than the lens.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

I think you mean most types of shots. The trouble is, that varies greatly from tog to tog. Most birds in flight, most lady bugs, most elk, landscape, indoor architecture, moto cross, pro basketball, high school football, portrait, glamour, night club ...

There are some adjustable wrenches, often, that's what makes a good kit lens. The 18-105 is a pretty good kit lens. It will handle a fair range of subjects and situations.

I think the first question you have to ask is, what will I shoot? Next is what am I willing to spend?

David

I feel this thread has drifted a bit from the original question posed by POC.

As Brain originally stated, it depends on your intended use. If all you are doing is viewing full resolution images with fit to screen, or just printing 4x6 images for the family photo album then for the most part the answer is neither.

But if you are making large prints or doing significant crops then enlarging then the answer might be that the body is just as much a factor as the lens.

It has been said that smaller pixels place more demand on the optics. In that regard a consume variable focal length lens that performed well on a 6MP APS sized sensor camera could very well begin to show aberrations when mounted on a 16MP APS camera. So if that is true then you very well might need to upgrade that consumer lens to a more pro lens to get the most out of the higher MP camera that it has to offer.

At least that is my present understanding of this issue.

Pete

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Peter,

Nikon bundles the 18-105mm VR, and if you don't know what you want, that lens will cover a lot of situations and is a very good optic at a reasonable price.

""

To help curb the confusion, I'm going to try to clarify a few things right here.

a) "lens or camera" questions - most people read reviews before buying things, especially on this website. We read mainly things like "this lens is okay as a walk-around, but I've seen better" or "the body's way better than the kit lens it came with". This naturally leads folk who are researching purchases to ask questions like the ones posted here.

This is what drives questions like ours.

Questions like: "so what is this better lens you've seen?" and "why would a company make a body that's better than its kit lens? Surely there must be a better lens coming out soon?"

And the basic answers would be obvious to most of us, even the beginners:

b) we know about cost and manufacturing

c) we know about walk-around lenses, super-zoom lenses and the like

d) we know about portrait lenses and landscape lenses


What we more specifically want to learn is your version of the Ken Rockwell Dream Team DSLR cameras and lenses, or to compile or verify one here on this thread, since not all of us are total beginners, but mostly all of us don't get to buy or try every single lens out there either.

That, I believe, is the purpose of this question and this thread: the sharing of specialized information.

So "the best lens is in the eye of the beholder", or "whatever fits best", while being undoubtedly true, isn't quite what IMHO most of us are looking for in terms of hard input.

"There are no lenses presently optimized to suit the characteristics of the D7000" is much, much better.

Best of all would be "something like the 18-200 would seem to be the best all-around walk-around lens, but only if you're using Photoshop or similar to deal with the distortion issues, and also if you don't mind the lens pumping out when suspended vertically from a camera strap". Or "I agree with Rockwell. The 18-200 VRII isn't optically a better improvement on the original at all".

Now that kind of information we could all use.

Sorry, but I felt the need to clarify here.

HTH
YMMV and definitely
JM2c, no flames intended.

>"There are no lenses presently optimized to suit the characteristics of the D7000" is much, much better.

Thats a completely inaccurate statement.

""

Thank you David for the comment, but your comment is the thread drift I was referring to.

As I understood the original question, it was not about what focal length is best for a given situation and subject, but are the issues being posed(soft images,missed focus or hot pixels)about the D7000 body related; or is it lens/technique issue related.

My feeling is that it might be a bit of both. A lowering of the QC standard in an attempt to make sure there is sufficient supply for the holiday season rush, and the higher resolution of the D7000 is placing more of a demand on both the optics and user technique.

Pete

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

>Thank you David for the comment, but your comment is the
>thread drift I was referring to.

Yes - questions about selecting a lens (or lenses) are better off in our Nikkor AF Lenses Forum or 3rd Party AF Lenses Forum.

This Forum is for discussions about the D7000 camera itself.

Thanks!

Brian
Welsh Nikonian
Check out the Nikonians Team pages

Thank you all for a very interesting discussion.
Pete, your interpretation of my original question is what I intended.
The question, as posed, was a bit simplistic. My point was that there are a lot of things being mentioned about the D7th (an excellent piece of equipment) that are probably issues related to a number of things other than the camera body. Not a criticism, simply an observation.
This discussion has helped clarify some of those issues.

POC

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Some people will tell you a good, sturdy tripod and head is as important as the other two. Worth considering.

From a personal experience, I think the good glass is very important. I shot with an 80-400 VR for a while and got nice shots on a D200. I upgraded to a 200-400 VR and the shots on the same camera improved dramatically. I shot with an 18-200 for a while on a D200 and later a D300 and then upgraded to a 24-70 lens and the shots also improved dramatically on the same cameras. Of course, each of those lenses cost something like three times the cost of the other ones. When I upgraded from the D200 to a D300, the shots on the 200-400 improved again. So, I'd say it is some of both, but it is hard to compete with the pro glass. And lastly, some of the newer lenses do better on a tripod when left in VR mode.

I think the rule of thumb is to buy the best lenses you can afford at the time, even to the point where it hurts a bit to buy the better one. The hurt goes away and then you have good glass!

M. Jackson

M. Jackson
Jackson Hole, WY

I totally agree, M_Jackson. Within its focal range, my old MF 35-70 AIs lens totally outshoots the 18-105 kit lens, and it's not even considered a pro lens these days.

I was lining up to go for a 18-200 but after reading your post I think I'll skip it and wait.

So what's a pro D series wide angle zoom? The 12-24? But isn't that an FX series lens? Or are most pros still not shooting D series these days?

I don’t have a lot of experience with different lenses, but a lens is a lens.

The main difference between a lens designed for DX as opposed to FX is the area of coverage. DX lenses provide a smaller circle of coverage that will not cover a full frame sensor. So ability to resolve detail and provide contrast aside, DX lenses can be manufactured cheaper, smaller and lighter then an equivalent FF lens, not that a DX will necessarily be of lower IQ.

In that regard a full frame lens that is marginal on a FF camera because of vignetting or softness in the corners will perform much better on a DX body for it crops away the aberrations, much the same way that stopping down on a consumer lens will increase its performance. As I presently understand it a number of consumer lenses shot wide open are aberration limited, so stopping down will eliminate the aberrations making the image appear sharper even though stopping down creates a bigger diffraction spot.

At least that is what I understand at the moment.

Pete

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Intersting topic and some interesting discussion.

We, males, often focus on technology side of photography, often to the detriment of the softer aspects of photography. I am talking about vision, creative talent and heart!

Ken Rockwell et al, has it right when he says that you can take a brilliant photo with the most basic of gear!

I say that the most important piece of equipment in photography isn't what camera or lens you have, but your brain! Its your creative streak that sees the photo in the mind's eye and then its up to your creative talent, your heart and then your photographic gear to bring that vision into being.

Yes, you can have the best of gear to make sure that every line and detail in the photo can be seen but if there is no purpose, story or soul to your photo, then its just a bunch of pixels!

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Agree with everybody.

And if you really get into lenses, the smaller coverage PL movie lenses have the smallest circle of confusion of all, precisely because they don't have to cover an FX frame and also because, well, they're made that way.

And while the image and a 6MP frame may suffice, the folk who have bought a D7k (or are looking to buy one) are plainly looking for something better than sufficient.

I mentioned elsewhere that I actually have bought three D40s with kit lenses and they're now being possessed and used by three of my friends and relatives who plain won't give them back. They love that camera and will probably never upgrade, just shoot the heck out of it and enjoy the pictures that come out of it.

Me, I'm shooting movie posters, pro headshots and the like, and movies. The D40, although it takes great images, won't cut it for what I'm doing.

So.. while we all know that buying the simplest camera and lens we can afford at the time of purchase, and then learning that camera and lens in and out, to and through, before upgrading, is the best way to go, one school of thought says "buy the best you can afford at the time of purchase, and stick with it". Or, why start at the bottom when you can start at the top and go higher?

Also, I believe that most folk who have taken the trouble to locate and join the Nikonians, rather than, say Flickr or the like, are to some extent gearheads, in that they prefer one set of tools over another. One set of paint and brushes, if you'd prefer.

So we're just here, talking about paints and brushes, rather than paintings. At least in this thread. For now.

At least I am. I'm on other threads saying "forget the tools, concentrate on the paintings!" as well!

Cheers!
C

>
>We, males, often focus on technology side of photography,
>often to the detriment of the softer aspects of photography.
>I am talking about vision, creative talent and heart!
>

I don’t think it’s a male female thing, but a techno minded thing

I don’t disagree with you, but it is a divergence of the original request. You do not need the best of the best to make a great work of art. The ‘Holga Genre’ is proof positive of that. I mean you’re not going to get a cheaper poorly made low quality camera then that.

On the other hand I used a 4MP Olympus C4040 very happily for years. Then decided I wanted that same SLR experience I had with my film cameras and bought a D80. While I love my C4040, there are images I created with the D80 that I could never have with the C4040. You use what you need at the time to create what you want.

I participate on another Yahoo forum which often gets into hot debates on this subject. One member put together a good article on Pro glass versus consumer.
http://clarkvision.com/articles/moon-test2/index.html

If you scroll down to the bottom there is a five image comparison between a Pro grade 300mm fixed focal length lens and a consumer 70-300 zoom. If you checked it out the Pro lens performed best wide open at f/4 and very near if not the same at f/5.6. At f/8 the affects of diffraction seemed to degrade image quality. The consumer lens at f/5.6 was obliviously aberration limited so stopping down to f/8 improved the image quality. And more interestingly the consume lens at f/8 almost provide the same amount of detail as the Pro lens at f/8 which seemed to indicate that f/8 was nearing the diffraction limit of both systems.

So it is quite the complicated issue. If you are stopping down to f/8 and beyond, the quality of the lens seems to be less important. If shooting wide open all the time, you may want to buy a better grade lens.

So to sum it up, it is as M Jackson stated, buy the best quality lens your wallet can stand and you are willing to pay.

Pete

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Thanks for the link. this guy is very informative and quite intense.

POC

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

> Within its focal range, my old MF 35-70 AIs lens totally outshoots the 18-105 kit lens, and it's not even considered a pro lens these days.

I guess I can't comment on the 35-70 AIS as I've never shot it, but that's an older consumer-grade lens with a 1984 optical formula. It was never considered a professional-grade lens. However, I do know the later 35-70/f2.8 AFD very well, having shot that as my primary lens for several years. It bears a slightly newer optical formula and would still be considered a pro lens today if it were still in production. I also know the 18-200 pretty well, having owned that one for ~5 years now. And I'd say that even the pro f/2.8 lens doesn't outshoot the 18-200 by a significant margin in the overlapping focal length range. I'm pretty certain that I can put a pile of 11x14 prints on the table and the 35-70 ones can't reliably be distinguished from the 18-200 ones.

And that's even before accounting for the fact that your final results would ordinarily be better with VR unless you're shooting on a tripod or at very high shutter speeds.

I will also note that if we compare the 180/f2.8 AFD to the 18-200 at 180 or 200mm, the comparison is not even at all - because the 18-200 is merely mediocre at its long end, and the pro-caliber 180/f2.8 is one of the better pro lenses, very probably outperforming even the xx-200/f2.8 pro zooms.

I'd suggest that you investigate the 35-70 and 18-105 comparison again, as it's unlikely that the differential is all that large, if in fact it's even in the direction you suggest. (My guess is that the 18-105 and 18-200 will both outperform the 35-70/f3.3-4.5 on DX.)

> So what's a pro D series wide angle zoom? The 12-24?

The 12-24 is a mid-grade lens, at least in terms of build and price. It's a DX lens, assuming you're speaking of the Nikkor.

The pro ultra-wide is the 14-24/f2.8 AFS, which is an FX lens.

> But isn't that an FX series lens?

The 14-24 is. But that doesn't matter, for the most part. It certainly works extremely well on DX - the only "issue" is that it "only" represents 21mm equivalent on DX, which is not as wide as seems "mandatory" these days. And it's kind of heavy and expensive compared to the DX lenses. FX lenses work just fine on DX; the reverse is conventionally not considered true.

> Or are most pros still not shooting D series these days?

I'm not sure what you mean here, although I think you mean DX. Lots of people, pro and otherwise shoot DX. Many have switched to FX, but many of those who have also have DX in the arsenal as well. (A lot of people use the informal term "D series" to mean D1/D2/D3, which are the top pro models.)

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Brian, thank you!

Yes, I meant DX and not D series.

But a lot of us started in 24x36mm 135 FX format as well, or whatever it's called these days.

I still own lenses from 8mm to 2000mm of mixed vintages, and was wondering about the manufacturing formulas of the modern ones - what is the difference between the circles of confusion between the FX formula and the current DX formulas - is it around the same 1.519 factor? Or more? Or less?

Before anybody looks at me askance and says "why go there?" I do have what I consider to be a very valid reason for doing so:

I know it doesn't make that much difference for even 16x20 prints.

However in video, a 20" diagonal TV screen is on the small side these days. I'm shooting regularly for 60" and above screen diagonals.

And at these magnifications, we're talking about motion picture lens specs. So while most stills lenses are okay for 11x14 prints, us DSLR types are thinking 5ft and above for "enlargement" factors.

And at these levels, unusual for print but on your Best Buy screens all day long, the quality of the lens does matter - especially when the lens you were using that gives "good enough" images - simply isn't sharp enough when blown up to these sizes. Been there, done that. Don't want to do that again.

Nowadays I use a Zacuto hood magnifier, a 9" HDMI onboard monitor, and a 24" 1900x1200 monitor to check focus of critical shots, and yes, on location as well, if at all possible.

And I want to find the best set of lenses that will fit the D7000's characteristics so this debate, for me, can go away and I can get back to shooting, knowing I've done my homework and, until the screens get bigger (or the bigger screens come down more in price) and the next best thing comes out, I'm good to go. I believe that Moore's Law has that at around 24 months



Thanks!

It may look lousy at 92" (the size of my projection screen), but that's got very little to do with the camera or lens. What you're projecting is the dithered, downscaled output from a projector at - maybe 1920 x 1200 (eg 2.3 megapixels). Your output is going to look more or less the same from a 2003-vintage D1, a 2007-vintage D80, and a 2009-vintage D3x, because they're all being downsampled to 2.3mp. You can change lenses all you want, but as long as it's kind of decent or better, they'll all look more or less the same on your 60" screen. More likely you're not using a 2mp projector - they cost a ton these days - I don't know of any that cost less than $8000 and most are in the vicinity of $20,000.

A D7000 is completely irrelevant to this application, to be frank.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

>>
>
>I guess I can't comment on the 35-70 AIS as I've never shot
>it, but that's an older consumer-grade lens with a 1984
>optical formula. It was never considered a professional-grade
>lens.

Brian, hello!

This from Ken Rockwell, just FYI:

"The 35-70mm f/3.5 AI-s was Nikon's second professional midrange zoom. It was introduced in 1981 to replace the previous 35-70mm f/3.5 AI. This newer AI-s version is very similar to the previous AI version, but has an entirely different optical and mechanical system. Much of these two reviews will seem similar.

Both of the 35-70mm f/3.5 lenses are very sharp at every setting and have a constant f/3.5 aperture. Both f/3.5 zooms have less distortion than any of Nikon's f/2.8 zooms, and that means much better than the 24-70mm AF-S and 28-70mm AF-S, each of which costs over ten times as much.

These excellent, professional f/3.5 constant-aperture zooms have nothing to do with the numerous f/3.3-4.5 and f/3.5-4.8 zooms, which are among Nikon's crappiest lenses. The only thing they share is the focal range. "

As I said, just an FYI. Had mine since it came out and have shot a lot of magazine editorials with it. Now that many people confuse them with the aforementioned crappy 35-70s, they can be had for a song. Great, great buy if you happy with the 2x zoom and the half stop loss over the 2.8, which I am.

Cheers!
Chris

>My impression has always been that the quality of the glass is the crucial factor in image
>quality, not necessarily what body you are using.
This is, to some extent, a photographic myth.
If a lens on it's own resolves 200 lpm and a sensor on it's own resolves 200 lpm the optical formula for image resolution is 100 lpm.
If either sensor resolution or lens resolution are increased 30% to 260 lpm the image resolution goes by less - to about 118 lpm.
30% resolution increase is "about right" for MP in isolation going from 12 MP to 16 MP - but the improved process engine in the D7000 may also generate some extra sensor resolution.
30% resolution increase is a big ask for a lens when shooting at f8 where lens resolution differences are small, but it is quite possible for corner resolution to be 30% lower near wide open with wide angle lenses.
Lenses like the 50mm f1.4 D at f1.4 have low contrast relative to f8, and sensor resolution drops significantly at high ISO's.
Good technique is, in my experience, more important than either the lens or the body.

Photography is a bit like archery. A technically better camera, lens or arrow may not hit the target as often as it could if the photographer or archer does not practice enough.

Len Shepherd

Len, thanks.

Useful, that.

Now let's say then that your lenses are high speed and all set at, say, f/2 and the subject matter is well lit at 15ft away. Would a 50mm 1.4D shoot differently compared a 50mm 1.4 AI or late model G series lens?

I know, not discernible at up to 20" blowups, but what if your blowup is 5ft wide? 60" screen diagonals or bigger? Are the designs different enough to be able to see them? Or is it all just marketing hype?

And if they are different, are the newer designs (assuming they're not economy designs) necessarily better than the older ones?

Or in other words, let's say that the statements are true, and that the D7000 is now Nikon's second highest resolving camera.

Given identical subject matter and all else being the same, would we actually be able to see that difference in resolution, over a 5ft screen, given the kit zoom lenses?

Or would we really truly need to use pro standard short zoom or primes lenses to see the difference?

You can certainly see the difference in a 60" print, assuming conventional printing at 240dpi or more. But on a (probably) 1366x768 resolution projector, no you won't see the difference. And most projectors in common circulation are 1024x768 - about a third of the resolution of the original D1.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

but that won't last forever, will it? 720p as the projection standard, I mean...

Forever is a long time - so no, it won't last. But today a 2k projector (eg 2048 x 1536 = 3mp) is about $40,000. I think it's a fairly safe bet that 2k projectors won't come down to the affordable level for at least 7-10 years. In 1999 a 1024x768 projector cost close to $8k and it took 7 years and the collapse of the cathode ray tube industry to get that down to $1000. It's only been in the past couple of years that HD broadcast has become reasonably near universal in the US and one might really even be correct in saying that it's only usefully common. There aren't any emerging broadcast standards past 4k and even that is nascent, so that doesn't seem like a likely thing in the next 5-7 years either.

Even if we get 4k projectors down to $2000 and even if they are 4096p - neither of which seems particularly likely - that's still just 16mp! So gazing into my crystal ball, I'd guess that a D2x's resolution (ie 12mp 2005 model) will be sufficient for display purposes for at least another ten years. (We can argue about things like sub-pixel anti-aliasing, which nominally puts 4x as many dots on the screen without requiring any more input data, but those technologies have been around - meaning commercially viable - since at least 1995, so I'm not betting on a big resurgence just yet.) There's also the consideration that we are well past the point of diminishing returns on video. The uptake of Blu-ray is considerably slower than DVD, despite a much faster drop in real-world pricing, because most non-videophiles see marginally much less improvement than they did with DVD. I think the same will be true of 2k and then 4k video output, unless there is an entirely new application for (what is today) ultra-hires display.

Back to the present. I think that projection considerations are of essentially no consequence in deciding on today's cameras and lenses. Of course there is value in doing the best that we can; for each of us there is some non-zero likelihood that our photography will be of some importance to someone years in the future, beyond our present imagining. For most of us that value will be to our families and perhaps friends. For a very few of us the interested parties will be collectors of the future. Naturally the distinction between us isn't clear now... But this is an entirely separate discussion, really. It's tied up in the value of archival media, whatever digital revolution the storage industry may cook up for preserving data in a less haphazard fashion than we have today (eg adhoc at best), and probably some other things that even the futurists amongst us have yet to consider.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Bran, hi.
Thanks for your valuable insight.

Of course, we don't actually need to own the projection chains - we just make the movies that go on them. I've not done that many DCPs (Digital Cinema Packages) yet but I have started to, the originating cameras have so far been 35mm and Red - but I have done 35mm DI's from my EX1 and the picture was pretty great.

Hopefully I'll be able to do some serious DCP testing with some DSLR footage but I think you'd be right - the 1080p24 camera original is nearly always bumped up to ProRes, JPEG2k or similar in post anyway, and also composited with other materials before DCP or the DI to 35mm print is made.

I believe that Phil Bloom did some direct 4k projection up at the Lucas Ranch earlier on this year - all PL primes, of course - but the 5Dii footage looked pretty good, or so I read.

> Of course, we don't actually need to own the projection chains - we just make the movies that go on them.

Naturally, but on the other hand a $40k projector is only mildly more likely at a business than at home. I work at a Fortune 100 company but I'd guess there may be a total of one or two 2k projectors available to us out of 140,000 employees. Certainly the cinemas will get them, but even that will wait until the movie industry - whatever it will look like after the digital revolution gets through with it - makes the requisite investment in production and distribution. And if you're really aiming for display there, you're in another world anyway. You ought to be shooting a Red or something like that.

For 99% of us, though, the reality is that we'll be using something much less than a 2k projector for the next decade or more.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

>Given identical subject matter and all else being the same, would we actually be able to see that difference in
>resolution, over a 5ft screen, given the kit zoom lenses?
This is the most complex question in photography
Full HD video and mid range digital projectors are less than 2 MP output - yet many are happy with the results.
Nikon rightly say 12 MP is good enough for a double A4 CMYK magazine spread - but like digital projection CMYK magazine printing is not a particularly exacting standard.
There is a complication in the background - called interpolation software often used for printing.
Assuming you decide to print at a high standard of 300 dpi 12MP without interpolation starts to fail wider than 14 inch, but with interpolation is usually good for 28 inches wide.
Interpolation makes a very good job of creating the extra information a 48 MP camera could achieve - most of the time. Where the subject is a large area of even tone interpolation has little work to do, but in areas of intricate detail it is not so good.
Next there is "comfortable" viewing distance - which means are you far enough away to see the whole of the picture area without swiveling your eye?
For a 5 foot wide print or projected image the distance is just over 6 feet. At this distance the resolution of the human eye is quite low - and "reasonable" resolution is OK.
If you view your 5 foot wide image at about 15 inches (as in pixel peeping on a monitor) you need a lot more resolution in theory - except most monitors have relatively low resolution compared to 300 dpi from a high end printer.
Digressing having some resolution in reserve is useful if you want to crop the image.
50mm f1.4 lenses are interesting. You can view the f1.4 MTF resolution of the 50mm f1.4 D (awful by modern standards) and the f1.4 G (not good) and compare with the outstanding results of a 300 f2.8 at f2.8.
http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/lens/list.htm#single-focal
Although I have never owned the 50mm f1.4 D the G is reputed much better by f2 - my copy is good by f2. Even so my 300mm f2.8 is better wide open - provided I enlarge enough.
My guess is it would not take much enlargement at a close viewing distance to see the corner difference at f2 between the D and G - but by f8 (as with just about any lens) differences in resolution and sharpness are minor.
If you never print bigger than 6x8 inches all this is irrelevant.
If you enlarge big AND view close "how long is a piece of string" depends on how big and how close

Photography is a bit like archery. A technically better camera, lens or arrow may not hit the target as often as it could if the photographer or archer does not practice enough.

Len Shepherd

Len, good morning!

Great points.

And the paradigms have changed.

We're talking entire wall sized LED screens that hold max resolution edge to edge, viewing distance 0ft, computer screen pixel sized resolution, no projection.

One touch of a button and we're a single image, the entire wall size. Another touch, and we're 200 different screens, and images, all 12" sized. Think of an LED computer screen the size of a wall. Or an entire wall that's nothing but a screen.

The magnification mechanisms are not physical/optical, they're electronic now. No loss in screen resolution. At least not mechanically/optically. It's all in the magnification algorhythms and the codecs now. And those were formulated in the first place to suit the available projection methods. So they'll change, and I think pretty soon.

Which calls for much different standards of camera and lens performance than before.

I've only seen a couple of these screens, and in LA they mainly exist in the US network TV control rooms and executive meeting rooms so far. They must cost a city and a half.

But when I saw one the hair on the back of my neck stood up, because they were using high end video codecs, and everything was pin sharp everywhere.

And that means that this point in time only really 35mm and above, CGI, and 4k and above (like the Red or Arri Alexa, for instance), and top lenses can generate really those kinds of super-sharp edge to edge images. Or at least, only that kind of gear has been used to try that, lately.

And think - only 5 years ago we had annual conferences about the viability and promotion of this crazy upstart, HDTV. The leading edge screens were 42" projection and people were going gaga over them.

And Moore's Law made all of that new tech obsolete within a decade.

Now I'm starting to see why some leading Hollywood DPs are using 5Dii's that have been Hot Rod modified to take PL mounts and the like. I believe they're shooting for that kind of high resolution,

And now we're trying the same thing with the D7000.

So really we're back full circle here.

Assuming that the NanoFlash people can come up with a way to reverse engineer the D7000's outputs to give us the camera's HD feed directly out of the camera and into something like a JPEG2000 or a ProRes HD 4:4:4 video stream, bypass the H264 Nikon codec and let us record exactly what's coming off the sensor (i.e. a video equivalent to RAW/NEF) we're now hot rodding the camera to be all it can be.

Now. Is it the camera, or the lens? I'm including the user/photographer/artist as a totally necessary factor here, by the way. Of course it's the skill of the photographer, because in this day and age the photographer has to be as much of a computer/electronics (Photoshop minimum) person as the chemist the older school photographers had to be back 100 years ago.

And don't give me that "I'm an artist, not a tech" mentality. Even the most "artistic/tech antagonistic" photographers have a 1st assistant who knows all about it these days. If they haven't been bothered to read the manuals or the learning DVDs themselves. Most of us here hold much more tech know-how than your average point and shoot Brownie fellow. If not, we couldn't even be on this site unassisted.

And even if they don't have a digital camera or a computer at all, someone in their image chain has to have the tech know-how, even if it is the local 1-hour print tech.

You can also see why I'm so stoked about exploring this - it's the first really new turn in photography since we went to glass lenses from camera obscura, as far as I'm concerned. And we're still here, newest camera in hand, seeing what it can do, pushing that envelope.

Good times!

> only 5 years ago we had annual conferences about the viability and promotion of this crazy upstart, HDTV. The leading edge screens were 42" projection and people were going gaga over them.

I think you're underestimating time. We had 42" plasmas in 1998, along with marginally affordable projectors - I bought mine in 1999 and I wasn't one of the bleeding edge. HDTV was possible then, although I have to admit that it wasn't really usefully present until about 2003. Still, 2003 is not five years ago, and especially 1999 (even 1996) isn't just last week.

> Now. Is it the camera, or the lens?

You just hand-waved over all of the technological and financial hurdles. The automotive equivalent is "if we just assume that we can have tyres capable of 2.5g's and 100mpg efficiency at racing speeds, how fast would we lap the nurbugrging?" 2.5G tyres are possible only with enormous contact patch (see the 11" and 14" slicks mounted on most racers) and while I think 100mpg is probably feasible in the end, we're probably $100B worth of investment from here to there.

At any rate, it's virtually certain that the lenses are better than today's sensors.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Brian, hello!
Yes, I was understating, probably because I'm an old school Brit. And I do actually own a formula race car so your analogy was fun as well!
But your last comment was the money. That's the piece of information I was looking for.
So, any decent (i.e. not economy) lens design and implementation will, QC and other issues aside, still top our modern sensor designs and implementations, at least for the next few years. Correct?

Decent? I dunno. I was thinking good to top lenses. The only evidence we have is that the Zeiss lenses are capable of yielding good results on the Hasselblad HD65 - 65mp on a sensor twice the area of an FX sensor. It seems reasonable to expect that Zeiss puts its best foot forward on all of their lenses rather than just the Hasselblad ones, and we know that the Zeiss ZF lenses are at least reasonably comparable to good Nikkors.

It could be that the merely decent lenses also can do the job, but there's no evidence of that to date.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Agreed. I have a set of ZFs and even the original series 1's are excellent.