
Not Long Ago, Lenses Were Much Lighter - midef
https://photographylife.com/not-long-ago-lenses-were-much-lighter
======
alistairSH
There are a few things that the article doesn't mention that have impacted the
weight of mirrorless lenses over time.

Initially, micro 4/3 systems (and to some extent the other mirrorless systems)
were mostly kit lenses and standard primes. Both of which tend to be largely
plastic construction. And primes tend to weight less for a given focal length
and quality than equivalent zooms.

More recently, "pro" level lenses have been made available in micro-4/3\.
These tend to made of metal instead of plastic, driving up the weight. And, to
keep fixed aperture values, the lenses are physically larger. So, weight goes
up.

Then, an interesting side effect of this... a heavy lens on a light body is
awkward to handle, so bodies have gotten a bit larger over time as well (plus
feature creep). See Olympus' new EM1X, which as the vertical grip and 2nd
battery compartment build into the body (vs the EM1, which has both as add-on
accessories).

Personally, I like the variety. I have two micro-4/3 bodies (smaller
rangefinder-style EP5 and larger SLR-style EM5 mkii) with assorted lenses -
primes, pro-level standard zoom, and a mid-level telephoto (physically longer
than the standard zoom, but lighter because plastic). I can mix and match for
any occasion - if I know I'll be inside in low light, I just take the EP5 and
the 17mm prime. Vacation - I'll pack both bodies and 3-4 lenses, but on any
given day, only carry a subset. Etc.

~~~
CydeWeys
I have the E-M5 II also, with the optional grip attachment. It's a great
compromise between small and light for vacationing without the grip attachment
(which I'll leave off for any lens up through the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8), but
then when I want to use my big Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 for more serious
wildlife photography, I put the grip on.

I definitely appreciate the ability to go small and light with this camera,
especially when using the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens. That thing is so tiny!
That whole setup can easily fit in a jacket pocket, and the weight isn't too
noticeable around your neck after a whole day (unlike the 12-40mm f/2.8 lens).

~~~
alistairSH
My normal kit is the E-M5, 12-40mm f/2.8 lens, and a Peak Design Leash worn
cross-body. This takes the weight of my neck a bit. And the lens is fantastic.

Though my favorite walking-around kit is the E-P5 with either the 17mm f/1.8
or 25mm f/1.8 with a wrist strap. Small enough that I don't feel like a total
wanna-be-pro carrying it, but still plenty camera for good shots.

~~~
CydeWeys
Yeah, I need to get a cross-body strap. That'd help for carrying it around all
day.

------
jdietrich
A modern full-frame DSLR sensor has greater resolving power than normal
medium-format film. You need a really, really good lens to get the full
performance out of a >40MPix sensor. You still want to shoot handheld, so you
want a really fast lens to minimise the impact of camera shake.
Sharp/fast/light - pick any two. Zeiss, Sigma and Sony have broken the old
Canon/Nikon duopoly with a range of phenomenally good but relatively heavy
lenses that can exploit the full capabilities of modern sensors.

Casual customers who need a "good enough" camera are perfectly satisfied with
their smartphone or a cheap kit lens. Aftermarket lenses are inevitably going
to target the pixel-peeping crowd who care about every lp/mm, because they
spend the big bucks on lenses. There's still a market for lightweight
aftermarket lenses, but it's nowhere near as big or profitable as the market
for monster glass.

~~~
snowwrestler
> A modern full-frame DSLR sensor has greater resolving power than normal
> medium-format film.

This really depends on the film and MF lens. I've shot 6x6 Provia on a Mamiya
6 and had it scanned at 40MP and 80MP final output sizes; the latter was
clearly better. Resolution can be even higher with modern fine-grained black
and white film.

> You still want to shoot handheld, so you want a really fast lens to minimise
> the impact of camera shake.

Or image stabilization, which also adds weight and size.

~~~
jdietrich
_> This really depends on the film and MF lens. I've shot 6x6 Provia on a
Mamiya 6 and had it scanned at 40MP and 80MP final output sizes; the latter
was clearly better. Resolution can be even higher with modern fine-grained
black and white film._

Film scanning is a bit deceptive, because film doesn't have pixels. You'll get
more resolution from an 80MPix film scan, but that doesn't mean that the film
actually has 80Mpix of useful resolution. A lot of information is lost in the
conversion between silver particles and a scanner sensor, so you really need
to substantially oversample. In the ideal case for color MF film (a ~200MPix
drum scan of 6x7 Velvia 50) you might just about match the resolving power of
a A7R III, at the cost of a substantial amount of dynamic range - film has a
lot of exposure latitude, but it has substantial innate dynamic range
compression.

Technical monochrome films can significantly exceed the resolving power of
modern 35mm sensors, but at the cost of ~6 stops of sensitivity. Unless you're
shooting landscapes or test charts from a very substantial tripod, you won't
benefit from the extra spatial resolution. There's still a place for medium-
and large-format film, but the inconvenience outweighs the benefits in the
overwhelming majority of cases.

~~~
snowwrestler
Here's a great article that goes in-depth on comparing the resolution and
image quality of MF and LF film vs. images from a D800e. A D850 or A7R III has
about 10% more linear resolution than a D800e.

[https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2014/12/36-megapixels-
vs-6x7-v...](https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2014/12/36-megapixels-
vs-6x7-velvia/)

I love this article because it not only looks at lines per mm, it considers
other image quality factors like local contrast and color resolution.

~~~
foldr
The article shows that the Velvia 50 isn't resolving significantly more detail
than the D800e's sensor. It's not surprising that the CMS 20 shows more
detail. CMS 20 is a technical film that's not usually practical for normal
photography.

~~~
snowwrestler
I'd suggest taking a closer look at the first set of test chart comparison
shots. The D800e is not resolving any lines on the chart at all--the "lines"
you see in the D800e shot are moire.

You can see the same thing in the comparison shots of the camera. In the D800e
shot, the Nikon logo and fine print on the lens are smeared, with yellow and
blue artifacts. In the Mamiya Velvia shot, the Nikon logo is sharply defined,
with no color artifacts. However, there is grain in Velvia shot.

This is a good example of how there is more to resolution and image quality
than just counting megapixels. If you hate grain, the D800e shot is better,
despite the moire. If you'll tolerate grain for more resolution, the Mamiya
Velvia shot is better.

~~~
foldr
I've seen the comparison shots - that's what I'm basing my comment on. The
medium format film shots don't resolve the lines either - except the CMS 20,
which is not a practical film for normal photography. These black and white
line pair charts make film look more impressive than it really is, since film
has a long "very fine detail at very low contrast" tail. A more instructive
comparison would be medium contrast line pairs.

As I said in my other comment, the easy way to prove that a medium format
negative can resolve 80MP worth of detail is to provide an 80MP scan which
loses detail when downsampled to, say, 40MP. I've asked a bunch of people for
examples of such a scan over the years and never received one.

For some reason, the comparison site you link to doesn't provide any of the
original files, so it's difficult to draw any conclusions.

------
hcarvalhoalves
He's comparing back to 2000's, but lenses used to be much much heavier. I have
an all-metal Pentax zoom from the 80's that weights over 600g [1].

I believe the U curve he's seeing reflects the process of DSLRs transitioning
from being an equipment restricted to professionals, getting popular during
the 90's/2000's (pressuring manufacturers to produce cheaper, more lightweight
lenses), and finally transitioning back to professional equipment, as
cellphones and smaller cameras picked up on image quality.

[1] [https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-
Pentax-A-35-105...](https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-
Pentax-A-35-105mm-F3.5-Zoom-Lens.html)

~~~
rangibaby
> I believe the U curve he's seeing reflects the process of DSLRs
> transitioning from being an equipment restricted to professionals, getting
> popular during the 90's/2000's (pressuring manufacturers to produce cheaper,
> more lightweight lenses), and finally transitioning back to professional
> equipment, as cellphones and smaller cameras picked up on image quality.

IDK about that analysis, amateur photography wasn't invented by the digital
age. Nikon and Pentax both have a lot of small and light primes and zooms.

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mc32
I don't think the article is taking into account focal length. A 600mm lens
will weigh more than a 100mm lens. Maybe the mirrorless MFGs began with 50,
120, 200mm models and finally getting some quality 400 and 600mm lenses out
there which are going to affect weight.

~~~
CydeWeys
And aperture. I'd love to see weight graphed against aperture and focal length
(I guess it'd be a 3D plot), and then see what the correlations are. Does
weight increase linearly with focal length? (I'd guess so.) Does it increase
super-linearly with aperture? (I'd guess there's a square in that
relationship.)

~~~
beat
Along those lines, I use an old 1980s Nikon 70-200mm f/4 as my "long" lens. It
weighs about a quarter as much as the modern f/2.8 version. I'll gladly give
up a stop I don't really use anyway for something that doesn't feel like I'm
lugging a howitzer around.

~~~
mc32
While the new ones benefit from lighter materials construction, the Nikons at
least have vibration reduction built into their lenses rather than sensor also
autofocus [in the lens] adds weight vs mechanical. So, on the one hand
materials are getting lighter, on the other hand they've added tech which has
added weight.

~~~
beat
Nikon transitioned from AF motors in the camera to AF motors in the lens,
which added weight to the lens (and removed weight from certain low-end
consumer bodies). The lens I use has AF, but uses the body's motor.

I don't really care about vibration reduction, stabilization, or any of the
other modern sharpness-obsession gear. I'm still shooting a D7000 I've had for
close to a decade. For what I'm trying to express, more resolution and
sharpness has never really helped.

------
sevensor
I don't really know anything about photography, but I'd speculate that after
smartphones became good enough for most amateur shutterbugs, lens makers were
freed up to focus on people who were willing to accept extra mass for higher
performance.

~~~
samastur
I doubt it. I think it mainly has to do with number of glass elements used
which is driven by rising requirements because new sensors. Film was more
forgiving.

I, too, don't know much about photography beyond lugging my wife's lenses ;)

~~~
paulmd
Film also accepts rays that strike the surface at oblique angles, while this
results in color shift or resolution problems on digital. It was actually
technically easier to design high-quality lenses for film because optics did
not need to be telecentric (nodal point of the lens placed at infinity). So
yes, film was very much "more forgiving" than a digital sensor in this
respect.

For example, a lot of early wide-angle designs (eg Biogon) were symmetric, and
actually went into the throat of the camera, because if you had a 28mm lens,
the nodal point was actually 28mm away from the film. That type of design went
away when SLRs needed to put the mirror there, and we switched to lenses that
are essentially "reverse telephotos" (the nodal point is farther away than the
focal length). Modern lenses for digital cameras take this another step
further and put the the nodal point at infinity, so all the rays of light are
coming straight into the sensor at a 90 degree angle of incidence. However,
since the lens must be a very strong reverse telephoto to accomplish this, it
constrains the rest of the design and requires more elements to correct
properly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecentric_lens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecentric_lens)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang%C3%A9nieux_retrofocus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang%C3%A9nieux_retrofocus)

[https://www.casualphotophile.com/2017/10/11/jupiter-12-35mm-...](https://www.casualphotophile.com/2017/10/11/jupiter-12-35mm-f2-8-lens-
review-playing-russian-roulette-with-a-zeiss-copy/)

------
rangibaby
Lens review are driven by specs, and it is easy to zoom in to 1000% in
Photoshop and check whether a lens is sharp or not, and sharpness needs more
glass, which is heavy. It is easy to test and easy to understand.

To me it is like the difference between LPs and poorly mastered CDs. It's easy
to measure that the CD has more definition but sounds digital and lifeless.
The scratches and pops of the LP give it personality.

~~~
EGreg
What makes the CDs sound worse? I have heard this claim repeated A LOT

~~~
bluGill
Multiple things.

If the needle is good and the record is new the LP has a better theoretical
dynamic range - new record is important here as each time you play the record
you physically wear it, so after a few playing it will not be as good. This is
the only one that is inherently better.

LPs are sold to "audiophiles", and often have a different mix. The CD will
often be compressed until there is very little dynamic range. Even when the
record is worn it can still be much better just because the mix on the CD
wasn't good in the first place. This is the biggest advantage to LPs, but it
should not be overlooked as it applies often.

~~~
ubertakter
So you're saying (correctly I think) that it doesn't have anything to do with
the CD itself but everything to do with how the album was engineered. CD's
don't magically introduce compression, it's about the production trends in
mainstream music (which suck).

I'm confident that a good producer and engineer could make an album on CD
sound extremely close to an LP, likely by mastering the album similar to the
way you would for an LP.

~~~
ReidZB
Exactly. CDs can contain basically any audio you'd like... which is part of
the cause of loudness wars, after all - you can put things on a CD that just
wouldn't work on vinyl.

You can even add vinyl effects (warmness/clicks) in post-processing. I have a
few songs in my library that really do sound like you're playing an LP, even
though they're completely synthetic.

In the ripping community, there are some well-known albums that were mastered
differently for LPs and are considered superior to their digital mastering.
And so there are folks who spend $$$ on setups to play back the LP, record it,
and then postprocess it to remove clicks. You end up with a digital audio file
that has the better mastering. You could put that same file on a CD, after
all.

------
ip26
Superteles should have been excluded, those really are coming down in weight
thanks to advances in optics as well as higher ISO & image stabilization
allowing slower glass. Just look at the outlier "max" cases in the charts, and
draw the trendline in your mind.

~~~
ghaff
For the serious full-time pro shooting nature, sports, etc. "the best" may
still make sense. But with modern full-frame digital sensors, it gets
increasingly hard to justify thousands of dollars and pounds of weight for an
f-stop. It made a lot more sense when you were maxed out at ISO 25-50 for the
best color film quality and somewhere around ISO 200 tops for most pro
purposes.

Even if money is no object, just the weight and bulk isn't worth it for a lot
of circumstances even if you can get a tad better depth-of-field isolation.

~~~
ip26
For superteles, f-stops matter because of shutter speed, and increasingly,
autofocus performance. It's a unique portion of the photography world, to be
sure, but you don't have to be a pro to see real material benefit from an
additional f-stop.

Sneaking through the jungle near dusk, shooting 800mm f/8 handheld on a crop
body, there's not much I wouldn't do for an extra stop.

~~~
ghaff
I probably shouldn't have drawn a distinction between full-time pros and very
serious amateurs in the ultra-tele niche. And that's absolutely a fair point
about autofocus especially at the highest focal lengths.

But obviously 800mm lenses are already pretty niche.

~~~
ip26
400mm + 2x isn't _that_ niche :)

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azhenley
Improved manufacturing techniques for these lenses is likely another reason
(on top of what is already mentioned in the comments: high resolution sensors
and a changing market for such lenses).

I have found that I prefer modern Voigtlander lenses with my FF mirrorless
body. They're small, but hefty with great build quality and image quality. The
CV 15mm f4.5 and 40mm f1.2 are all you need for a fun day of photography!

------
BeetleB
Maybe I missed it, but isn't this just an artifact of full frames becoming
more popular since 2000?

All my heavy lenses are from the film era (they fit on my Pentax just fine).
My heaviest lens is 40 years old.

------
paulmd
The real shift occurred in the 90s when computer-aided design techniques
really took off and exotic lens designs (ultra-low dispersion glasses and
aspheric surfaces) became affordable to use in mass production. It suddenly
became viable to design lenses with many more elements and more exotic
elements as well.

A necessary condition was the rise of multi-coating, as each air-to-glass
interface increases the amount of reflection and degrades the image. Pentax
developed their "SMC" (super-multi-coating) process in the 60s, and licensed
it to Hasselblad as the T* coating (in exchange for a license to the Distagon
design produced as the K28/2 and P67 55/4 designs). A few other high-end
companies like Nikon independently developed their own multi-coatings, but
most of the industry muddled along with single-coating until Pentax's patents
expired, then immediately copied their process. So the explosion in lens
complexity in the 90s was also partially driven by improvements in coatings
that made it possible to minimize reflections and loss of contrast in lenses
with high element counts (8-15 elements).

(this is why most older lenses were Triplets or Tessar formulas in the 30s and
40s... These lens formulas minimize the number of air-glass interfaces while
providing a sufficient degree of sharpness. Modern designs like the Planar or
Plasmat have been known for 100+ years (Planar was developed in 1896), but in
those days the large number of air-glass interfaces would significantly
degrade the contrast of these lenses. The development of single coatings prior
to and during World War II drove an increase in lens elements during the 40s
and 50s as well, to around 5-7 elements in high-end lenses, which is when you
started seeing designs like the Plasmat really take off, like the Symmar or
Sironar, and a shift to Planar in consumer cameras, eg Super Takumar or
Nikkor-S 50/1.4 types.)

The other thing worth mentioning is that people got fond of zoom lenses in the
90s and 2000s. It is much harder to design a lens that is corrected across a
whole range of focal lengths, meaning you need a larger number of elements
(and more weight). Meanwhile, people who shoot prime lenses got fond of super-
fast apertures, which also require more elements to make.

If you go back to an old-style f/3.5 or f/2.8 prime lens, there are some very
lightweight modern designs available (eg Sigma DN 30/2.8 and 19/2.8). If you
want a modern 24-105mm f/4 superzoom or a 35/1.4 superfast lens with 12
elements in it, you'll pay for it in weight. People want the faster apertures
and wider zooms so lenses are getting heavier.

Those slower lenses are also much easier to correct, so they tend to be
sharper than fast lenses are, unless the fast lens is much better corrected.
In other words, you are better off shooting a f/2.8 prime at f/2.8 than an
f/1.4 prime at f/2.8, in most cases (unless the f/1.4 lens has ~3x the number
of elements). Older superfast lenses (eg Nikkor Ai-S 35/1.4) with spherical
designs tend not to be that great.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure modern manufacturing also plays a role. Aspheric elements
were first used around the 60s, the first I'm aware of being the Kilfitt
Makro-Kilar 90/2.8 design, but were extremely expensive to manufacture.
Typically you would produce them via single-point diamond turning, essentially
using a diamond point on a lathe to produce a non-spherical curve on the
glass. CAD/CAM manufacturing strikes again, these designs probably got a lot
easier to produce in the 90s and 2000s, both from single-point turning on
machine-assisted tools, as well as molded plastic lenses of useful
composition.

So, really a convergence of various design and manufacturing improvements over
the last 30 years, that made really high-end lenses viable to offer at
prosumer-level price ranges.

------
maxxxxx
I still miss my old Pentax screw drive lenses. They were high quality, robust
and very light compared to today’s offerings. I think the new focus motors
added a lot of weight but I am not sure.

~~~
jdietrich
The focus motors in modern lenses are trivially lightweight, incredibly fast
and largely silent. Modern lenses are heavy because they've got a whole bunch
of big, heavy glass elements held in precise alignment by a big, heavy metal
chassis. Modern sensors have an order of magnitude more effective resolution
than moderately fast 35mm color film, which has made lenses the image quality
bottleneck. Lenses that were good enough for film or 12MPix sensors are
visibly soft on a modern full-frame camera.

~~~
CydeWeys
What about the image stabilization sensors and motors, as those also trivially
lightweight?

~~~
jdietrich
The sensors are a few SMD packages on a flat-flex and the motor is a voice
coil with a few dozen winds of fine enamelled wire. The mounting system for
the stabilized element is marginally more complex, but you're only moving one
small element out of the dozen or so elements in a modern prime or the two
dozen in a good modern zoom. It's pretty negligible, and it's becoming
irrelevant as the industry moves to body-based stabilization.

The Canon 50mm f/1.4 weighs 290g. It has seven elements and acceptable optical
performance. The Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art weighs 815g. Same focal length, same
sensor coverage, same maximum aperture, same focus motor technology, but it
has thirteen elements and vastly superior optical performance. More and bigger
elements are necessary for a better lens, but big lumps of glass are heavy.
There's no getting around that.

------
ginko
The best lens I probably own is my Canon ltm 35/2 which weighs a whopping
120g.

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Animats
Of course. Unless you need some giant lens, a smartphone's imager and lens is
probably good enough. Smartphones have eaten the low, and now the mid, end of
cameras.

~~~
ghaff
Or wide angle. Or low light performance. Or depth of field control. Or the
best autofocus and high-speed shooting. Or just the quality that comes from a
larger sensor.

I don't disagree with your basic point. If you're mostly shooting casual
photos in mid focal lengths, smartphones are indeed increasing great and
better than most point & shoot cameras have ever been whether film or digital.
I use one a lot of the time even though I have plenty of other camera
equipment because they often are good enough.

------
Aardwolf
Why is this site spamming with a message asking to show notifications?

That message is an unblockable popup ad imho.

