Does it really matter?

[arthurking83]

Firstly: I'm a huge fan of LenRental's blog site.
.. although in saying that not all their blogs entries appeal. many of late have been on topics of no interest to me(eg. video stuff, or whatnot).

So the most recent blog on LenRental about the Leica Monochrom vs a Sony A7rII was even more interesting than most of their more gearheaded posts .. which appeal to a gearhead like myself.

I guess this one hits the spot perfectly .. the experts can't really tell the differences in actual images between the two cameras. And while they get the occasional correct guess, it's apparent that they are guesses, more so than actual logical disseminations based on technical insights.
Note: this is in no way a bad reflection of what constitutes an expert, nor am I claiming that LR's experts are anything other than experts .. for the most part there's nothing to suggest that they aren't!

What this blog entry highlights tho, is that it really doesn't matter what camera is used and for the most part there is no real way to determine what camera was used.

I've seen many posts on other fora, where other so, called or would be, experts claim that this camera(as an example this Leica Monochrom) has much nicer tonality range, or whatever BS superfluous fawning praise they heap on their gear .. it's simply garbage.

On the other hand tho, the camera may be nice to use in an ergonomic sense, or practical for some other reason(small, light, quiet... etc) ... this is different!

But over the time that I've been reading comments about how much nicer the mono images come out of a Monochrom compared to an ordinary camera with a Bayer CFA and converted to mono ...
it even got to a point where I was almost starting to believe these so called gurus in the know as they all seemed to sing the same tune.
But it never made any sense in a logical way.

well ... thank god for Roger and his train of thought(to create this blog entry)!

And on a similar kind of note .. after a quick look at DPR earlier, with respect to Sigma's 18-35/1.8 lens(commented on in another thread) .. I must have missed this DPR entry originally, but having just seen it, another thing that always made me laugh a little(actually a lot, but that's me!) is this notion that folks always have that thirdparty lenses seem to have some colour balance issues, or anomalies.
Obviously these folks have always had some software issues, or don't really understand how their camera works!(it's called whitebalance
On the DPR review of the Sigma 18-35/1.8 lens, they have a small section dedicated to this misunderstanding of colour balance in lenses. See HERE .. for those too apathetic to chase up the link.
Yeah, I've also seen some of my images a bit warmer when shooting the Sigma <whatever> lens compared to my Nikon <whatchamacallit> lens .. but then I've also got reversed results.
I shoot in so many varied conditions, that it's 101% certain that I'm going to see variation in what the camera thinks AWB should be.
But when the chance to set WB to a dedicated and exactness is factored into the equation, I also see none to very little colour differences between my thridparty lenses and Nikon lenses.
What differences there are are always down to more basic things: contrast levels, distortion, ca, bokeh, sharpness. Colur is so variable for any given scene, and even if some thirdparty lenses do have anomalous colour .. seriously!! .. what? ... these folks can't use a whitebalance tool?
I've seen more variation in colour rendering from my Nikon lens collection than when comparing the thirdparty lenses to those Nikons.

[J.davis]

I've been using that same analogy for years, someone doesn't like your opinion, ask them to go to Flikr and see if they can tell what body and lens was used for any given pic.

[arthurking83]

..... ask them to go to Flikr and see if they can tell what body and lens was used for any given pic.

LOL!

most of which are captured with an iPhone anyhow!