I have three different 50 mm lenses
And I use them all. This seems very counterintuitive at first. After all, most photographers do fine with just a single zoom lens. The iPhone has three lenses, but they all have a different focal lens. In the old days, a lens kit consisted of something wide, something normal (50 mm) and a telephoto lens, corresponding to landscape, street and portrait/ nature situations, respectively.
Why use three different lenses of the exact same focal lens? Because each lens aligns with a different subject matter and shooting situation. Each lens brings a unique character or rendering to the picture that cannot be replicated in Photoshop.
The Meyer Optik Görlitz 50 mm Trioplan f2.8 is ancient and full of distortions. It was designed in the 1920 and an updated version is now available. You cannot get sharp pictures no matter what you do and it has horrible barrel distortion. It does, however, have the distinctive bubble Bokeh of any lens ever. I always keep this lens with me — just in case the right subject presents itself.
Which subject matter is appropriate for such a lens? On the internet most examples are close-up macro photography: flowers, bugs, anything where you need to be within 15 inches of the subject. This gives us a hint about performance: any object that is not dead center will be distorted and all other image feature serve to focus the viewers attention to the central subject. After all at f2.8 everything, more than 5 inches before and after the focusing plane is out focus anyway. This lens is great for portraits and macro and inferior to modern lenses for anything else, except for the right idea. Below is an example of using the Trioplan differently: for landscape.
I took this landscape shot from the Blue ridge parkway somewhere between North Carolina and Tennessee. The Appalachians are famous for repeating ridges that convey distance very much like a Chinese landscape painting. In the absence of perspective construction classic Chinese painting rendered far away subjects less constraint and faded. You can get that same look with the Trioplan. For a depicting realistic landscapes the Trioplan will never be sharp enough.
The Zeiss Planar 50 mm f2.0 is the sharpest 50 mm lens on the market. At f4 I consider it on par with any APO-corrected lens. I call it my Africa lens, because I take it traveling to more remote destination. It is not irreplaceable, not too expensive, and it records everything exactly how I see it. Every detail is rendered in flawless with insurmountable micro contrast. Never use this lens for portraits, though. Your subjects will hate you, because every skin imperfection is relentlessly recorded, every blemish stands out. Every color nuance is enhanced. This is a lens for trees, nature, architecture, reportage everything with detail.
You buy the Leica Summilux 50 mm f1.5 for its color rendition and 0.5 lower f-stop. If I had to pick one to take to a deserted island, the Summilux is it. It costs 5 times as much as the other two and because of that I am still hesitant to take into rough environmental situations. The price doubled because of the lower f-stop. That is common to all lenses. It doubled again because of the Leica branding. I could have paid another $1000 to get the updated outside design, but you don’t see that in the picture.
The Summilux is the only one with a integrated hood. The Triplan had none and the Zeiss hood is external and really clunky. This one is slick and small. The entire lense is slick and small and therefore intimidating to people and animals. That comes in handy.
After a while you can pick out any picture that was shot with this lens, because of the unique rendering of color and out-of-focus fall of. Of course it is incredible sharp and well corrected in any imaginable way (same say this is an APO lens).
I still have trouble focusing at f1.5. All these lenses are manual focus only! At 1.5 you have to employ “rocking focus”: focus in camera (picture 1), rock back 1 inch (picture 2), rock forward 1 inch (picture 3). One of them will be dead on, but you never know which one.
What have we learned? Special lenses will give you special pictures, even if the numerical specifications are the same. You have to marry the lens to subject.
Ideally, you know what you want the pictures to look and feel like, before you travel to a location. Previsualization is hard, indeed, but essential. Often enough I arrive at a place with the wrong lens and then have to come back. Lately, I end up visiting the same location on at least three different occasions (over a life time). This is the opposite to crossing of a bucket list with an iPhone.
If I can bring only one lens it would be either the Summilux or the Planar. Never the Planar for people. If I can bring two lenses, one will always be the Trioplan.
