I chose three lenses in the mid-30mm range that have very dissimilar characteristics and spent an entire day walking around Hollywood to see how the images they produced compared to one another.
These three lenses all have focal lengths in the mid thirty millimeter range. But that’s where most of their similarities end. Because they have similar focal lengths, but such dissimilar characteristics, I thought it might be interesting to compare the images they produced in a similar setting. So I packed up my bag and spent an entire day walking around Hollywood to find out.
The lenses represent three broad categories… the modern lens, the vintage lens, and the anamorphic lens.
Heading into the test, my hypothesis was that each lens would have its own unique personality and I imagined them to be something like the following.
This lens is the diligent, reliable corporate accountant… specifically the one that reviews your expense reports before they get approved. Everything is cut and dried and plays out by the book.
This lens is the tweed jacket wearing, pipe-smoking, well-travelled uncle from a wealthy family who drops by every year or two and shares tales from his globetrotting adventures.
The name is self-explanatory, and I thought I knew what to expect from this lens. After all, it’s designed for filmmaking. In the end this is the one that surprised me the most.
For the test I attached the lenses to my Panasonic Lumix S5IIX using the same settings as much as possible, with apertures set to f/5.6 or T5.6. For direct comparisons I stood in the same location, swapped lenses on the spot and tried to roughly frame the same shot with each lens.
My hypothesis turned out to be mostly correct. But the day did teach me more about the unique characteristics of each of these lenses.
The Lumix is indeed an expense report accountant. It’s only interested in the cold, hard facts. It has certain rules, and as long as you obey those rules you will get the expected results. It gives you a factual representation of what was seen, without any embellishment.
Don’t get me wrong. Accountants are incredibly important. They keep companies on track and provide a black and white representation of the truth. In the same way, lenses like this are the appropriate choice for the vast majority of day-to-today business. But much like most interactions with Accounting, working with this lens is purely transactional and not particularly exciting.
Something occurred to me while looking back at the Lumix photos. Even though I was physically there, I felt less connected to each moment than I did with photos taken with the other two lenses. Part of this might be because I used autofocus on this lens and manually focused the others. More than that though, I think it’s probably just the feeling I get from the clinical images rendered by the modern lens.
The worldly Uncle Mir was also close to what I expected, but I learned a little more about him as well. He does indeed share stories about his world travels. I also found that he adds a little color to his stories and tends to stretch the truth here and there. He also gets some of the details wrong. But his intentions are good, and it’s all in the name of telling a memorable story. He almost makes you feel like you were there… or at least like you wanted to be there.
Remus, the storyteller, is the filmmaking sibling of Uncle Mir. He tells interesting tales like the Mir, but also brought a satchel of trinkets from his travels that enhance his stories. He’s got a colorful rug he bought in a back alley in Marrakech… and an antique Heuer watch from Buenos Aires with, “Love Always - HH” engraved on the back. I’m pretty sure he also had a few drinks before he came over.
Because of its wide angle and dreamlike image, the Remus can put you there in the moment even more than the Mir, and much more than a modern, clinical lens. In this shot, for example, there is so much extra information on the edges that give you a more complete and immersive view of the scene. It lets you see more of what’s going on in the periphery without the off putting distortions that come along with super wide angle lenses. The soft focus did a better job of capturing the grit of Hollywood… all of the chaos, noise and smells that don’t come through in the perfect images produced by the modern lens. It’s no wonder film directors have been relying on anamorphic lenses to tell their most epic stories for more than 70 years.
I now have a new appreciation for all three of these lenses and will gladly use them again in the future. I don’t consider any one of them to be superior to the others. Each one has a personality with its own right place and right time.
Most people will need an accountant more than a storyteller in their day-to-day lives. If you want to get business done, the modern lens is probably the way to go. But if you want to tell a good old-fashioned story that will leave a more lasting impression on your audience you should strongly consider using a lens that’s less than perfect. It’s horribly cliché now to say that lenses like this have “character”, but this experiment gave me a much deeper understanding of what people mean when they say that.
* Note: To help support this website we sometimes use affiliate links which are indicated with an asterisk (“*”). This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission. This does not add any cost to you, the buyer. Your support through these links is sincerely appreciated!
