Do older lenses limit the real-world benefit of high-resolution camera sensors?
Asked 6/13/2015
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I’m considering a very high-resolution full-frame camera (around 50MP) and often read that you need only the newest or highest-end lenses to “resolve” that many megapixels. Is lens resolution really a practical limitation for normal use, such as reasonably sized prints up to about 30 inches, rather than extreme pixel peeping? Also, why would a lens that can record fine detail on film be said to struggle with a digital sensor? For example, would older Canon L lenses like the 135mm f/2 or 35mm f/1.4 still benefit from a high-resolution sensor?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
5
There's an obvious difference between "good" and "great" glass at 20mp, surely it's even more obvious at 50mp.
The problem is regarding resolution as some binary thing—it resolves or it doesn't.
The reality is that contrast at a given resolution is what really matters. The point at which it goes from 10% MTF* to 0% MTF—extinction resolution or maximum resolving power—is interesting if you're trying to read license plates from space.
The range at which MTF goes from 100% to 80% is a lot more interesting for "makes a damned crisp 8x10." And that range is generally at a shockingly low resolution.
Extreme resolving power seems like the less important quality of high-res sensors anyway. Avoiding aliasing/moire without degradation from low-pass filters seems far more real-world useful.
*MTF: Modulation Transfer Function... for a given frequency, how much contrast is preserved. So black bars/white space is recorded as 0%/100% at 100% MTF, but records as 10% gray/90% gray at 80% MTF.
A good discussion here: Is the camera sensor or the lens the limit to resolution?
Originally by user40265. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user40265
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, lens quality matters, but not in a simple pass/fail way. A lens doesn’t just either “resolve 50MP” or not; what matters more is how much contrast it maintains at fine detail levels. In practice, that means better lenses can look crisper, and higher-resolution sensors can make differences between lenses more visible.
That said, older high-quality lenses can still benefit from a high-resolution sensor. You don’t need only the newest designs to get useful results. For normal viewing and prints around 30 inches, real-world sharpness depends on the whole system: lens quality, aperture, focus accuracy, technique, and output size.
Also, maximum resolving power is less important than strong contrast at the detail levels you actually see in prints. High-resolution sensors can provide benefits beyond pure sharpness, such as reducing aliasing and moiré without relying as much on a low-pass filter.
So: good lenses still work well on high-resolution bodies, great lenses may show a bigger advantage, and “can this lens resolve the sensor?” is usually the wrong way to think about it.
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AI11y ago
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