>>3741395Z lenses are excellent but mostly for its corner to corner sharpness and color saturation.
What i mean by the rest is that you have tonalities (lost when there's too much corrective glass) color rendition (not so much saturation but the qualities of color themselves, aka not muddy) then there's the whole controversy over contrast that impacts how soft shadows are portrayed which impact the "depth" of an image.
Some D series lenses were shoddily made but some others were perfected AI-S with AF motors, those are the real deal. The thing is new sensors with many MPs need sharper lenses than film and thus the focus on making them. While it would be cool that Nikon came up with "artistic lenses for low megapixel sensors" the thing is almost everyone is a gear whore, a mainstream company can't make much money over those lenses promoted as such.
Nikon very recently still made 25yo D series lenses so maybe my point is moot there.
There is companies still designing that kind of lens tho, Voigtlander is one but many of their offerings cost just as much as a high accutance lens, not too mention many vintage alternatives are getting scalped as high as a brand new lens, for example the old 135mm at f/1.8 lenses that could be bought for 60 or so some years ago now cost 400 and up.
>>3741406>Any sample imagesThat's the thing that makes folks doubtful about the whole "low vs high element count": Few have made direct comparisons, it's like nobody owns 2 different lenses and a tripod to try.
One who does is a chink called Khong but he meddles way too much in what "microcontrast" is, which wouldn't be a problem but his explanation is a bit contrived, it's neither resolution nor tonality. Here's some comparisons, basically older lenses are less sharp but give more smooth transitions and vivid colors.
In the end it really depends on the photographer's personal tastes, nowadays people fade out and bang the shit out of the colors along with rising the blacks into grey area.
