I have to disagree here, as sometimes I will do - provide something that I
guess without true evident:
- A film is designed to match some "standard contrast" lens-camera system.
- Lens can be too contrast as the well known Ni*on system did in the pass.
- Check the OM system lens handbook, Olympus do know how to increase the
contrast of a lens such as paint black the edge of the lens element. It is
an easy job but they didn't do for every lens element or lens.
- The mirror housing of the OM cameras are not totally black in color, which
suppose to give some reflection to reduce the contrast. I remember the Hass
503CX was said to have special black paint inside the camera to increase
contrast. This can be easily done but they have not implement to every
camera. I also heard from a friend he said some of his old Ca*on provide
different result with different camera body and the same lens. I didn't
believe at the beginning but I start to think it could happen if they have
different reflection mirror box.
- You may not be able to find a good media to reduce the contrast level to
what you wanted and it always introduce other effect such as flare and
reduced resolution.
- The Zuiko 180/2.8 and 35-70/3.6 are two typical samples which provide very
high resolution and not too high contrast, that is what I wanted. The Zuiko
28/2 is a typical sample provide high contrast/sharpness with not too high
resolution. The 50/2 is also a lens provide very high contrast/sharpness but
not pleasing color where the 50/3.5 do a much better job in this area. In my
experience a super high contrast lens is certainly not good for most
situation and I have not found a good contrast reduction filter yet.
My two cents.
C.H.Ling
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Sommerwerck" <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Lens contrast is an altogether different matter. A lens can only degrade
> image contrast, either by having a poor MTF at low spatial frequencies, or
> by scattering highlight light into the shadow areas. A lens that does
either
> of these things is _not_ a good lens, even if it provides the kind of
images
> we prefer.
>
<snip>
>
>
> Unless I were buying a special-purpose lens (such as a soft-focus portrait
> lens), I can't imagine why I would want a lens that wasn't as sharp and
> contrasty as possible. You can always degrade what's good, but you cannot
> put back what isn't there.
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