Ken Rockwell reviews canon 50mm f/1.0
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I'm pretty sure that out of focus tree leaves against a bright sky will make any wide to standard fast lens look bad at that distance. A telephoto could do much better, but then it would be a different photo.neuroanatomist said:
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I've never used it but pretty much every report has it less sharp than all of the other 50mm lenses and that means miles less sharp than the new Otus. I'd bet it has way more longitudinal CA too.
OTOH it also has AF, which the Otus lacks and for some stuff that can make it a lot more usable.
Also it's not as much super faster than other 50mm lenses as he claims either, at least not on most digital bodies. Most DSLR sensors simply can't capture the extreme pathways of light that such fast lenses let through so the shutter speed gains and lessening of DOF are not nearly as much compared to an f/1.4 or 1.2 lens as you'd expect.
OTOH it also has AF, which the Otus lacks and for some stuff that can make it a lot more usable.
Also it's not as much super faster than other 50mm lenses as he claims either, at least not on most digital bodies. Most DSLR sensors simply can't capture the extreme pathways of light that such fast lenses let through so the shutter speed gains and lessening of DOF are not nearly as much compared to an f/1.4 or 1.2 lens as you'd expect.
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Viggo said:
If it doesn't gather the extra light than it's doesn't deliver the lesser DOF. (now it does gather some of it, just not as much as you'd think and once you go below f/1.8 it gathers ever less so than you'd have expected the faster you get).
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Jim O said:
Probably because he already lives so well off it as is, why toss in ads and risk killing the golden goose. I don't know if it is true, but he claims to not need to work because of his website and yet he lives in a big house in one of the fanciest and most expensive towns in the entire nation and has many kids so his website must be doing more than fine just with the links and donations (assuming he is not just joking around with his claims about not needing to work because of the website).
So I guess he is a genius in a way.
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sdsr said:
He actually did have some useful things to say about the new canon 24-70 lenses. And for all the weird nonsense on his site, and much of his site is weird nonsense, there can be useful tidbits in that he sometimes tests for edge bokeh, coma, and so on, lots of things that can affect image quality that the MTF chart only tests sites never bother to get into, some of that stuff is actually very hard to find elsewhere.
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zlatko said:
On most digital sensors the one at f/1 won't have nearly as much less DOF as expected, less but not as much less and the faster you get the ever more less than expected. Some DSLR sensros are much better than others at getting closer to full advantage.
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I finally have to ask since I've seen a lot of hate here for Ken Rockwell - can somebody please explain why this is?
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Mitch.Conner said:
Because he had been trolling around for years tossing out bizarre mini-blogs to make controversy and grab traffic and then got tons of traffic and then became labelled the go to camera expert on the net despite having so much nonsense mixed in all over his site and many of the more beginning photographers he was trying to attract wouldn't have a clue as what parts of his website were good and what parts were nonsense passed off as wisdom or the truth.
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LetTheRightLensIn said:
I bolded the part that describes the majority of the internet. ;D
... but I appreciate you explaining that there is a back-story to this that I didn't know about.
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LetTheRightLensIn said:
I don't know how much less DOF is "expected" for f/1, but the difference is obvious to the eye. One just has to look at Jessica Claire's blog post to see that a 50mm f/1.4 lens won't deliver the shallow DOF of this 50 f/1.0 lens. It is about what I would expect for f/1.0.
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LetTheRightLensIn said:
I think he says his wife works, and while I haven't seen all of his family photos, I've only ever seen two children.
He also does, or assists at, workshops. He is an inventor who holds at least one patent, probably more.
He sold a condo in San Diego which he bought for nothing. If you know anything about California real estate, even after the bubble burst it was worth a lot. So moving to a nice area on Long Island may not have been as huge a stretch as one might think. I have a pharmacist and a school teacher across the street from me in a 5500 square foot house plus a detached garage with living space above. They did it in a similar fashion. They certainly could not afford a seven figure home on what pharmacists and school teachers make here (combined under $150K).
I don't think "tossing in ads" will reduce traffic, especially only one or two per page. Look at this site's Alexa ranking and it's mostly just a bunch of people throwing out uninformed/nonsensical opinions, whines, and complaints, with the occasional review and excellent observation tossed in, and lots of ads inserted into every discussion. It's also relatively young compared to other sites, the domain name was registered on February 1, 2007. Look at photo.net's Alexa ranking and it's loaded with ads, perhaps including an occasional super-annoying pop up. And the pièce de résistance is drpreview.com's Alexa rank, and it is also ad heavy. I'm fairly certain KR's site would make a ton more money with just Google ads, unless he's making a super commission on his affiliate links and believes that content relevant ads would siphon that away (though he could always block Google ads from places where he is an affiliate - content publishers have that right).
Of course if you believe Alexa, there are a lot of school kids on this site at least as compared to others. Somehow I am not surprised...
Like KR or not, any webmaster would be happy to have created a personal site that's in the top 10K worldwide, and, I would wager, most are drawing more revenue than kenrockwell.com.
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