"rendering is clinical" - huh???

[mjh]

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For me, ‘clinical’ implies that the lens is mostly free of aberrations but that the author wants to make it sound like that was a bad thing. I have come across the term used in this way many times. It is also used in the context auf audio equipment.

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[Jeff S]

Like I said in post #2.

 

Jeff

[lars_bergquist]

A lens that shows all small details of someone's face, exaggerating every detail, like wrinkles, birthmarks and etc, with excessive micro-contrast.

 

You mean showing what's actually there? Agreed, this is an unforgivable sin in polite society.

 

But no meaningful photography has ever belonged in polite society.

 

The old man with a perverse lust for sharp lenses

[lars_bergquist]

The way i understand it in audio and photo, the term "clinical" means cold or lifeless more so than accurate or without fault. In that sense, technical perfection does not imply clinical rendering per se. As "perfect" as they may be some high-end systems tend towards the highest resolution where others privilege contrast, depth and/or warmth in reproduction.

 

A performance and a recording are two different things. A pianola gives a literally mechanichal performance. It is no recording – it has not recorded any previous performance. A perfect recording reproduces the music as it was actually played by the human performers – it reproduces living reality. Both they and we want it to reproduce it faithfully.

 

The people who sigh for lenses with high levels of chromatic and spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism and stray light are like those audiophiles who crave shellac noise, scratches and tinny sounds out of a horn.

 

The old man from the Age of 78 rpm

[bocaburger]

There have always been people who take up photography, not because they are interested in the medium, but because they do not have the talent and the self-discipline to learn to paint.

 

...and sometimes, or to create artistic photographs Being a technology-laden medium, it's entirely possible for someone to embrace photography purely for its technology (whether or not they 're willing to admit to it, is another thing entirely). Am I condemning people whose satisfaction from photography comes from aspiring to own the most technically optimal lenses? No. It's a hobby, and each hobbyist has a right to decide what about the hobby motivates him. Building miniature ships because one enjoys the hand-eye challenge is no less legitimate than doing it because one has an abiding passion for maritime engineering.

 

My philosophy is, until I can produce photographs with the artistic merit of a Bresson, I don't need sharper lenses than he had

[glenerrolrd]

It always depends on the subject and the intended rendering you are after. A lens that renders with extreme edge contrast (like the 50 summilux asph at f8) may not be appropriate for a portrait in strong lighting .

 

When I hear a lens described as clinical I translate that to very high macro contrast (often associated with the zeiss ZM lenses) . This can have a negative effect on bokeh because OF areas can appear almost sharp due to high edge contrast .

 

I think both the new 35/1.4 asph FLE and the 50/0.95 NOCT have a better balance between macro/micro contrast and bokeh than the say the 50 1.4 asph .

 

So for me clinical can mean overly contrasty and producing harsh renderings when used in strong light. Whether this is a problem of course , depends on the light you are working with , the subject and the rendering you are after.

 

And I do use the 50 summilux asph as my 2nd most used lens.

[sblitz]

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I think clinical is a term that came of age with digital cameras. Digital capture can often seem a bit clinical, sharp, devoid of the half-tones one was used to with film. Digital has come a long way since then but some lenses are a bit clinical in the sense that they exemplify the sharper look of digital as opposed to film. different films had different character, digital doesn't in that regard so the lens rises to a higher order of importance. before the computer pp turns it into what you want. i think of early cds and they had a "clinical" sound, as did the first stereos not using tubes. things got better and some cd players "create" a less clinical sound than others. anyway, it is all in the eye and ear of the beholder and clinical in defining a lens is a term without clinical meaning.

[Washington]

This is all very interesting to me, no kidding.

Well, we do all see (and hear) things differently. I was surprised I had never heard

the term before. It had to be coined by someone at some time. This interests me too.

I nailed down the author and date of the first use of brokeh….and the same with that

word I can’t spell for coating prints:usually canvas. you know what I mean.

So, I suppose, ‘’clinical’’ is in the eye of the beholder like so many other things.

The only thing that I find distracting personally is ‘’clinical’’ sounds so clinical.

[Jeff S]

I nailed down the author and date of the first use of brokeh…

 

I assume you mean bokeh...but maybe given your tinkering tendencies, you really do mean "brokeh."

 

The first person to spell boke as bokeh was Mike Johnston, from TOP fame, as he wrote here.

 

Jeff

[Washington]

This is an example of why I call myself ‘’master of typos’’!

[albireo_double]

in the hi-fi analogy:

 

Cron 35 Asph ~ high power transistor amp (accurate sound, can handle any music competently, can drive almost any speaker, great for rock music)

 

Lux 35 Asph ~ vacuum tube amp (sounds warm - not accurate but pleasant, not suitable for rock music but makes magic with strings - you can almost feel any vibration - and for classical music and jazz, can't drive "demanding" speakers but is magical with horn speakers or electrostatics, transmits and re-creates the "mood")

 

Each is great and each produces a slightly different result and may be preferable under different circumstances. To criticize the Cron 35 Asph or Cron 90 Asph for being too "clinical" is B/S to my mind - they are great lenses in the same way that my Marsh is a great amp. At the same time, I love what the Lux 50 Asph can do, in the same way that I like listening to jazz with a tube amp and a pair of Quad speakers.

[uroman]

I bet if someone took the same shot with the 'lux and the 'cron, at the same aperture, then it would be difficult to consistently (>85% of the time) tell which lens is which.

I think when people say "rendering is clinical", i would like to know how they derive this conclusion, and was it on a blinded comparison? Maybe that is too tough a test, but it seems like this comment is vague at best.

[lct]

I bet if someone took the same shot with the 'lux and the 'cron, at the same aperture, then it would be difficult to consistently (>85% of the time) tell which lens is which...

We can do it at f/1.4 for sure.

Seriously, the difference is obvious at f/2 (look at the corners) but less so at f/2.8 and on.

[adan]

Take the words at their original meaning - would anyone here feel their life had been adequately summed up by simply publishing a life-long medical (clinical) record?

 

Or the famous chemist's list of the composition of your body as the sum total of your existence and value?

 

[Oxygen (65%), Carbon (18%), Hydrogen (10%), Nitrogen (3%), Calcium (1.5%), Phosphorus (1.0%), Potassium (0.35%), Sulfur (0.25%), Sodium (0.15%), Magnesium (0.05%), Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%) ]

 

In either case such a summary would be "clinically" accurate - but is that enough?

 

For myself, most of the lenses I see defined as "clinical" by others are mostly - too contrasty. And often NOT sharp enough (I will put most - important word, there - "most" - previous-generation non-ASPH lenses up against the current ASPHs and show them to often have better resolution at their best apertures than the ASPHs.

 

And for me, more resolution and less contrast is the route to the most complete rendering of a subject - and more contrast and less resolution is "clinical."

[SJP]

You forgot Uranium (0.00001%)

[lct]

All of us did not go to the same clinics apparently.

[mjh]

I was surprised I had never heard

the term before. It had to be coined by someone at some time. This interests me too.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary “Meaning "coldly dispassionate" (like a medical report) is recorded from 1928.” The application to the specific rendering of some lenses (or audio equipment, for that matter) is just derivative of that meaning of ‘clinical’.

[luigi bertolotti]

Clinicality = Accuracy.....

 

That's the question....

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[NZDavid]

Two shots of Christchurch Women's Hospital, both with 2.8/24 Elmarit-ASPH. A clinical lens?

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[Lord Fluff]

It's a hobby, and each hobbyist has a right to decide what about the hobby motivates him.

 

Beautifully put. For some the look of a modern, technically very 'perfect' equates to clinical as it's not what they want - which is a vague sense of the past, nostalgia even, or just something that feels a little different to the ubiquitous harsh pics from point-and-shoots.

 

And this holds true for those of us selling pics for a living too - sometimes we want sharpness, accuracy, verity.....other times what enchants a client is carefully exploited imperfection.