Things that contribute to the effect of this photograph:
Lighter in the center of the frame and some vignetting (or at least darker subjects) in much of the background and near corners and edges.
Rim lighting from back left on the subjects makes them stand out a bit.
It appears that there is a bit of fill lighting on the subjects, too — see the woman’s face. Perhaps reflected from a nearby building?
Positioning the subjects on white triangle draws attention to them, too. (Note that this triangle “points” the direction that the predominant light travels.)
More saturated colors on the primary subjects and less saturation in the background.
Slight OOF in the background adds “subjective sharpness” to the front group.
The angled shadows add a sense of perspective/depth.
A subtle (maybe?) band of light from upper left toward lower right intercepts the primary subjects.
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Aside from its focal length, the specific lens used here has virtually nothing to do with the effect. It is all that other stuff.
If it were my photograph, I might consider cropping a bit at left and right to eliminate the distracting people right at the frame edges, particularly the one in the red jacket.
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Excellent point in a thread a bit up from this one: After something like 1034pages (over 2000 posts) it is clear that a) there is no answer to the “best 3D pop” lens question, b) that there is no single thing that produces this effect called “3D pop,” c) there is no real agreement as to quite what it even is....Show more →
Having read pretty much right through this thread [I skipped some of the armchair science ...] this post is the best. There are so many lovely photos here and it is easy to see that many factors contributed to how well they work -- not just the lens choice.
If a lens does make a contribution, you would be evaluating it over a long period of time under many different conditions against other lenses in your setup which did not do as well. So not something you can demonstrate with a handful of posts!
3dpophunter wrote:
(...)A lens that made everthing stand out. (...) when i later bought the sony a7iii and the same lens i for some reason did not experience the same magic and sold it.
(...)
And it's the sony (zony) 55 1.8
Hm. If one and the same lens is magical for a while, then suddenly not anymore, and then all at once again, this wonderfully proves that whether a lens is magical or not depends on the viewer and their state of mind, their mood, so to speak.😉👍
Nifty fifty what about different sensors. Different degree of lens correction. In the original a7 you're not getting as much correction as I understand it which is also the case on the zf.
I always struggled with some iterations of the sony cameras..I shot in raw but found the way to pleasing images a bit long
I'm not an expert with Lightroom and often just use the camera's JPG. I wouldn't have expected Lightroom to correct the same lens differently on the A7 than on the A7iii. But you can turn the correction off anyway.
OregonSun wrote:
Some of my own examples of Orientalist 3D POP, shot in 1994 when I studied abroad in India and was too young to know better. I just wanted to take pics that looked like National Geographic.
Shot on Velvia and T-MAX 100 with Pentax 645 and SMC Pentax-A 645 75mm F2.8
Be that as it may, the idea that this is responsible for the work of an inherent "magic" in combination with the A7 and all Nikon cameras, but not with the A7iii, can imo safely be ruled out. I would personally also rule out sample variations as a cause.
Hm. If one and the same lens is magical for a while, then suddenly not anymore, and then all at once again, this wonderfully proves that whether a lens is magical or not depends on the viewer and their state of mind, their mood, so to speak.😉👍
Agree. And the emotion one feels for the subject perhaps as a result of personal connection.
Conversely, we all know that certain lenses DO consistently perform better than others. It's just difficult to demonstrate with a handful of posts in a thread like this. Probably better to rely on reported experiences, eg Tim saying the Sigma 28-45 consistently pleases him.
rob_ww wrote:
Probably better to rely on reported experiences, eg Tim saying the Sigma 28-45 consistently pleases him.
I completely disagree. This thread in particular demonstrates that everyone has their own perspective and feelings, and the differences are sometimes extreme. In short, I think relying on the opinions of others is the worst advice one can give. In my opinion, the best approach is to look at as many pictures as possible and analyze them to determine why I like or dislike them. It's different if you're creating the pictures not for yourself, but for the community or to get likes. Then you can rely on the majority opinion.
Personally, I can and should rule out anything that seems worth ruling out. There are countless A7iii users who coax what you call magic out of the 1.8/55. And I am absolutely convinced that if you were to use an A7iii today side by side your Zf, you too would suddenly see the "magic" of the 1.8/55 again.
3dpophunter wrote:
The underlying rendering differences are objective, but how strongly we perceive or value them is subjective.
That's exactly what I said, and you argued against it. 😄
But you yourself invented this variation that affects the "magic" of 1.8/55. It is therefore neither objective nor subjective, but pure hypothesis based on your own confusion about why you sometimes perceive something and sometimes don't.
Well, if different cameras can either diminish or fully accentuate the characteristic properties of lenses (which you seem to think is possible), then I find this suggestion perfectly logical. All the more so since you're the 3D-Pop-Hunter.
