Lens Contrast (Part 4 : Color Creates Contrast)
Taken with a Nikon D50 and Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX (kit-lens)
The issue is further confused by color, since color sometimes functions similarly to contrast. Imagine two areas in an image of similar value, but one red, and one green. Take a picture of this with black-and-white film, and you have one undifferentiated gray.
Take a picture of it in color, and the green area easily stands apart from the red area and vice-versa. Although it has nothing to do with optical or sensitometric contrast, color contrast helps with definition and hence with a sense of general image clarity. What this means is that different lenses perform differently or perhaps I should say "to different tastes" in black-and-white and color.
I conjecture that Leica designers used to pay most attention to relatively low-cycle contrast, meaning in the 5—20 lp/mm range, and then let resolution fall where it may. This is the smartest approach (in my opinion) for black-and-white film. Lenses which have been optimized this way look best for black-and-white. But now that so many people are shooting in color, giving a little more weighting to resolution at higher frequencies (as, say, Canon and Mamiya seem to do pretty consistently) and expecting color to "help with contrast" is a smart approach, too.
Labels: AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX, Landscape, Nikon D50, Photography
