Do You Really Need To Spend Top Dollar To Buy The Best Lenses?

I made this image of this lighthouse in 2013 using a Lumix GX1 equipped with Lumix 
14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens.  Looking at it at 100% on my 27" monitor, it is not the sharpest
photo that could be.  But downsampled to Instagram, Facebook, blog post size or just sharing
through email, it is certainly more than sharp and detailed enough. No additional sharpening, noise
reducing plug-ins were used, just normal editing in Lightroom Classic. (click to enlarge)

The answer, of course, it depends…

Depending upon what you do with your images, you may very well be able to save a lot of money by buying ‘good’ lenses versus the top-of-the-line lenses.  My hypothesis is that if you almost always share your images on Instagram, Facebook, a blog or through email, I think absolutely you can get away with less expensive lenses and no one will be able to tell the difference…and you could save a lot of money.

Consider this—the price tags on those "pro" lenses are absolutely out of sight for many of us. Why?  Companies promise us edge-to-edge sharpness and zero distortion and no vignetting or aberrations, basically hinting that your photos will suck if you don't drop two grand on a piece of glass.  Pro grade lenses cost a lot because they have the best optical glass, most sophisticated optical formulas, the best construction, the best engineering and deliver the best image quality.  But if your photos are just living on Instagram, Facebook, email or a personal blog, do you actually need that heavy, expensive ‘best quality’ gear?

Spoiler alert: Nope. I don’t think you do.

There’s something in digital photography called downsampling. You might not of heard of it but it is what you do when you save an image for the internet in whatever social media platform.  Say you shoot a 24mp or 40mp image and shrink it down to tiny 3 or 4 megapixels (Instagram images range from 0.6-1.5mp) so it actually loads fast on the web. When you down sample you aren't merely making the file smaller, you’re basically crushing all the data together. When you do that, all those little lens flaws you find in less expensive lenses—like a bit of blurriness in the corners or that annoying purple fringing (chromatic aberration)—get squeezed down so small they basically become invisible.  Also, even though it doesn’t have to do with the lens, when you squeeze down other aspects of your image you also squeeze down the digital noise.  It gets less noticeable as well.

When looking at these three Great Blue Herons on this downed tree on my monitor, the image leaves
a bit to be desired.  Not as sharp as I would like, especially as you get toward the edges.
I shot it with my former Nikon Z7 using an old Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens at f/11.  Not Nikon’s
best telephoto zoom lens.  After downsampling it and using it on the web, to me, it looks good. Making
a large print is another story. Again, no additional apps were used. Just my normal editing in Lightroom. (click to enlarge)

On a smartphone screen, a photo shot on a cheap kit lens can look just as punchy and tack-sharp as one shot on a luxury pro lens. The screen just doesn’t have the size or enough pixels to show off the flaws. So, if you're just posting online, I say save some money and buy the less expensive glass. I really don’t think anyone will know the difference.

What about your camera's sensor?  If you put an inexpensive, mediocre lens on a high-resolution sensor (like a 45MP or 60MP camera), the sensor acts like a magnifying glass. It exposes the lens’ flaws when you look at the raw file at 100%.  It’s kind of ironic—a high-end sensor actually makes a cheap lens look worse initially because it exposes every single optical flaw perfectly.  There is just much more data captured.  For example, I remember when I had a Nikon 28-300mm lens and used it with a 12mp Nikon D700.  It was fine.  When I moved to a Nikon D800E with 36mp, I sold the lens because the image quality didn’t hold up.  It looked good at 12mp but not so much at 36mp.

But here’s the interesting thing: once you downsample that huge file down to web size, the high-megapixel sensor actually wins out with the less expensive lenses.  Because it started with so much more data, the final shrunk-down image looks even sharper and cleaner than if you shot it on an old 12mp camera. So ironically, having a high-rez sensor gives you more incentive to use inexpensive lenses, as long as you're resizing for the internet.

However, let’s say you want to print and let's say you don't want to buy that expensive pro lens, but you do want to occasionally print an 11x14 or even a 16x20.  Enter the latest and greatest AI-based "helper" apps like DxO PureRaw and Topaz Photo AI.  Can these programs overcome what’s lacking in your cheap lens?  The answer seems to be ‘yes.’  They’re basically digital steroids for cheap lenses.

Programs like DxO PureRaw are incredibly versatile.  DxO actually tests specific camera and lens combinations in a lab.  Over a hundred thousand now, as far as I can tell.  So when you run your inexpensive lens and camera combination through it, the software says (in effect), "Oh, I know this lens and camera. It gets mushy in the upper left corner at f/4."  Then, the program automatically fixes the distortion, cleans up the chromatic aberration, and sharpens the exact spots where the lens’ performance is lacking.  It works pretty well.  I’ve been a DXO user for more than a decade.  Topaz Photo AI goes a step further using AI to literally invent detail where the lens failed to capture it.  Not optimum but largely invisible to a viewer.  So, if you only print an 11x14 or 16x20 occasionally, is using one of these programs enough to overcome a budget lens?  The answer I seemed to have found is yes.

These kinds of programs clean up the image so well that 99% of people looking at your wall print will think it was shot with a high-end lens. They rescue image sharpness, remove any vignetting, eliminate aberrations and removes the digital noise.  They can give you that great ‘look’ that cheap lenses usually lack.

Another Nikon Z7 image but this time using Nikon's 24-200mm Z
lens.  Again, it lacks sharpness everywhere but the center when
viewing on my monitor.  However, again after downsampling,
the aberrations and lack of sharpness seems to largely 
disappear.  It is certainly shareable. (click to enlarge)

So how far can you go with these AI based plug-ins?  If you start pushing past 16x20 the software can start to look a little "fake."  AI can only interpolate so much.  When you print that big, Topaz might start making fine details look like a weird artifacts and DxO can't fix physics. For really big prints, there is still no substitute for real, heavy, expensive glass and lots of pixels.

But if you're an "internet-only" photographer who likes to print the occasional 8X10, 11x14 or 16x20 for your living room, I think you can game the system.  I think you can buy the budget-friendly lens, let downsampling do the work for your blog, and let Topaz or DxO clean up the mess when you want to print. You can save thousands of dollars and your back will thank you for carrying lighter gear.

After all this is said, I would admonish you to always use your best technique.  Exposure has to be pretty spot on, focus perfect and composition as you want it as cropping in a lot with an inexpensive lens magnifies its defects and could negate much of the benefits of downsampling.  In other words, there is a real benefit og getting it right in-camera.

There are other important aspects of this to consider—personal preference, satisfaction and joy.  If you want to buy expensive lenses even though you only post to the Internet or share with family or friend, by all means, do so.  Satisfaction and joy is a major part of creativity and photography.  If it satisfies your personal needs to buy only the best, don’t artificially eliminate one of the reasons you like photography.  That is part of overall satisfaction of the craft.   Personally, I love my photo gear and often I buy more than I really need but, I love the feel and operation of finely engineered tools as well as the ability to produce images with top technical quality.  So, don't forget that aspect of all of this. 

Disclaimer:  All this is based on personal experience as well as research I’ve done on the internet to confirm my own findings.  Don’t necessarily “take it to the bank,” as the definitive (scientifically based) word, but it might be helpful information to sock away for future reference and the basis for more of your own research.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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