Sometimes progress is an illusion created by the hype of a sales brochure. Bigger, better, and more as represented by the propagandists of the marketing department often has no bearing on reality. In the days of 35mm, full frame film camera lenses made some tremendous advances. However, there have always been shortcomings which presented themselves in one form or another. We became accustom to the aggravation of dealing with vignetting, light fall-off, soft edges/corners, edge distortion, and so on. Then someone invented the APS-C digital sensor and stuck it in an SLR camera capable of using all of those not quite perfect lenses. And … something wonderful happened! Because the APS-C (and similar size) sensor only used a smaller central portion of the lens’s image circle the vast majority of those edge problems vanished like a corporate ad man’s soul. Even mediocre full frame film lenses became respectable performers when mounted on a digital SLR. The sun came out and birds began to sing.
But like Freddie cruising Elm Street the ad man is back telling us about the marvels of DX lenses; “Smaller, lighter, designed specifically for digital.” Yes they are all that, but they also bring back to life the torment of vignetting, light fall-off, soft edges/corners, and edge distortion that we thought were gone forever. Frankly, I’d rather put-up with the inconsequential short-comings of non-digital film lenses than have to confront vignetting and its irritating friends again.
Now, I will not deny there is a role for DX lenses. The very nature of our APS-C sensor cameras makes wide angle photography a challenge. The 12-24mm DX zoom lens is a god send. It is virtually an essential lens in any serious digital photographer’s camera bag. But, above a focal length of 18mm to 24mm I’d rather have the sweet center of a full frame lens. The disheartening aspect is that manufacturers appear to be putting all their technology into the DX lines while allowing full frame lenses to languish. They load their DX lines with VR/IS, super AF, and all that marvelous technology to distract us from what could have been. It appears that we are once again to be subjected to the dilemmas of photography past.
But, why worry? In a few years those silver tongued devils in the ad department will have us all brainwashed into believing that the latest DX VR IS super lens is the greatest boon to mankind since daguerreotype