Photogrammetry Prime Lenses vs "default" zoom lenses...? EXAMPLES of scans?

#1

Hello

I was wondering, i have heard that prime lenses (=fixed focal lenght= you cannot “zoom” - for example just 50mm) have superior visual quality in comparison to “zoom lenses” (lenses that have variable focal length, for example from 18mm to 55mm) and probably even more superior visual quality of the final photos in comparison with the DEFAULT KIT ZOOM lenses you get with most cameras (for example i got the kit lens 18-55mm that came “default” with my Nikon D3200 camera).

Questions:

  1. Is that true?
  2. Have anybody did comparison “studies” Prime (“fixed”) lens (for example 50mm) vs kit zoom lens (18-55mm for example and set to 50mm)… Have anyone tested this? Took two series of photos with both lenses and then made the whole process of photogrammetry and get a resulting final Mesh with texture…? How did it compare…? Do you have pictures…?

I would love to see picture of these comparison - how much better the model really is if u use prime lenses… How much more detail it has, how much realistic it is, how much “sharper” (and not “blobby”) the final mesh is…? Have anybody dont such test and wrote an article or would share such pictures please…?

#2

noone…?

#3

In reality, only professional-photographers really care about the differences due to marginal-gains and almost exponential-costs.

Prime-lenses have a larger aperture which makes them “Faster” (they let in more light=faster shutter speeds) and are able to give really shallow depths of field. Confusingly, it is the denominator of the reciprocal that is quoted. For example: 2.8 is larger than 5.6.

The other benefits are often much harder to notice at first glance, but things like chromatic-aberration are always worse on zoom-lenses, especially cheap ones.

Distortion is another problem with zoom lenses but these days there is in-camera software correction that tends to minimize or completely eliminate barreling/pin-cushioning.

Then there is vignetting that is an annoying problem with “Superzooms” at certain apertures and focal lengths.

For CG, I’m not sure prime-lenses are really necessary unless you know that they are. If you only do one thing and that one thing allows you to control the distance to camera then a prime would make sense. However, for everything else, the compromise out-ways the benefits.

#4

Its been my general experience with my Nikon D800, that my prime lenses are much sharper, have less distortion, and less chromatic aberrations. This is particularly helpful for doing photogrammetrey work as my resulting point clouds have improved resolution and the resulting texture is better. All of my zoom lenses are ‘softer’. They still work of course, but the results are not as good.

So yes, if youre using a camera that accepts lenses, and you want the best results, go with a higher end prime lens. I’m used my 50mm prime for most normal sized objects, and I use my 20mm prime for interiors.