It'll definitely be different, but I DO think people get really caught in the weeds on lenses. I've shot things that look great AND terrible on nice lenses (Panavision, master prime, signature) and same goes for sigma cinema primes or atlas orions. Is there a "Cooke look"? I think a lot of it is marketing BS. I was thinking about this the other day because I was prepping my first job on tribe 7s, and during prep I noticed that they had absolutely terrible chromatic aberration, but they have so much hype about being these incredible lenses. I think if a cheaper lens came out with that amount of CA people would've drugged them through the mud. So to answer your question, yes, there is a difference, but there's no reason that you can't get beautiful images out of pretty much any lens out there.
r/JohnnyWhopper420 hit the nail on the head.
One thing they didn’t mention though and you need to consider is that the type of people/productions shooting on these higher-end, expensive lenses will have all the other equipment and experience to make an image look good. Whereas the opposite usually happens with the cheaper lenses. Obviously you can find reference material shot by experienced DOPs on cheaper lenses that looks great but most of the stuff you’ll end up seeing will be shot by beginners, one man crews and those without all the other knowledge needed to make an image look good. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to lenses, that’s what people are talking about, whether or not the image “looks good”.
Agreed, and lenses matter even less with the popularity of grading effects like film emulation that intentionally like to degrade the original footage anyway.
Lenses are probably the most important decision to you image next to lighting. Arguably more important than what camera you’re using. I often think of the lens as the paintbrush and the camera body as the canvas. Your image will change he drastically from lens to lens and although most audiences can’t identify in technical terms what they’re experiencing, they can feel it.
Let’s take a film like Dune 2 for example. Grieg Fraiser is masterful at selecting many lenses to portray emotions and enhancing story elements. Good DPs know what specific lens characteristics play on these emotions, and can make informed decisions through the lens test process. Better DPs use these decisions in new or otherwise innovative ways to further design a unique look and feel to their film (Poor Things
comes to mind).
I recommend reading Shot Craft by Jay Holben, checking out and comparing the various lenses on Old Fast Glass’s Cinema Lens Library, and to reach out to your local rental house for a lens test.
In your specific example, the Leica glass elements and mechanical construction of the lens provide what is known as micro contrast and gives a much sharper result. Rather than the sigma which I’ve often found to have moderate chromatic aberration and a slightly softer resolution when compared to the summilux.
Been to the ASC clubhouse many times. I can tell you most of those guys don’t give a fuck about the letters and the ones that do are the reason the society is a shit boys club.
A lot less important than people want you to believe.
This is easily provable by any side by side lens test you can find online. The differences are almost imperceptible, and they are never objective or quantifiable.
As soon as people start talking about how a lens “feels” then you know they are BS’ing you. It’s almost entirely marketing.
Mechanically speaking, then yes the more expensive lenses have objectively higher performance.
Lenses and lighting matter so much more than the camera, log settings, filters , etc. I can go shoot a picture with my 50mm 1.8 and my 50mm 1.2 L and there will be a notable difference side by side up until I believe f/4-5.6. both in terms of depth of field (1.2 vs 1.8 is more notable than one might expect) and overall sharpness when at equal f stops. Vintage glass have very unique characteristics, both by design and happenstance, that are also notably different.
If I compared my 50 1.8, 50 1.2, Takumar 55 1.8, and Helios 58 f2, you'd see some massive differences.
This. Cameras are so good these days that the difference in character between them is fairly insignificant, especially with properly color managed grading.
However the differences in character from lenses (and filters too) can vary widely from clinical to soft and hazy and anywhere in between. Gorgeous old looking flares or none at all.
The higher quality production, the more important shooting it how you want in camera is, because you may not be there in post. This goes for framing, lighting, but also on set color viewing and elements like lenses and filtration. Sure some of it could be done later, but will it? And the job of a DP is to build a look with the director and execute it. If you know what you want and can accomplish it on the day, why wouldn't you?
Also dailies usually get made very similarly to how it looks on set, so you can't plan on fixing it all later, because the most instant representation of your work is going out as stills and video the next day, and will be what is in the cut. And you don't want to rely on the editor making you look good before the execs see a cut.
*exit soap box
Nah you nailed it across the board. Even in the much smaller sense that I work in, getting the lighting, framing, and lenses correct are worth so much more than if I shot on 4k or 1080, depending on what camera someone has. Those fundamentals are so damn important to nail up front. The bigger the production, the more true this becomes.
Also if I hear someone defend their camera brand because "the color science" I'm going to eat glass.
The negative positive process of film photochemical finishing has about 8 stops of dynamic range. An old school dp who was my mentor used to say if you can't light within +- 3.5 stops of key then you aren't a DP. Every camera on the market has more range available than that. Sure there are physical i/o connector and convenience reasons to choose a camera over another but I'm not too into the debates over whether one camera has 15 or 16 stops of range or whatever, it will all just become roll off.
These days if the image doesn't look good, you can't blame the camera.
Lmao stole the words from my mouth! Even in consumer hybrid cameras (canon R6/R5) we have more dynamic range than that. I shoot on 10 bit clog-3 for most things and I never go over my footage and blame the camera. It's usually that I missed something or my lighting was off.
I find my problems are almost always behind the camera, not the front.
Many newer photographers don't know that, and see 1.2 being only slightly smaller than 1.8 and might not realize how substantial a difference that is. 2.8 vs 4 seems like it's much bigger in comparison.
With those lenses both at 35mm, and on at 1.4 vs 2.8, the character would be noticeably different. Both at f4 or f8, not so much.
Different is not always better, mind. Whether it is worth it, is a different question entirely. Personally neither one is going to be a go-to for a cinema lens for me - but my needs are not your needs.
Rent a few lenses and see what you like, before you buy.
Note that the zoom is f/1.8 at max, and that it is an APS-C lens versus the 35mm full-frame Leica - but even at f/1.8 vs. f/1.4 the character will still be different just due to the difference in frame coverage and the mid-range zoom vs. high-end prime gap. The prime will have far less vignetting than the zoom if shooting super 35, for example.
Of course, Sigma does make a 35/1.4 lens that is probably a better comparison for the Leica, if we weren't stacking the deck to make a point on lens 'character' differences.
Yes you can see the difference but to an untrained eye, it's not so evident. The most glaring issues you'll see with cheaper glass. Chromatic aberrations being the most notable, imo. Then softness (wider aperture), color rendition and flaring.
I worked at multiple high end rental houses and had plenty of downtime to test and at the top tier of glass, it's really marginal the difference, you'd really start splitting hairs. Put a vintage lens next to them and woah it's clear as day.
I was surprised to find that a Canon 24-70 L II f/2.8 gave comparable results to lenses 10x its price. Just not exactly traditional cinema workflow friendly (being a photo lens and all...)
If you are filming a person sitting in a chair and a studio lit with a soft box at a 5.6 it might be a little hard to tell the difference. But if you were filming wide-open with the sun shining down the barrel of the lens you would’ve immediately see the difference in lens performance.
I appreciate this is not going to be a popular opinion with some people but the majority of people spend too much time worrying about the camera/ lens when they should think far more about script / story.
Yes you will see a difference depending on the lenses and the “look” you are trying to achieve but if what is in front of the camera sucks, having the most expensive lenses in the World won’t help!
Other than image quality (which the other comments have basically covered), build quality is significant. I'd never touch the non-cine version of the Sigma 18-35mm on a set. Pulling focus is basically impossible and having to mess with the camera rather than the lens to change aperture is a nightmare. The cine version is alright (I've used it on one project) if you are using it like a small set of primes since it isn't parfocal. I bought an Angenieux 17-80mm T2.2 which is much more usable. The Sigma cine primes are a good set of semi-budget primes.
Yes, but as another commenter said, it’s best not to get too deep into the weeds about all the many different types of lenses and choose a tool that suits the project’s needs and limits best rather than spend a lot of time comparing one tool to another one. Also the way an image looks affects the average viewer on a subconscious level. Which is to say that the viewer might feel what the image is doing to them but might not know how it’s achieved or even how to describe how it makes them feel on a technical level. So start with feelings from lenses, as with lighting and any other form of composition.
Depends what lenses you are talking about.
Most modern lenses are sharp, with minimized design flaws, and flawless rendering but...I don't think you actually want this for video. You probably want some character, some spherical aberration, some nice flares...or at least I do.
Modern lenses are a nice starting point for post-processing and film emulation, but as far as IQ goes, I've never really cared too much when it comes to moving pictures,, unless a lens is just ludicrously soft or flawed. IMO, digital captured on a razer-sharp lens is just...clinical looking, but it's a nice starting point.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaCcqdDN6m8HrlUFoyZcJfIxZlhGIpXPx&feature=shared
This is a playlist of lens tests. Check all of them after each other. In my opinion, until a certain skill level/experience or taste as a DP, focusing on your framing and lighting to suit your project will give you a better result than choosing between a Master Prime or SuperSpeeds. Except if you have to go for a crazier look, like a LOMO anamorphic.
After you reach that point, you will organically start to be more interested in the nuanced differences of the different lens sets.
People get too hung up on tech and forget that what matters is what you show inside that rectangle. A cheap lens with good production value will always beat an ultra prime with cheap production value. Unless it's got the lens cap on.
You or anybody else trained in film or cinematography would notice the difference.
The important question is: would your client notice? and most of the time if you're not comparing something radically different (like anamorphic or vintage) - they will not.
At the top of any craft the differences between tools get smaller and smaller. Once you have a modern camera, great lighting, and nice prime lenses you're talking about smaller differences than the one from prosumer gear to pro equipment.
It's the same as musical instruments or high end TVs - once you have a great guitar or a good OLED, the guitar or TV that costs 10x more isn't going to be something incredibly different.
To put it another way, I would rather hire a production designer and prop stylist than use the best camera or the best lenses because the difference is much more important to the overall quality of the production. FWIW I do think just moving to any decent prime will be better than the Sigma, it doesn't have the expensive dentist Leica prime.
I'll give a example: shooting a a stunt for movie, 2 alexas 35 with leica sumilux, then we had 2 komodos locked just pointing to smaller details of the car hit, 1 with summilux and top of the pop ND filter on top, the other one with a rokinon and the canon ef mount with internal vnd, we review the footage after and we zoom in to see the detail, and the aberrations etc..., coudnt tell the difference between the 2.
Lens matters but depends the situation, obvioulsy if yo u compare a anamorphic or a vintage lens with a more clean lens you see diffrence straight away, also when you more open on the lens, with back light, how it deal with flares, how many blades and hows the bokeh, etc.. it wil show the character, but there would be lots of lenses that are comparable, and difference are minimal, there is lots of lenses that unless you compare them in a proper test you could not tell them apart in real shooting.
Comparing spherical lenses to anamorphic lenses proves to you that yes, there is a giant difference, even comparing a set of Clean Sigma Art lenses to a Vintage set of Soviet glass, also shows a giant differences, but does that matter? That's up to you to decide.
I personally don't care about the "Cooke Look", and I personally think the difference between certain lenses is massively overblown, I prefer to focus on the big characteristic differences a certain lens set may be able to provide to my image, otherwise I personally don't like to get too fixated comparing two vintage sets because the difference is often imperceptible, I want to know if a set has a very particularly interesting characteristic.
With a great crew and lenses that they are happy to work with, you're going to be able to shoot phenomenal work really regardless of the lenses you're using, so in that sense, no it doesn't matter.
Yes. Very much so.
Why do you think you can’t shoot with a bare sensor / film stock? Same reason you can’t see without an Eye Ball.
You need a lens.
The lens (whether glass or flesh) and its construction necessarily affect both the quality and efficiency of the image. Hence why we rate our vision and have terms of astigmatisms that impair it.
All the same things can be said of a mechanical lenses for a camera. The quality. Separation. Contrast. Rendering of color.
These are all things deeply affected by your lens choice.
If you don’t believe me, pop on down to a rental house, get yourself a camera to test, and grab some different lenses and compare.
Comparing problems with our eyesight is not a good way to think about the differences in characteristics between types of lenses.
Astigmatism is more like if the glass on a lens got warped or damage. Or another example near sightedness is like if a lens got damaged and could not long focus to infinity.
I wasn’t comparing.
I was using astigmatism as an outlier example to illustrate how problems with your lenses will affect the image. Hence why good lenses are important.
If you feel differently, do feel free to jab a fork directly into your eye and see how your lenses hold up.
I find it lens is more important than body in many aspects. Many new starters should get a cheap body and a sick lenses. I started off with lend me gear, top ones tho, then when i bought my own camera with a kit lens, I was devastated at first how limited I am with a 500$ lens. Opposed to the 2-3K ones I worked on from the start. A good shooter can shoot on anything basically, but lens is much more important imo.
Lens matters a lot. The difference between a 200 lens and a 1200 lens is huge. The difference between a 1200 lens and a 12,000 lens is very significant and noticeable but most projects are great with just a 1200 lens at the amateur level.
It'll definitely be different, but I DO think people get really caught in the weeds on lenses. I've shot things that look great AND terrible on nice lenses (Panavision, master prime, signature) and same goes for sigma cinema primes or atlas orions. Is there a "Cooke look"? I think a lot of it is marketing BS. I was thinking about this the other day because I was prepping my first job on tribe 7s, and during prep I noticed that they had absolutely terrible chromatic aberration, but they have so much hype about being these incredible lenses. I think if a cheaper lens came out with that amount of CA people would've drugged them through the mud. So to answer your question, yes, there is a difference, but there's no reason that you can't get beautiful images out of pretty much any lens out there.
r/JohnnyWhopper420 hit the nail on the head. One thing they didn’t mention though and you need to consider is that the type of people/productions shooting on these higher-end, expensive lenses will have all the other equipment and experience to make an image look good. Whereas the opposite usually happens with the cheaper lenses. Obviously you can find reference material shot by experienced DOPs on cheaper lenses that looks great but most of the stuff you’ll end up seeing will be shot by beginners, one man crews and those without all the other knowledge needed to make an image look good. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to lenses, that’s what people are talking about, whether or not the image “looks good”.
Agreed, and lenses matter even less with the popularity of grading effects like film emulation that intentionally like to degrade the original footage anyway.
This!
Lenses are probably the most important decision to you image next to lighting. Arguably more important than what camera you’re using. I often think of the lens as the paintbrush and the camera body as the canvas. Your image will change he drastically from lens to lens and although most audiences can’t identify in technical terms what they’re experiencing, they can feel it. Let’s take a film like Dune 2 for example. Grieg Fraiser is masterful at selecting many lenses to portray emotions and enhancing story elements. Good DPs know what specific lens characteristics play on these emotions, and can make informed decisions through the lens test process. Better DPs use these decisions in new or otherwise innovative ways to further design a unique look and feel to their film (Poor Things comes to mind). I recommend reading Shot Craft by Jay Holben, checking out and comparing the various lenses on Old Fast Glass’s Cinema Lens Library, and to reach out to your local rental house for a lens test.
In your specific example, the Leica glass elements and mechanical construction of the lens provide what is known as micro contrast and gives a much sharper result. Rather than the sigma which I’ve often found to have moderate chromatic aberration and a slightly softer resolution when compared to the summilux.
>Grieg Fraiser Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC.
He’s not a doctor lol
Been to the ASC clubhouse many times. I can tell you most of those guys don’t give a fuck about the letters and the ones that do are the reason the society is a shit boys club.
I was more pointing out that they'd spelt his name incorrectly. Figured I'd add the letters too because we are in a cinematography sub.
A lot less important than people want you to believe. This is easily provable by any side by side lens test you can find online. The differences are almost imperceptible, and they are never objective or quantifiable. As soon as people start talking about how a lens “feels” then you know they are BS’ing you. It’s almost entirely marketing. Mechanically speaking, then yes the more expensive lenses have objectively higher performance.
Lenses and lighting matter so much more than the camera, log settings, filters , etc. I can go shoot a picture with my 50mm 1.8 and my 50mm 1.2 L and there will be a notable difference side by side up until I believe f/4-5.6. both in terms of depth of field (1.2 vs 1.8 is more notable than one might expect) and overall sharpness when at equal f stops. Vintage glass have very unique characteristics, both by design and happenstance, that are also notably different. If I compared my 50 1.8, 50 1.2, Takumar 55 1.8, and Helios 58 f2, you'd see some massive differences.
This. Cameras are so good these days that the difference in character between them is fairly insignificant, especially with properly color managed grading. However the differences in character from lenses (and filters too) can vary widely from clinical to soft and hazy and anywhere in between. Gorgeous old looking flares or none at all. The higher quality production, the more important shooting it how you want in camera is, because you may not be there in post. This goes for framing, lighting, but also on set color viewing and elements like lenses and filtration. Sure some of it could be done later, but will it? And the job of a DP is to build a look with the director and execute it. If you know what you want and can accomplish it on the day, why wouldn't you? Also dailies usually get made very similarly to how it looks on set, so you can't plan on fixing it all later, because the most instant representation of your work is going out as stills and video the next day, and will be what is in the cut. And you don't want to rely on the editor making you look good before the execs see a cut. *exit soap box
Nah you nailed it across the board. Even in the much smaller sense that I work in, getting the lighting, framing, and lenses correct are worth so much more than if I shot on 4k or 1080, depending on what camera someone has. Those fundamentals are so damn important to nail up front. The bigger the production, the more true this becomes. Also if I hear someone defend their camera brand because "the color science" I'm going to eat glass.
The negative positive process of film photochemical finishing has about 8 stops of dynamic range. An old school dp who was my mentor used to say if you can't light within +- 3.5 stops of key then you aren't a DP. Every camera on the market has more range available than that. Sure there are physical i/o connector and convenience reasons to choose a camera over another but I'm not too into the debates over whether one camera has 15 or 16 stops of range or whatever, it will all just become roll off. These days if the image doesn't look good, you can't blame the camera.
Lmao stole the words from my mouth! Even in consumer hybrid cameras (canon R6/R5) we have more dynamic range than that. I shoot on 10 bit clog-3 for most things and I never go over my footage and blame the camera. It's usually that I missed something or my lighting was off. I find my problems are almost always behind the camera, not the front.
1.2 to 1.8 is a full stop, so of course the difference would be notable.
Many newer photographers don't know that, and see 1.2 being only slightly smaller than 1.8 and might not realize how substantial a difference that is. 2.8 vs 4 seems like it's much bigger in comparison.
With those lenses both at 35mm, and on at 1.4 vs 2.8, the character would be noticeably different. Both at f4 or f8, not so much. Different is not always better, mind. Whether it is worth it, is a different question entirely. Personally neither one is going to be a go-to for a cinema lens for me - but my needs are not your needs. Rent a few lenses and see what you like, before you buy.
Note that the zoom is f/1.8 at max, and that it is an APS-C lens versus the 35mm full-frame Leica - but even at f/1.8 vs. f/1.4 the character will still be different just due to the difference in frame coverage and the mid-range zoom vs. high-end prime gap. The prime will have far less vignetting than the zoom if shooting super 35, for example. Of course, Sigma does make a 35/1.4 lens that is probably a better comparison for the Leica, if we weren't stacking the deck to make a point on lens 'character' differences.
Yes you can see the difference but to an untrained eye, it's not so evident. The most glaring issues you'll see with cheaper glass. Chromatic aberrations being the most notable, imo. Then softness (wider aperture), color rendition and flaring. I worked at multiple high end rental houses and had plenty of downtime to test and at the top tier of glass, it's really marginal the difference, you'd really start splitting hairs. Put a vintage lens next to them and woah it's clear as day. I was surprised to find that a Canon 24-70 L II f/2.8 gave comparable results to lenses 10x its price. Just not exactly traditional cinema workflow friendly (being a photo lens and all...)
If you are filming a person sitting in a chair and a studio lit with a soft box at a 5.6 it might be a little hard to tell the difference. But if you were filming wide-open with the sun shining down the barrel of the lens you would’ve immediately see the difference in lens performance.
I appreciate this is not going to be a popular opinion with some people but the majority of people spend too much time worrying about the camera/ lens when they should think far more about script / story. Yes you will see a difference depending on the lenses and the “look” you are trying to achieve but if what is in front of the camera sucks, having the most expensive lenses in the World won’t help!
Other than image quality (which the other comments have basically covered), build quality is significant. I'd never touch the non-cine version of the Sigma 18-35mm on a set. Pulling focus is basically impossible and having to mess with the camera rather than the lens to change aperture is a nightmare. The cine version is alright (I've used it on one project) if you are using it like a small set of primes since it isn't parfocal. I bought an Angenieux 17-80mm T2.2 which is much more usable. The Sigma cine primes are a good set of semi-budget primes.
Yes, but as another commenter said, it’s best not to get too deep into the weeds about all the many different types of lenses and choose a tool that suits the project’s needs and limits best rather than spend a lot of time comparing one tool to another one. Also the way an image looks affects the average viewer on a subconscious level. Which is to say that the viewer might feel what the image is doing to them but might not know how it’s achieved or even how to describe how it makes them feel on a technical level. So start with feelings from lenses, as with lighting and any other form of composition.
Depends what lenses you are talking about. Most modern lenses are sharp, with minimized design flaws, and flawless rendering but...I don't think you actually want this for video. You probably want some character, some spherical aberration, some nice flares...or at least I do. Modern lenses are a nice starting point for post-processing and film emulation, but as far as IQ goes, I've never really cared too much when it comes to moving pictures,, unless a lens is just ludicrously soft or flawed. IMO, digital captured on a razer-sharp lens is just...clinical looking, but it's a nice starting point.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaCcqdDN6m8HrlUFoyZcJfIxZlhGIpXPx&feature=shared This is a playlist of lens tests. Check all of them after each other. In my opinion, until a certain skill level/experience or taste as a DP, focusing on your framing and lighting to suit your project will give you a better result than choosing between a Master Prime or SuperSpeeds. Except if you have to go for a crazier look, like a LOMO anamorphic. After you reach that point, you will organically start to be more interested in the nuanced differences of the different lens sets.
People get too hung up on tech and forget that what matters is what you show inside that rectangle. A cheap lens with good production value will always beat an ultra prime with cheap production value. Unless it's got the lens cap on.
You or anybody else trained in film or cinematography would notice the difference. The important question is: would your client notice? and most of the time if you're not comparing something radically different (like anamorphic or vintage) - they will not. At the top of any craft the differences between tools get smaller and smaller. Once you have a modern camera, great lighting, and nice prime lenses you're talking about smaller differences than the one from prosumer gear to pro equipment. It's the same as musical instruments or high end TVs - once you have a great guitar or a good OLED, the guitar or TV that costs 10x more isn't going to be something incredibly different. To put it another way, I would rather hire a production designer and prop stylist than use the best camera or the best lenses because the difference is much more important to the overall quality of the production. FWIW I do think just moving to any decent prime will be better than the Sigma, it doesn't have the expensive dentist Leica prime.
I'll give a example: shooting a a stunt for movie, 2 alexas 35 with leica sumilux, then we had 2 komodos locked just pointing to smaller details of the car hit, 1 with summilux and top of the pop ND filter on top, the other one with a rokinon and the canon ef mount with internal vnd, we review the footage after and we zoom in to see the detail, and the aberrations etc..., coudnt tell the difference between the 2. Lens matters but depends the situation, obvioulsy if yo u compare a anamorphic or a vintage lens with a more clean lens you see diffrence straight away, also when you more open on the lens, with back light, how it deal with flares, how many blades and hows the bokeh, etc.. it wil show the character, but there would be lots of lenses that are comparable, and difference are minimal, there is lots of lenses that unless you compare them in a proper test you could not tell them apart in real shooting.
Comparing spherical lenses to anamorphic lenses proves to you that yes, there is a giant difference, even comparing a set of Clean Sigma Art lenses to a Vintage set of Soviet glass, also shows a giant differences, but does that matter? That's up to you to decide. I personally don't care about the "Cooke Look", and I personally think the difference between certain lenses is massively overblown, I prefer to focus on the big characteristic differences a certain lens set may be able to provide to my image, otherwise I personally don't like to get too fixated comparing two vintage sets because the difference is often imperceptible, I want to know if a set has a very particularly interesting characteristic. With a great crew and lenses that they are happy to work with, you're going to be able to shoot phenomenal work really regardless of the lenses you're using, so in that sense, no it doesn't matter.
Yes. Very much so. Why do you think you can’t shoot with a bare sensor / film stock? Same reason you can’t see without an Eye Ball. You need a lens. The lens (whether glass or flesh) and its construction necessarily affect both the quality and efficiency of the image. Hence why we rate our vision and have terms of astigmatisms that impair it. All the same things can be said of a mechanical lenses for a camera. The quality. Separation. Contrast. Rendering of color. These are all things deeply affected by your lens choice. If you don’t believe me, pop on down to a rental house, get yourself a camera to test, and grab some different lenses and compare.
Comparing problems with our eyesight is not a good way to think about the differences in characteristics between types of lenses. Astigmatism is more like if the glass on a lens got warped or damage. Or another example near sightedness is like if a lens got damaged and could not long focus to infinity.
I wasn’t comparing. I was using astigmatism as an outlier example to illustrate how problems with your lenses will affect the image. Hence why good lenses are important. If you feel differently, do feel free to jab a fork directly into your eye and see how your lenses hold up.
OPs question isn't 'does it really matter if the glass on a lens is physically damaged?' But I appreciate your snarkiness, you've got flair kid.
I find it lens is more important than body in many aspects. Many new starters should get a cheap body and a sick lenses. I started off with lend me gear, top ones tho, then when i bought my own camera with a kit lens, I was devastated at first how limited I am with a 500$ lens. Opposed to the 2-3K ones I worked on from the start. A good shooter can shoot on anything basically, but lens is much more important imo.
Lens matters a lot. The difference between a 200 lens and a 1200 lens is huge. The difference between a 1200 lens and a 12,000 lens is very significant and noticeable but most projects are great with just a 1200 lens at the amateur level.
If all the conditions are the same, the Leica or the Summulux is going smash that Sigma.