/p/ - Photography » Thread #4370054

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Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 14:21:19 No.4370054 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>4370190 >>4370220 >>4370272 >>4370274 >>4371376 >>4371566 >>4371592 >>4371739

Any of you guys ever compared modern Canon EOS/Nikon lenses with old FD/Zeiss/Pentax/Olympus lenses on film?
Is there a quality bump between let's say EOS 50mm f/1.4 and the Zuiko 50mm /f1.4 or the corresponding Zeiss or Pentax or whatever?
Do the modern cameras with modern lenses provide better resolution/contrast/colours/sharpness over the 30/40/50 year old lenses?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 19:01:39 No.4370177 Report

Quoted By:

yes
new lenses are wildly superior to anything "vintage" even on film

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 19:12:49 No.4370190 Report

Quoted By: >>4370278

>>4370054
>film
>quality
>grainy mush
>quality
lol

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 19:44:43 No.4370220 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370054
In terms of resolution, yes. Image resolution is a result of lens and film resolution. Good lens resolution + good film resolution = higher picture resolution. Modern lenses + manufacturing are generally capable of higher resolution than old lenses that have been subject to 40+ years of use and abuse.

In terms of "character" or whatever you want to call it that's up to you, but remember that expensive placebos work better.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO A7R09429F100AgfaUltra100.jpg, 2MiB, 2048x1367

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:13:24 No.4370272 Report

Quoted By: >>4370283 >>4371163

>>4370054
The way you've asked your question is stupid.
As a generalisation, newer lenses are better in all ways, even on film, and yes, to the extent that it's visible.
At the same time, lots of simple older lenses, even approaching 70-80 years old, will produce flawless results when used with care and in consideration of their limitations.
To your particular example though, of the EF 50/1.4 vs older 50/1.4's; no because that lense is a budget design which actually pre-dates digital cameras anyway and was not class leading when it launched.
Even the EF 50/1.2L is worse than the equivalent FD 50L because they took away the floating element to facilitate the AF.
But then you take an actually modern lense, like a Sigma Art, or the later stabilised L teles, or the Zeiss Milvii and you really can see a difference.
The main thing to keep in mind is design date, rather than manufacture date.
Pic related is a simple example; it's a Tamron 150-600 G1. Even in a snapshit on absolutely fucked old film, you can see the difference a modern lense makes. Contrast in the shadows against backlight, clear delineation of the focus plane, very little CA/purple fringing, and of course image stabilisation making the shot possible in the first place (handheld, 400mm, slow zoom aperture and iso 50).

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:21:55 No.4370274 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370054
Depends entirely on the lenses being compared. Don't rank categories or brands of lenses, compare the actual specific lenses.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:24:15 No.4370278 Report

Quoted By: >>4370281 >>4371393 >>4371728

>>4370190
there are actually people on /p/ right now who think left is better than right

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:29:01 No.4370281 Report

Quoted By: >>4370288

>>4370278
>nikon coolscan vs a7rii
>film loses!
cool but i see in another thread that if you scan consumer 35mm film with a 400mp camera it looks significantly better
35mm film = 400m
ppl really abandoned a whole medium because they couldnt get it on the internet at max IQ

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO A7R02694FM3aPanF28MM.jpg, 890KiB, 1364x2048

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:39:17 No.4370283 Report

Quoted By: >>4371566

>>4370272
And an example of the reverse.
Nikon 28/2.8 ais. released 1981 vs the tamron in 2013.
This lense is flawlessly sharp, even wide open, close up or at distance, against the light or not.
Nikon didn't release a better 28mm until 2012, and even then it's only real benefits are the f1.8 aperture and autofocus. It is bigger, heavier, distorts more, isn't practically any sharper.
You do have to hold the older lense still and focus it yourself, but if you do that right you've got nothing to worry about.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:45:50 No.4370288 Report

Quoted By: >>4370290 >>4370293

>>4370281
>nophoto
'nuff said

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:48:53 No.4370290 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370288
35mm film is 400mp sorry digislug

go back to your micro four thirds

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 21:52:14 No.4370293 Report

Quoted By: >>4370317

>>4370288
You have to post a photo if you're just going to screech nophoto.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 22:50:29 No.4370317 Report

Quoted By: >>4370318

>>4370293
already did

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Oct 2024 22:56:15 No.4370318 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370317
Which one, sugar baby?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 10:42:13 No.4371163 Report

Quoted By: >>4371269 >>4371516 >>4371529

>>4370272
>Tamron 150-600 G1
But not all lenses are EF film body compatible, right? The G2 Tamrons aren't if I remember correctly.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 14:30:28 No.4371269 Report

Quoted By: >>4371529

>>4371163
Nikon wins againnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 17:34:23 No.4371376 Report

Quoted By: >>4371381

>>4370054
Lot of older lenses we're not particularly well designed. That being said some companies went to Great pains to design their lenses right in an era when shooting technology for retrace designs was in its absolute infancy.

Zeiss, Nikkor and Zuiko come to mind.

Most of Zeiss lenses are well above average compared to other ones offered by other companies. Some real standouts are though the Zeiss 28 mm F 2.0 that has a floating lens element in it one of the first to have it that was a consumer item. Wide angle but doesn't introduce massive amounts of distortion. Has a really really nice color balance especially when I shot it on Kodachrome or Ektar films. I really loved that lens because it gives you that same sort of feeling when you're standing in the landscape taking the photo as it does to look at that photo years later. One that I remember very vividly was taking some photos on boxing day at the beach near my mom's place. It was unusually clear day with the Sun out and I had been down taking pictures of the sunrise out of the ocean one of the few times of the year that can actually see that. The photos I took later in the day of the rough choppy water washing kelp Shore and every time I look at that photo I can still smell the kelp that day.

Nikkor had that massive 300 mm F 2.0. That is an amazing lens. I've owned one for 30 years now after buying one second hand and a military surplus sale where it was in two crates after they took it apart and then never put it back together. I had to spend 500 bucks though because I couldn't reassemble it property and left one lens group backwards installed and wondered why I wasn't getting sharp pictures. I took some pictures of big horn sheep up in the Northern British Columbia Alaska Panhandle border. I waited in the snow for hours underneath the a blind, shivering because I was didn't want to move just hoping that the Sheep would get closer and a couple of them did

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 17:36:55 No.4371381 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371376
Individual ice crystals in the fur over its eyes condensed their were clearly visible. And I still got a great shutter speed even with a teleconverter on it.

Olympus's cameras have been sort of Rich amateur but they did make a few professional ones like the om4 and the om4 titanium. Great cameras but their lack of lenses almost made me discount them. The exception was the 250 mm f2, and the 350 mm f 2.8. I don't own the former anymore as I have a Canon 200 millimeter f 1.8. But the 350 mm is such an amazing lens on par with the 300 F 2.0

I am really looking forward in a few months when I get my house sold and I have spare money, to get a Fujifilm gfx 100s mark ii. With an adapter that should be an amazing piece of glass to use

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 17:45:31 No.4371393 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370278
>there are actually people on /p/ right now who think left is better than right
there are also people irl that think that: bitches that get photographed and don't see every blemish on their skin that they obsess about 24/7 and real life photographers that don't have to smudge them in post.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 20:23:40 No.4371516 Report

Quoted By: >>4371529

>>4371163
Tamron G2s work great on modern EF and RF, but they can unfortunately have issues with older EF bodies. I'm not sure where the line is, I just know my G2 Tamron lenses work great on the 7D and higher, but only one works on the EOS 3.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 20:41:54 No.4371529 Report

Quoted By: >>4371542 >>4371547 >>4371563

>>4371163
>>4371269
>>4371516
Mine is nikon mount, works fine on an F100.

But from what I've seen the canon film bodies lock up when you try to use them, same with those 35 and 45mm stabilised primes, which is a real shame as they'd be great on a film body.
All I can say is this g1 and the sigma ex dg os lenses seem to work just fine on nikon, and sigma arts also work fine on canon everything.

Also kind of annoying because as nice as the f100 is, it's still fuckhueg, and nikon never made a late-model, lightweight prosumer style body equivalent to the canon 50e/30v/33v, so I'm stuck carrying it around to use newer stabilised afs/G lenses.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 21:01:35 No.4371542 Report

Quoted By: >>4371548 >>4372122

>>4371529
>35 and 45mm stabilised primes
you mean the Tamron SP 35mm f/1,8 Di VC USD and the Tamron SP 45mm f/1,8 Di VC USD?
these don't work on film bodies?
fuuuuuck

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 21:08:14 No.4371547 Report

Quoted By: >>4372183

>>4371529
>But from what I've seen the canon film bodies lock up when you try to use them, same with those 35 and 45mm stabilised primes, which is a real shame as they'd be great on a film body.
My 45mm f/1.8 VC is the one that works great on the EOS 3 (may fail on other bodies, haven't tested on anything else). The 70-200 and 90mm macro lock up the camera. With my 35mm f/1.4 I can't control the aperture, but I can still shoot wide open so I do sometimes use it on the EOS 3 for low light.

It's a bummer because they're all great lenses. I still would have bought them, I rarely shoot 35mm. But it would be nice to get to use all of them on the 3. I find it curious that something changed in EF that breaks Tamron's latest reverse engineering on older bodies, but doesn't break Canon/Sigma glass.

>Also kind of annoying because as nice as the f100 is, it's still fuckhueg, and nikon never made a late-model, lightweight prosumer style body equivalent to the canon 50e/30v/33v, so I'm stuck carrying it around to use newer stabilised afs/G lenses.
I almost never use the grip on the EOS 3 for this reason. It's still a big camera, but not too bad without the grip.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 21:10:19 No.4371548 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371542
>you mean the Tamron SP 35mm f/1,8 Di VC USD and the Tamron SP 45mm f/1,8 Di VC USD?
>these don't work on film bodies?
>fuuuuuck
The SP 45mm f/1.8 VC works on my EOS 3. But I can't say whether it works or locks up other Canon EF film bodies. EOS 3 was a later model, so it should work on, say, the Elan 7, 1v, Rebel 2000. But no way to be sure without testing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 21:49:06 No.4371563 Report

Quoted By: >>4371594

>>4371529
F80

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 21:58:05 No.4371566 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370054
>Do the modern cameras with modern lenses provide better resolution/contrast/colours/sharpness over the 30/40/50 year old lenses?
Depends. Usually modern lenses provide much better resolution and general contrast but often are a let down in terms of colour and fine detail contrast, something which is good to great in old lenses.
See them as trade-offs, pick your choice. Sometimes some lenses are great at almost everything and those are the real gems, those happen to be released in every era but you need time to check photos and read to find the names.

>>4370283
>Nikon didn't release a better 28mm until 2012
The 28mm f1.4 D was known to be better than the 2.8 AI-s but very hard to find, released in 1994

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 23:16:10 No.4371592 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370054
>resolution
yes
>contrast
depends
>colours
depends
>sharpness
generally yes

in saying that, most modern lenses trade 'character' for clinical perfection. go for the one that suits your style or what you want to achieve.

What I do laugh about is gear reviewers raving about a vintage leica lens worth $8,000+ yet shit all over $400 reproduction copies that have similar (or better) characteristics and optical quality.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Oct 2024 23:30:27 No.4371594 Report

Quoted By: >>4371636

>>4371563
>F80
Just as big, but cheaper feeling.
Can't say I've seen many around either, maybe more popular in the US.
I mean something like an N55 size, but they're all mostly broken.
Time has really borne out the canon idea of keeping the lense as an entirely separate device though; janky 3rd party lenses aside, it seems like the only thing that kills old eos bodies is the rubber drive belts for the film advance snapping, whereas all the old nikon and pentacks die from af/aperture lever failures.

/\nonymous

/\nonymous Thu 10 Oct 2024 00:53:25 No.4371636 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371594
But most likely used much less, so probably a good buy.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 10 Oct 2024 06:41:37 No.4371728 Report

Quoted By:

>>4370278
left is better

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 10 Oct 2024 07:59:31 No.4371739 Report

Quoted By: >>4372069

>>4370054
if you break image quality down into measurable components like sharpness, color fringing, vignetting, distortion, bokeh, etc... then most new lenses will out perform most old lenses in most catagories.

most ilc film camera bodies, regardless of price, will produce the exact same image if you use the same lens on them, you're only really paying for the mounting system and control features.

digital camera sensors are a WHOLE seperate discussion

however, some old lenses (you will often hear them described as "lengendary" or some other such moniker) will have a particular defect or combination of great qualities and just the right wrong ones to give it something unique and special. For instance the Helios 44 is NOT a good or sharp lens wide open, but under the right conditions, some of which exsist outside the lens and within the composition, can make that lens wonderful

I dont think you'll hear many people describe reflex lenses as good, but if you know how to shoot them they can give you a unique bokeh

So it really depends on what it is that you want to do, but yes, new lenses generally beat old lenses in IQ

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 11 Oct 2024 01:03:05 No.4372069 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371739
>then most new lenses will out perform most old lenses in most catagories.
Nothing against your post, but I hate generalizations. I would have to add "within a class" but even that is not always true. To give an example: some RF lenses improve upon their EF counterparts. Some do not or even lose a little (EF 16-35L IS is much sharper at the far end than RF 14-35L IS; EF 100-400L IS is a little sharper in the middle than RF 100-500L IS, though both are more than good enough). If there's a general rule for EF/RF it's: when was the optical formula last updated? If it's recent, it's probably just as good IQ wise. For the super teles that doesn't even hold because they were incredible from mark I back in the film days.

I realize OP was talking about even older lenses, but there are some great FD and F mount lenses from the 90s.

People should just look for online tests of the lenses they're interested in. There's almost always at least one.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 11 Oct 2024 02:58:15 No.4372122 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371542
I use a 35mm 1.8 Di USD on film, it's amazingly good compared to pre-2000 stuff.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 11 Oct 2024 03:55:39 No.4372183 Report

Quoted By:

>>4371547
Own two SP to EOS adapters

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 11 Oct 2024 04:41:14 No.4372221 Report

Quoted By:

I've heard the pentax FA 50 1.4 is one of the worst fast 50s ever made

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