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nifty fifty comparison

Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Good initiative and interesting comparison! I have quiet a few 50 lenses, so I will join in now and then, if you don't mind.

The OM 50mm 1.8 is a great lens and on a digital camera even a whole lot better then the far more expensive OM 50mm 1.4. Low aperture isn't always the wholy grail.
Very underrated lens, in my opinion, and that's why it is cheap. And there are so many of them, so nobody wants them, silly isn't it?

This is a picture I took, on the same weekend I did my corny shallow doff series, with the OM 50mm 1.8, of my father in law.
He is very old and has altsheimer, a heavy load. He was the lock-keeper of the biggest lock in Holland wich generated a lot of free fish :)

Kind regards, Michiel

 

kevinparis

Member
I have 50's from olympus, nikon, pentax and contax.... the contax is the one that was OMG to me... and only 100 euros. It was the first lens i shot that seemed to have a 3D quality

nikkor 50/1.4
Contax 50/1.7
Pentax 50/1.4 ( i know focus isn't spot on on this ...low light, wide open and focussing are awkward bed partners ... but it does show the bokeh)

Look forward to seeing more pics and hearing opinions. I tried ou a nikkor 1.2 in a shop recently which looks like it could have been fun... but dealer wouldn't split it from the Nikon F it was attached to

K
 
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Jonas

Active member
Hi

people have said that there is little comparison between adapter mounted lenses. Well, since I have a few I thought I'd start writing.

http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2009/06/comparing-legacy-35mm-adapted-fifties.html

more lenses and adaptor comparisons later :)
I'm always interested in lens comparisons. So, I read with interest. A couple of comments:

* It would be good to know exactly what lenses (and versions of them) that were involved in the comparison. We know there were several OM50/1.8 versions for example. If

* I don't think the old FD 50/1.8 is the same lens optically as the nifty-fifty

* Why not develop a sort of model for the testing making it possible for people to ad their lenses if they want to (some seem eager to do so already posting samples ;) )? If done I think flare and bokeh are as interesting as contrast and resolution. They are hard to compare at different set-ups but one could try...

Cheers, /Jonas
 

apicius9

New member
I have been procrastinating with testing out some of my c-mount lenses and a few others (including a few 50s), and one of the reasons is that I'm not sure what would be the most efficient method to do this systematically. I don't want to be too scientific (I do that enough in my day job...), but also would want to follow some kind of standard. So any ideas about a 'protocol' or at least an idea what kind of pictures are most helpful would really be great. I'd be happy to hear your ideas about that.

Stefan
 

pellicle

New member
Hi

I don't know how to pick one from another, but if it helps:

serial numbers
Canon Y816 (and its a new FD lens)
Olympus 3418677

both are quite recent looking examples (he says about old lenses:confused: )

about the EF 50 and the FD 50 I think you are right (my wrong assumption)

Canon website says:

Marketed June 1979
Lens Construction (group) 4
Lens Construction (element) 6
No. of Diaphragm Blades 5
Minimum Aperture 22

Marketed March 1987
Lens Construction (group) 5
Lens Construction (element) 6
No. of Diaphragm Blades 5
Minimum Aperture 22
number of lens elements has remained the same but grouping is at least reported differently.

* Why not develop a sort of model for the testing making it possible for people to ad their lenses if they want to (some seem eager to do so already posting samples ;) )? If done I think flare and bokeh are as interesting as contrast and resolution. They are hard to compare at different set-ups but one could try...
I think this is a good idea and I'd like to work with it. There are some issues which need to be sorted out however.

I think natural targets are superior to artificial ones (and we can all get MTF curves if we wish for them) but to make comparisons straight forward I think that the scene and lighting needs to be the same for each lens. This kind of drags us back to studio setups and models.

Now either the lenses all need to come to the testing location (to use the same test setup) or the test setup needs to be replicated at each location.

I see quite a few obstacles in that path.

Once they are solved then RAW could be sent (or standard crops from TIFF generated using dcraw) and I'd be more than happy to work out how to host something such as the large format scanner comparison (here).
 
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