If you don't have legacy lenses, don't bother

*isteve · Dec 6, 2006

There are one or two good manual lenses (A 50 F1.2?) but for the most part computer design aids and improved glass composition, moulding techniques and coatings have led to significant improvements in lens design in the last 10 years.

Most of the autofocus FA* and FA LTD lenses are very good, as are some of the later A series manual focus primes, but with one or two exceptions most of the attraction for old M glass is just folklore.

With digital-specific coatings I would expect the new DA* lenses to be excellent.

sej1001 said:
For the most part. There may be a few killer lenses, but I spent
quite a bit of time today shooting in a pawnshop. I picked up a
couple of cheaper primes for the heck of it, but I'm not sure it
was really worth it.

I checked out a 28mm f2.8, 50mm f2.0, 100mm 2.8 and a few others
that were faster. None of them are as sharp as my digital zooms.
Even the kit lens is sharper. The camera confirms your focus on the
manual lenses, but is not accurate, you have to eyeball it.
Metering is actually pretty good even with flash. The killer is
color. The color out of all of the MF lenses, pailed in comparison
to my digital lenses. The 50-200 blew the 100mm 2.8 away, sharpness
included. Bokke was a little better on the 2.8, but had more shadow
grain. In fact the kit lens and 50-200 blew them all away. And I
mean really! The color out of the MF lenses was not as good as my
P&S pocket camera.

I don't know if I was more disappointed with the legacy lenses or
impressed with the newer lenses. I ended up getting a 50mm 2.0 lens
for $30 because of the extreme ability to limit depth. I shot a
lens on a glass counter and the lens top was sharp, the counter was
unrecognizable..completely OOF. I liked that. Also, a 28mm that
could make really close shots for macros.

Bottom line. If you have legacy lenses that are extremely good I'm
sure they will work well. Even if so, look at the AF digital
lenses. They're that much better on the DSLR's, IMO.

sej

--
Steve
Measurebating makes you short sighted.
http://www.pbase.com/steve_jacob

fwcetus · Dec 6, 2006

JensR said:
JensR said:

Stick with primes from Pentax (going by Asahi Optical
Co. for the really old days) and you can't really go wrong.

Click to expand...

Just for the record, some old third party lenses really are great.
I won't say which, but I have some

Absolutely !!! Some of the older gems with the names "Vivitar Series 1" or "Tokina AT-X" on them are truly superb. Furthermore, we Pentaxers are so very lucky to have the opportunity to use such vintage glass on modern DSLR's. Long live the K-mount !!!

--
Fred

K1000Photographer · Dec 6, 2006

The 50/2 has been called the 50mm body cap. It is awesome stopped down but gets soft and lacks serious contrast wider than f4. You need to get a hold of a 50/1.4 or 50/1.7.

The A28/2.8 is pretty good. The FA28 will be better and the M28/2.8 not quite as good.

The DA50-200 is good but I found it to be no better than my old $10 Tokina 80-200/4.

I really have not liked the kit lens. It is sharp but the contrast is a bit too punchy and the bokeh is rough. My A28/2.8 is a little more sharp but is considerably better in all other areas.

DrugaRunda · Dec 7, 2006

and this is how folklore is being made by Sinnettc

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=21129656

with a M42 Vivitar 400mm f5.6, for easy reference...

--
a billion of someting is awful lot of anything

JensR · Dec 7, 2006

MR The Guy said:
Would you buy a '68 Camaro today?

Two!

MR The Guy said:
Also, photo sites obviously
'showcase' 'best-case' results and are in tiny 8-bit jpegs. The
older the lens, the greater potential there is that the results are
skewed favourably as there is a larger pool of samples to
selectively post.

Umm, I think accusing photo sites of selective "presentation" is not correct. If there is a bias, then to push new technology lenses, not old.

MR The Guy said:
Quick-Shift focus, optimized for APS-C. $100 dollars (for example)
on an old FF-capable lens is $100 that can't be spent on the latest
gear and is an absolute waste.

I welcome anyone to share your opinion. Makes getting fine old glass all the easier for those who appreciate a metal barrel 135/2.0 with nice bokeh that doesn't cost an arm and a leg or one kidney....

MR The Guy said:
I don't doubt you can get great photos with old lenses, but there's
a reason Pentax stops making them, constantly releases newer
versions and spends money on R&D.

Of course. And if you visit my page you can find, besides some decents shots, some terrible test results of old lenses. And the potential for failure reaches another level if you use (direct) flash. Even the acclaimed Pentax FA primes can then suffer from image degradation that makes me get out my Sigma 18-125 digitally optimized lazy-zoom.

"Digitally optimized" is not a marketing ploy, but to forget all the great glass out there is still not right. For me. Other people have different wants/needs. Two sides to this story. Horses for courses. Your mileage may vary. Jedem Tierchen sein Plaesierchen.

Cheers
Jens

--

'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
http://www.jensroesner.de/
--=! Condemning proprietary batteries since 1976 !=--

the_snark · Dec 7, 2006

You guys have really confused me. I want a fast 50mm or so lens for portraits, and to see what some of these lenses that everyone is talking about can do (within my limited ability). I thought one of the old 50mm or 55mm super takumars would be a cheap way to do this. But the later coatings are better, "A" lenses let me use all the modes, etc etc etc. This is pushing me to spend more money. I am still leaning towards getting an old cheap lens first, but if the performance is just a shadow of what the newer lenses can do, that may not be the best idea. So many contradicting opinions... I'll just have to take the leap for myself and see what I think.

But keep the opinions coming anyway!

--
K100D + Sigma 17-70mm

James O'Neill · Dec 7, 2006

*isteve said:
With digital-specific coatings I would expect the new DA* lenses to
be excellent.

That's a new one on me... Doesn't the coating do the same for digital and film ? Confused.

*isteve · Dec 7, 2006

James O'Neill said:
*isteve said:

With digital-specific coatings I would expect the new DA* lenses to
be excellent.

Click to expand...

That's a new one on me... Doesn't the coating do the same for
digital and film ? Confused.

Sensors are more reflective causing internal flare and more prone to CA and other non-film like attributes. Digital specific coatings can help a lot in this case.
Even LTDs have CA, sadly.
--
Steve
Measurebating makes you short sighted.
http://www.pbase.com/steve_jacob

*isteve · Dec 7, 2006

Very nice. Wonder how the 50-200 would have done?
--
Steve
Measurebating makes you short sighted.
http://www.pbase.com/steve_jacob

James O'Neill · Dec 7, 2006

*isteve said:
James O'Neill said:

*isteve said:

With digital-specific coatings I would expect the new DA* lenses to
be excellent.

Click to expand...

That's a new one on me... Doesn't the coating do the same for
digital and film ? Confused.

Click to expand...

Sensors are more reflective causing internal flare and more prone
to CA and other non-film like attributes. Digital specific coatings
can help a lot in this case.

You mean things like coating rear lens elements rather than changing the chemical used to do the coating ?

I thought CA was a matter of lens element design - colours coming to a focus in different places, and that was something a coating could help ...
I'm still confused.

Chris Brace · Dec 7, 2006

If you want sharp contrasty images, then i tend to agree that modern lenses will often be better. That's not always a prime concern though. For portraits, for example, I think an older lens is often more flattering, especially a fast one.

The pictorial qualities of a lens do not end with sharpness and contrast, i really like my old lenses, even if they are succeptable to flare occasionally (often a cause of very low contrast).

I just got an F 50mm f1.7, it's my favourite lens (this month!) and the pics look great to my eye.
Chris
--
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~enscjb/pics/index.php?list=1&page=1

JensR · Dec 7, 2006

Hi Snark!

the_snark said:
You guys have really confused me.

That is the risk of trying to see both sides of the story.

the_snark said:
I'll just have to take the leap for myself and see what I think.

You might be interested in this little test by me. Although it focuses on bokeh (rendering of out-of-focus areas), you can see a bit of the different characteristics of various 50ish lenses.
http://www.jr-worldwi.de/photo/bokeh.html

Cheers
Jens

--

'Well, 'Zooming with your feet' is usually a stupid thing as zoom rings are designed for hands.' (Me, 2006)
http://www.jensroesner.de/
--=! Condemning proprietary batteries since 1976 !=--

fwcetus · Dec 7, 2006

MR The Guy said:
END TIRADE.

--
Fred

fwcetus · Dec 7, 2006

K1000Photographer said:
The A28/2.8 is pretty good. The FA28 will be better and the M28/2.8
not quite as good.

Actually, I would even say that the A 28/2.8, while being a "OK" lens, is still perhaps the weakest of the Pentax 28's. I certainly wouldn't consider it as representative of typical Pentax primes.

--
Fred

sej1001 · Dec 7, 2006

I have one I picked up today to try to compare. Almost all of the other lenses I looked at were pentax A lenses. One thing I have found agrees with another post here. The coatings make a big difference. A lot of the lenses I tested didn't have multcoatings. The ones that did had better color, but still not as good as my digital lenses. The 1.7 I would put pretty close to the kit lens. Widest aperture the 50 is a little sharper then the kit lens wide ap. When stopped down they are almost dead even. But, without split contrast screens, just about anything I can gain might be lost in focus consistency.

I love the old lenses. I am having a good time playing with them. But, the point is that the newer lenses are under rated in comparison.

sej

*isteve · Dec 7, 2006

James O'Neill said:
*isteve said:

James O'Neill said:

*isteve said:

With digital-specific coatings I would expect the new DA* lenses to
be excellent.

Click to expand...

That's a new one on me... Doesn't the coating do the same for
digital and film ? Confused.

Click to expand...

Sensors are more reflective causing internal flare and more prone
to CA and other non-film like attributes. Digital specific coatings
can help a lot in this case.

Click to expand...

You mean things like coating rear lens elements rather than
changing the chemical used to do the coating ?

Definately coating the rear of the lens elements is key, but I gather they are always refining coatings too, in terms of the number of coatings applied and the span of wavelengths they work for. Not sure what effect it has on CA but it does reduce contrast falloff.

James O'Neill said:
I thought CA was a matter of lens element design - colours coming
to a focus in different places, and that was something a coating
could help ...

You described longitudinal CA (which was present on film too) and then there is lateral CA which is caused by the image magnification being slightly different for different wavelengths creating a fringe round backlit objects (purple fringing) which is more visible on digital sensors because it gets magnified by the microlenses.

Both can be corrected by designing apochromatic lens elements and correcting lens groups and the chemical composition of the glass is key. But to produce such lenses reliably and for acceptable cost has only been possible with the help from computer modelling.

I understood that the coatings help to reduce the visibility of fringing somehow but could be wrong.

James O'Neill said:
I'm still confused.

I think the main point about lenses being designed for digital is that they exploit the smaller image circle allowing smaller elements needing less correction, and have changes to the rear element design to reduce the accuteness of light angles at the sensor. That plus rear coatings should allow a digital - designed lens to work slightly better with a CCD than an old film lens - all else being equal.

Of course there are some good old primes out there that work great under most corcumstances, but its notable that not many people buy legacy zooms.

Newer zooms have better IQ than most give them credit for, even though I'm not a fan of the kit lens - but then look at the price.

--
Steve
Measurebating makes you short sighted.
http://www.pbase.com/steve_jacob

the_snark · Dec 7, 2006

JensR said:
You might be interested in this little test by me. Although it
focuses on bokeh (rendering of out-of-focus areas), you can see a
bit of the different characteristics of various 50ish lenses.
http://www.jr-worldwi.de/photo/bokeh.html

Very interesting thanks Jens. Quite a difference in the bokeh there. I am curious about the differences in colour/saturation. e.g. the SMC Takumar 50mm/1.4 is shot very yellow, while the SMC Takumar 55mm/1.8 and 2.0 are more grey looking. Is the difference in lenses (or coatings, though these are all SMC) enough to cause such a difference? Was the lighting the same? Or is there some other cause?

--
K100D + Sigma 17-70mm

Dana G · Dec 7, 2006

If you need a good portrait lens, it a lot easier to find one of the 50/1.4 manual focus lenses than to find a new FA 50/1.4. They have a tendency to sell out before they get on the shelves!

--

'We have met the enemy, and he is us!' - Walt Kelley

Dana G · Dec 7, 2006

sej1001 said:
But, manual focusing that on without a split diopter would
be tricky!

sej

So buy a Katz Eye screen, it's got a split image and a microprisim collar.

--

'We have met the enemy, and he is us!' - Walt Kelley

Dana G · Dec 7, 2006

TMalford said:
Poor fellow knows not of which he speaks.

That's fine, more left for me!!

--

'We have met the enemy, and he is us!' - Walt Kelley

If you don't have legacy lenses, don't bother

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