35 1.7 or 40 1.4

[reeves2nd]

I am in doubt !
What to do, or get the 35mm 1.7 or the 40mm 1.4.

I know the 35mm because i owned it before (got stolen in barcelona), but i don't know the 40mm.
i now own a bessa L but i am going to buy a r2 or 3, and that all depends on wich lens is the best of the two.

what to do? what to do!

in short.....HELP
thanks
reeves

 

[Richard Black]

My suggestion is decide first which camera, the R2 or R3, you intend to buy. The R3, as you know, has lines for the 40mm, and the R2 has the lines for the 35mm. If you wear glasses I have heard that you might have problems with the R3 framelines, heard mind you, I don't have either camera. You know what you had, were you pleased with the results? You can use the 40mm on the R2 using the 35mm framelines. You know all this, just decide which camera you want and the decision is made. I want the gray R2A because I like the 35mm framelines. Both are beauties, aren't they?

 

[rover]

From images that I have seen from the two, and I did own the 35, I prefer the 35. I also liked the 35 Ultron as it is a bit larger and ergomicly much easier to use for me than a stubby lens. I have never seen a bad image from the 35 Ultron, I think it is an excellent lens.

I agree to with Richard, if you don't plan on using a lens longer than 50mm much then the R2 or R2a may be a better choice overall and therefore a 35mm lens would be a better match.

 

[dcsang]

I personally adore the 40mm.

I have the R3A and have grown accustomed to thinking of the 40mm as a "normal" lens (probably from using the Canonet).

I'd be willing to try a 50mm but I don't know if it will make me "think" differently when it comes to shooting.

I've tried the 35mm (albeit the color skopar) and while it's "ok" - it just didn't do it for me 🙂

Cheers
Dave

 

[Huck Finn]

As Rover says, you have a clear choice here in size. The 40 Nokton is marvellously compact for those who prefer that & the 35 Ultron is bigger for those who find those ergonomics helpful.

In the area of speed, the Nokton has a clear advantage. Popular Photography found it to be f/1.4 at its largest aperture, but found the 35 to be f/1.8. Since f/stop numbers become larger as the numbers get smaller the 0.4 difference is more like 0.8 of a stop rather than 2/3.

IMO, 40 & 28 make a nice combination.

Cheers,
Huck

 

[Fred]

From memory when I was looking at the R2a vs R3a, with the 35 Ultron F1.7 and the 40 F1.4. The 40 was a fair bit smaller and lighter than the 35 but did not feel quite as well made in the operation of the focus ring or the aperture clicks. It might be because the lenses were demo only.

I gather they a both good performers.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Um -- f/1.8 to f/1.4 IS 2/3 stop as conventionally expressed (f/1.4, f/1.6, f/1.8, f/2) whereas f/1.7 is generally reckoned to be the half stop between f/1.4 and f/2.

Of course you can start worrying about the second and third places of decimals (f/1.41414, etc.) but the difference between f/1.7 and f/1.8 is 1/6 stop which is pretty trivial and inside most people's margins of experimental error.

Personally I'd go for the 35 but that's because I've been using 35s for 25+ years and the only camera I have with a 40mm frameline is an R3A, whereas all the others have 35 and 50.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[reeves2nd]

Thanks for replying, this for one a reason to be in a forum 🙂
I think i'm going for tthe r2a with the 15mm, 21mm and ... the 35mm.
like i said i used to own one and i was very pleased with it.
The size and wieght appealed to me from the 40mm(i do a lot of mountain hiking), but i read a lot of bad things about the framelines.
Indeed it's a luxery choise isn't it.

 

[Huck Finn]

Um -- f/1.8 to f/1.4 IS 2/3 stop as conventionally expressed (f/1.4, f/1.6, f/1.8, f/2) whereas f/1.7 is generally reckoned to be the half stop between f/1.4 and f/2.

Of course you can start worrying about the second and third places of decimals (f/1.41414, etc.) but the difference between f/1.7 and f/1.8 is 1/6 stop which is pretty trivial and inside most people's margins of experimental error.

Cheers,

Roger

Roger, do the math. Regardless of how it is conventionally expressed, in simple terms the "half" stop between f/1.4 & f/1.7 is larger than the "half" between f/1.7 & f/2. Because f/stops are ratios, this is just a mathematical fact. The increments are not equal. Combine this with the fact that the Ultron actually has a maximum aperture of f/1.8 according to Pop Photo . . .

My point was simply that the difference in speed between the Nokton & the Ultron is greater than it may first appear - closer to a full stop than the half stop difference with which they are labeled.

Cheers,
Huck

 

[jlw]

Oh, crikey, you mean I'm going to have to do math at this time of night? Remember that the f/stop ratios are just a convenient way of expressing what really counts: the area of the aperture through which light rays pass. The larger the area, the more light rays can get through, and their effect on exposure is based on simple proportions.

The f/stop ratio tells you the diameter of the aperture, based on the focal length, and from there you use good old pi x radius ^ 2 to compute the actual area.

Assuming that the 40mm's actual focal length is 40mm, and that its maximum aperture is really f/1.4 (both potentially risky assumptions, but as good a starting point as any) then its aperture area is 641.14 sq mm.

Now if we assume that the 35's maximum aperture is really f/1.8, as Huck says Pop reported, then its aperture area is 296.95 sq mm. That means the 40's area is 2.16x as large as the 35's -- confirming, as Huck notes, that the speed difference between the two is more than a full stop (which would be exactly 2x.)

On the other hand, if we assume that the 35's maximum aperture is its marked value of 1.7, then its area is 332.91 sq mm. That means the 40's area is only 1.93x larger, or slightly less than a full stop.

All that simply from tweaking our assumptions by 1/10th! And if you tweaked any of the other assumptions (such as marked vs. actual focal length) by the same amounts, you'd get similar variation in the results.

This is why I don't usually worry about tiny variations in aperture values.


[Yes, I know that the next full stop after f/1.4 is supposed to be f/2... and it is, if you carry everything out to enough decimal places -- the aperture numbers are actually based on powers of 2, but we round them off because it would take up a lot of space to engrave "f/1.414214" on a lens barrel.]

So it looks, based on areas, as if Huck's right in saying that the difference between the two lenses is closer to a full stop than it might look. On the other hand, we haven't accounted for transmittance yet... and at this time of night, we ain't GOING to!

 

[tom_f77]

I have both lenses, and they are both very nice. I tend not to use the 40 though, because I have some 50s I like a lot, and like rover I really like the 35/1.7.

I'm about to post the 40/1.4 (and R3a) for sale here...

Have fun choosing; they're both nice lenses.

Tom