First Results: Test of Fifteen 50mm Lenses

Thanks for the support, Roland. I really pushed my eyes to the limits each time I used the 0.95 lens wide open. The first few shots of Dana were hand-held and she actually was moving around.

I will think of a good comparison of the 1.1 Nikkor to the 0.95 Canon. Each came with a camera. so I need to shoot one roll for each lens. Both are expensive lenses, and I treat them with care.


Raid
 
The Canon 50mm/1.5 came out better looking than its brother, the Canon 50mm/1.4. For balance, someone at photo.net commented on this conclusion as being due to a poor example of the Canon 50mm/1.4 being used. I am sure that Mark, the owner and user of both Canon 50mm lenses has his own conclusions in the issue.

Raid
 
Roland: The Sonnar design lenses have proven to be excellent lenses for portraits. I like to use the J-3 or Nikon 50/2 as often as possible to take photos of my family. I agree with you that the focusing test showed the Canon 50/1.4 lens to be focused appropriately.

Raid
 
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Another PN member commented today on our findings on the
Canon 50mm/1.4. He also believes like another person already has stated that this lens has a warm color rendition and not cool. Any support for this claim here?

Raid
 
Raid, my opinion on the "coolness" of the 1.4 is based on a side by side comparison with the 1.8 this past summer in full daylight, on a single roll of Kodak 200. I thought that all the 1.4 shots looked a bit blue compared to the 1.8. This may just reflect my bias for warmer lenses.


As to the resolution, I agree with Roland that the portrait test favored the Canon 1.5. I think that the 1.4 is plenty sharp, although second to the 1.8 IMHO. Lastly, I must confess that I have never really liked the images generated by the 1.4- call it "lens gestalt" for lack of a better term, and tend not to use it often, much preferring the lighter and more compact 1.8 when I am in the mood to use a 50mm.

Oh, I forgot to add that I have a beater Canon 1.4 that has a lot of ugly wipe marks and fine scratches on the front element. Aside from a little extra flare when shooting toward the light, the image from the beater lens is indistinguishable from that produced by the ice clean one that you tested. Yes, it is blue too.
 
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Mark: You are providing convincing evidence that the color rendtion of the Canon 50mm/1.4 is cool, relative to the Canon 50mm/1.8. In my test, it was cooler than the Canon 50mm/1.5. As I mentioned before in this tread that the signature of the lens is important. I called it a "mood" that each lens captures. You do not like the mood captured by your 50/1.4.

I am sure that some people here are forming their opinions/conclusions on some side by side comparisons of lenses. I wish they would throw caution to the side and start sharing with us their personal views on these lenses.

I sometimes post images on photo.net for critique by PN members. Their scoring system goes from a lowest 1 to highest 7. I find it difficult to score a 7. Even with someof my "alltime favorites", I get a few 6's but rarely a 7. I posted four of the shots taken with the Canon 50mm/0.95 on PN,and already I have at least one score of 7 per posted image. This suggests to me that people like the perspective obtained at 0.95. This is a lens for the discriminating photographer. Focusing is relatively difficult, and the lens is heavy, requiring a Canon 7 and no other LTM camera. It is hard to find clean and at a good price.



Raid
 
I am sure that some people here are forming their opinions/conclusions on some side by side comparisons of lenses. I wish they would throw caution to the side and start sharing with us their personal views on these lenses.

Hi Raid,
I find it difficult to make useful/meaningful conclusions based on computer monitor images of these different lenses, so I am being quiet in this thread. I still think that what you are doing is good though.
 
Raid: My thanks, as with others, for doing this; it seems a lot of work and I am grateful. I deliberately stayed away until I had time, as I find looking at a large number of images on a computer to be tiring and difficult for me.

The biggest surprises for me have been the Canon 1.2 (which I think is superb and is my current favourite of the test), the J-3 and J-8 (value leaders for sure!), and the ZM 2.0, which I agree was not focused exactly in the first round. I also am a bit surprised at the Summari. It was not as good performance as I had anticipated based on William Eggleston's comments to Memphis in that thread. I'm tentatively concluding that the Summarit under test might have a problem.

Thanks again.
 
Canon 50/1.5 looks warmer than Jupiter 3 50/1.5 - sample shots included

Canon 50/1.5 looks warmer than Jupiter 3 50/1.5 - sample shots included

Well, Raid, in the spirit of your request to throw caution to the winds and speak our minds, I can say that based on a test I did this past weekend comparing the Canon 50/1.5 to the Jupiter 3 50/1.5, the Canon was warmer or, alternatively, the Jupiter was cooler. Very similar image taking ability otherwise. Here are a couple of sample shots each taken up close, wide open at f1.5 and 1/1000 with the same camera (Leica M6) on consecutive frames of the same roll of film.

-Randy
 

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ferider said:
Cool comparison, Randy, thanks for posting.

Note that the J-3 "temperature" might change depending on the year
of manufacture, since the coating changed from initially blue (green cast in
the pictures) to a later more color neutral coating.

Roland.
Click to expand...

Good point, Roland. The Jupiter 3 used in my test above is a black 1975 model with a very, very pale purplish blue coating.

And obvious credit goes to you, Roland, for the "format" of this particular set of lens test shots...;)

-Randy
 
FrankS said:
I am sure that some people here are forming their opinions/conclusions on some side by side comparisons of lenses. I wish they would throw caution to the side and start sharing with us their personal views on these lenses.

Hi Raid,
I find it difficult to make useful/meaningful conclusions based on computer monitor images of these different lenses, so I am being quiet in this thread. I still think that what you are doing is good though.
Click to expand...


Hi Frank,

I know that you are being polite here. I just wish that there other ways to conduct a comparison of about twenty lenses. Maybe if I focused on the Canon 50/1.2 vs. Canon 50/1.4 vs. Canon 50/1.5 vs. Canon 50/1.8, I may be able to get more specific results.

Raid
 
ferider said:
I would agree that the Canon 50/1.4 is cooler than the 1.5. But again, your portraits are a very specific (and very important) type of photo; I really like the 1.4 for photos outside. For example, the following shot was taken recently with it, @ f5.6 or so:

The edge2edge sharpness and color rendition is important in some
situations ...


BTW, photos taken with the Canon 1.4 have been practically indistinguishable
from photos taken with the 50/1.5 Nokton for me, also wrt bokeh.

Best,

Roland.
Click to expand...

Roland:

I hesitate taking lenses belonging to other people outside my home. Your point is well taken. Portraits are not everything. I take mostly photos that are not portraits.

I have two Noktons for the tests, so I should have some results soon.

Raid
 
Are you kidding me???!!
Roland's a Canon nut(1.5).....I am a Nikkor nut....who's gonna prevail????

Regards,

Kiu
 
Trius said:
Raid: My thanks, as with others, for doing this; it seems a lot of work and I am grateful. I deliberately stayed away until I had time, as I find looking at a large number of images on a computer to be tiring and difficult for me.

The biggest surprises for me have been the Canon 1.2 (which I think is superb and is my current favourite of the test), the J-3 and J-8 (value leaders for sure!), and the ZM 2.0, which I agree was not focused exactly in the first round. I also am a bit surprised at the Summari. It was not as good performance as I had anticipated based on William Eggleston's comments to Memphis in that thread. I'm tentatively concluding that the Summarit under test might have a problem.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...




Trius:


You may be right about my sample of the Summarit. I got it cleaned, but it may still be optically imperfect. Still, it did quite well in some shots.

Raid
 
NIKON KIU said:
Are you kidding me???!!
Roland's a Canon nut(1.5).....I am a Nikkor nut....who's gonna prevail????

Regards,

Kiu
Click to expand...

Kiu,

I am a photography nut, so we are all one happy Nut family!

Raid
 
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Yeah, Kiu, I would say that Roland is more of a "Sonnar nut" than a "Canon nut." Of course, that STILL makes him a nut! :p As for additional proof of his preference for Sonnar lenses, just look at his avatar caption.

And I can also say that his Sonnar fixation has had a bad influence on me. As much as I like my Leica glass, I am very fond of my Sonnar lenses (Canon 50/1.5, Jupiter 3 50/1.5, & Nikkor 85/2.0).

-Randy
 
I just did a test between the Canon 50/1.8's on my Epson RD1 the chrome version color is warmer then the later model back and silver version.

Tim
 
Tim: Thanks for your updating information. I own the chrome version of the Canon 50mm/1.8 and I find it a superb lens. Could you post the images here?

Raid
 
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I have just taken ten photos each with the Canon 50mm/0.95and the Nikkor
50mm/1.1. I used both lenses wide open with candle light and some lighgt effects. The rest of the two rolls of film will be completed differently.

Are there any wishes?

Raid
 
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