How about starting a 50mm/1.5 lens test?

raid said:
I want to post at least one image from each lens tested. There were two Nikon S mount lenses :

Nikkor S 1.4 at 1.4:
NikkorS314.jpg


Nippon 1.4 at 1.4:

Nippon65314.jpg
Click to expand...

See how sharp the Nikons are. I am very impressed by them. These are in Nikon S mount. I used a Nikon S camera that Fred sent me. He has not yet tried the camera. It sems to focus well.
 
Raid: How do you find the S-mount Nikkors compare to the LTM version(s)? And what's up with the focus on the Prominent Nokton frame above?
 
raid said:
See how sharp the Nikons are. I am very impressed by them. These are in Nikon S mount. I used a Nikon S camera that Fred sent me. He has not yet tried the camera. It sems to focus well.
Click to expand...

the nippon is amazing.... love it!:D
 
jmkelly said:
Raid: How do you find the S-mount Nikkors compare to the LTM version(s)? And what's up with the focus on the Prominent Nokton frame above?
Click to expand...

John,

I find the images by the S mount Nikkors to spring out, but they were used on a different camera than the LTM Nikkors. I mentioned earlier that using different cameras may introduce a factor of dffferences. The Prominent Nokton was used with an adapter, and here we may also have a nuisance factor that introduces noise to the experiment. I have used this lens before on the Prominent for very sharp images.
 
Notice that the Nikon S has better flare control than the Nippon, based on the two examples that I used here. Look at the bare light bulb. It is very well defined in the Nikon S image, whereas the Nippon image shows some minor flare.
 
update: Roland has received the six rolls of images, with the help of John who allowed us to use his password to ftp the files.
 
Raid, i am surprised that the Nokton did not come out better- adapter may be a reason. I have not noticed this sort of dramatic difference, but then again, I rarely shoot close-up and wide open.

You know, Brian Sweeney has opined in the past that the adapter is really set up closer to Nikon standard than Contax standard.
 
adapter? or focus? / focus shift?

adapter? or focus? / focus shift?

The Nokton is not focused, not sure if adapter, setting, or focus shift (e.g. would same focus setting, but 2.8 be in focus?)

Of the above, all but J3 # 63 also have some film/color issues, or need cleaning.

dexdog said:
Raid, i am surprised that the Nokton did not come out better- adapter may be a reason. I have not noticed this sort of dramatic difference, but then again, I rarely shoot close-up and wide open.

You know, Brian Sweeney has opined in the past that the adapter is really set up closer to Nikon standard than Contax standard.
Click to expand...
 
dexdog said:
Raid, i am surprised that the Nokton did not come out better- adapter may be a reason. I have not noticed this sort of dramatic difference, but then again, I rarely shoot close-up and wide open.

You know, Brian Sweeney has opined in the past that the adapter is really set up closer to Nikon standard than Contax standard.
Click to expand...

Mark,

In past lens testing, I had two Nokton lenses [Prominent], and both did well. One was in LTM and the other one I forgot the details about. My Prominent Nokton is very sharp when used on the Prominent.

Brian may be right here. He knows a lot of "things".
 
ampguy said:
The Nokton is not focused, not sure if adapter, setting, or focus shift (e.g. would same focus setting, but 2.8 be in focus?)

Of the above, all but J3 # 63 also have some film/color issues, or need cleaning.
Click to expand...


I will check for a 2.8 image with this lens. Good idea.


Testing errors are possible since I am human. We call this "measurement errors". I don't take this very seriously since a few flaws here and there are not the end of the world. We now have at RFF repeated testing for 50mm of the past years, and we have built up a body of information on vintage 50mm lenses. "We" means people here who followed the threads.
 
I have added a portrait session at window light and outside the house. The images came out very nicely. There is an issue with possible diffraction by a lens or two as the aperture gets smaller and smaller. This is what I am suspecting. Roger Hicks alerted me to such a possibility.


I took photos at 1.5-2.0-2.8-4.0-8.0 for twelve lenses with M/LTM mount, and to my surprise, not all lenses showed a sharper background as the aperture was closed down. In a couple of lenses, the background suddenly became fuzzy looking at 8.0. With diffraction, you still expect the depth of field to increase as you make the lens opening smaller. There is a loss in resolution. This is clear.

Shooting against a bare bulb indoors may have been too extreme for most real life situations, but it exposed the lenses that need either cleaning or lenses that have poor coatings.
 
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raid said:
Notice that the Nikon S has better flare control than the Nippon, based on the two examples that I used here. Look at the bare light bulb. It is very well defined in the Nikon S image, whereas the Nippon image shows some minor flare.
Click to expand...

the minor flare is what I like about the Nippon....:D
 
raid said:
So this is what is referred to as the "Nippon Glow" ? :D
I have seen an "I61 Glow" in a FSU lens that is messed up. :bang:
Click to expand...

Raid, I think that only leica lenses are allowed to "glow". This feature in any other lens must be referred to as "flare":D
 
I am now used to certain fingerprints of some lenses. As I view hundreds of images in my lens tests over the past two years, the Summicron/Summilux images always just jump out at me. This helps me in making sure that I match up correctly the images with the lenses used.
 
Here are images taken at 2.0. Can you match images with the lenses ?

Summilux 50mm 1.4 at 2.0
Carl Zeiss ZM 50mm 1.5 at 2.0
J-5 50mm 1.5 at 2.0

Image A:

J-3Nr93at20.jpg


Image B:

ZeissZMNr15at20.jpg


Image C:

SummiluxNr71at20.jpg
 
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Here are four mystery lenses used to take these images at 2.0. Which do you prefer and why?
It is easy to look up the lens information here, so please no leaking of information if you take a peek.

Image A:

LTMNikkorSCNr45at20.jpg



Image B:


Canon50mm14Nr98at20.jpg



Image C:

NoktonCVat20.jpg


Image D:

SummiluxMNr30at20.jpg
 
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Roland,

The Zeiss lens is a ZM modern lens.

Raid


====================================
Just a guess, and you can confirm that I don't know (yet).

Image C is the 'Lux, Image A and B the Sonnars, where I assume Image B is the Russian lens (assuming the Sonnar is LTM mount, not the modern one).

Cheers,

Roland.
 
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