Sharpest 35mm at f5.6

Before I kept a 35mm I tested some myself, the CV 35, the Biogon and the asph summicron and the summaron. Biogon and summicron where not only outstanding on sharpness but also on contrast. I kept the summi because it is so damn sharp at all apertures.
 
I guess after a certain aperture, you wont even need a lens to get a sharp image, the pinhole may be just what I've been looking for, sharp and really cheap.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Bob,

of the same era is the catch. It would be strange if there were no improvements between the 1930s and modern lenses, even if the 1930s designs had subsequently been coated.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger

You know there is always a caveat just so people don't go comparing apples and oranges. That is exactly why I stated it that way, no use comparing a 1930s uncoated lens to a modern multi coated asph. lens.

Cheers

Bob
 
Post 16: "Smaller [differences], but not negligible if you actually compared a current Leica aspheric with a Soviet copy of a 1930s Zeiss lens...."

Translated, "not negligible" = noticeable.

Al Kaplan in post 13, as well as I in post 9, had already disagreed with this opinion, which seems to be little more than a corollary of habitual Soviet-bashing. I don't know about Al, but I have actually used a Jupiter 12 for paying work; and its inferiority was not "not negligible", i.e., noticeable.
 
payasam said:
Post 16: "Smaller [differences], but not negligible if you actually compared a current Leica aspheric with a Soviet copy of a 1930s Zeiss lens...."

Translated, "not negligible" = noticeable.

Al Kaplan in post 13, as well as I in post 9, had already disagreed with this opinion, which seems to be little more than a corollary of habitual Soviet-bashing. I don't know about Al, but I have actually used a Jupiter 12 for paying work; and its inferiority was not "not negligible", i.e., noticeable.
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Well, a lot depends on whether you are dealing with saleability and the quality of the picture (in which case the photographer's talent is worth far more) or, at the other extreme, shooting test targets with the camera on a tripod. Did you try the latter as well? I freely accept that you may find such an activity pointless, but I've had five (I think) 35/2.8 FSU lenses and I was not impressed by the technical quality of any of them.

And no, it's not Soviet-bashing. It's comparing 1930s designs, albeit coated, with the designs of 50+ years later.

Cheers,

R.
 
Amongst modern lenses, contrast is more of an issue than sharpness. I own four 35mm and all are in the same league in sharpness terms by 5.6, except that the biogon f2 has the strongest corners. On that basis, I would say that the 35 biogons would be hard to beat for their exceptional extreme corners, but we are splitting hairs here. Its an academic argument, because some lenses show very slight shift at f5.6 - like teh biogon - so a more modest lens might fractionally out resolve it on centre. It does not matter though.
 
loneranger said:
So are you saying that some soviet lens from the 50s has the same sharpness as modern 35mm, at 5.6.
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I'd say that the methodology is flawed because sharpness is a visual impression that is not easy to measure. It makes more sense to talk about contrast and resolution instead. Then you'll probably find that modern lenses have more resolving power at a certain contrast level than older lenses, colour me surprised.

You'll also find, for example, that if you shoot something like 1600 speed negative film, then resolution-wise at f5.6 you can just as well use a Jupiter-12, because the film may be more limiting resolution-wise than the lens. Flare, colour rendering etc. are other issues.
 
Why not design a lens that goes from 5,6 to lets say 11 or 16 and be sharp all the way? A bit like saying why not design an amplifier that is dead level for all frequencies from 100Hz to 15KHz. Its nigh impossible to design something that doesn't have fall off towards the edges, that goes for lenses, amplifiers, microphones, engines - you name it. One could of course take the existing lens and disable the apertures not deigned usable at each end. But who would want it?

EDIT: Oh, and fall off on edge sharpness at wider apertures doesn't matter much on the odd occasion you'd want bokeh, centre sharpness will still be pretty good on most lenses.
 
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There are a lot of inexpensive and reasonably sharp lenses that go from around (3.5 not really) 5.6 to 22. They are digital zoom kit lenses.

For prime lenses between f/2 - f/3 is the sweet spot. Sometimes I have a hard time to understand the urge for f/1.2 lenses when people generally shoot ASA 400 film. I just don't see how to shoot them wide open unless they are vampires who live in the dark.
 
The Summilux 35mm f/1.4 pre asph is pretty sharp @ f/5.6.

Leica M2, Summilux 35mm f/1.4 pre asph, Tmax400 printed on Ilford MGIV fb.

Erik.

3956841008_26f35594f7_b.jpg
 
Erik van Straten said:
The Summilux 35mm f/1.4 pre asph is pretty sharp @ f/5.6.

Leica M2, Summilux 35mm f/1.4 pre asph, Tmax400 printed on Ilford MGIV fb.
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And printed with low contrast, scanned, and downscaled to web format.

Don't get me wrong, Erik, but lens sharpness (whatever that may be in practice) is impossible to determine under these circumstances. I believe you when you say your Summilux is sharp, but in downscaled pictures on a web forum such as this any lens will look sharp, moreover at f5.6 and up:

U4985I1254002378.SEQ.0.jpg


Kiev 4AM, Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8 shot through a dirty 1950s windowpane, Ilford XP2, bulk scanned on a Fuji Frontier digital minilab.
 
Rxmd, I do not want to determine anything, I just want to look at a sharp image printed on a piece of paper of about 25x30cm from a distance of about 25cm.

Erik.
 
The summilux 35 ASPH at 5,6 is very sharp. But any 35 I have owned is also, as others have explained. An older 35, a very tiny Elmar 35/3,5, was not very crisp at f5,6; though obviously it was from an earlier era, albeit the sample I had was in fantastic optical condition, it was just not stellar.
 
thomasw_ said:
The summilux 35 ASPH at 5,6 is very sharp. But any 35 I have owned is also, as others have explained. An older 35, a very tiny Elmar 35/3,5, was not very crisp at f5,6; though obviously it was from an earlier era, albeit the sample I had was in fantastic optical condition, it was just not stellar.
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Agree on the Elmar 35mm, you have to stop it down completely to get a sharp image in the corners. But I love it because it is the tinyest one ...
 
rxmd said:
...in downscaled pictures on a web forum such as this any lens will look sharp, moreover at f5.6 and up
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That's not a Bad Thing. Most photos are, and will be, viewed as digital files. If you need to produce gigantic prints to determine which lens deliver superior sharpness, then you are going off into Never-Never Land. If people are happy looking at digitized images on the web, then good for them. Why spend Big Bucks to deliver something few will discern?
 
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