17mm lens: Canon FD or Tamron? Where to find Canon FD MTFs?

kathala · Joined: 13 May 2022 Posts: 131

Hi all,
I have been looking with no success - is there anywhere to find MTF charts for Canon FD lenses? The joy that is pacificrimcamera.com/rl/rlrindex.htm has a few very early FL ones in brochures, but nothing later.
Being an FD enthusiast and curator of docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XHrXeijkKB_ULZxcgJK_v4iPBbxAfOuuo-VuP5ESDvA, it would be an ongoing desire.
But right now, specifically, I am looking for a way to decide between Canon's own 17mm f/4 and the also highly regarded Tamron 51B alternative (which is excellently documented here adaptall-2.com/lenses/51B.html)
Any ideas?

kypfer · Joined: 27 Sep 2017 Posts: 520 Location: Jersey C.I.

I know nothing about the Canon lenses (never needed to) but I'm very pleased with my recently acquired Tamron 17mm, which is the earlier #51B with the built-in filters ... very useful for b&w film Wink

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

I have both 51B with filters and 151B without filters. I tend to use the 151B more, due to concern about the "Normal" filter in the optical path degrading the image. As noted above the filters can be very useful for B&W film photography. On digital the filter may squeeze out a tiny bit more DR than a conversion, imho.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 3771 Location: Switzerland

Sadly I can't really answer your question since I have no experience with the Tamron 17mm lens (well, I used to own one around 1986, but that doesn't count ...).

The adaptall-2.com website is giving some information about a lens I know very well - the Minolta MD 4/17mm. Sadly adaptall-2.com wrongly states that the performance of the Minolta 4/17mm basically is the same from f4 to f22. This clearly is complete nonsense (in fact, its corner resolution / contrast increases dramatically when stopping down from f4 to f8 or f11).

I have tested the following lenses side-by-side on 24 MP FF cameras:

* Canon new FD 4/17mm
* Minolta MD-I 4/17mm
* Minolta MD-III 4/17mm
* Tokina RMC 3.5/17mm
* Zeiss CY 4/18mm

Canon, Minolta and Zeiss perform neraly identical (Minolta with slightly better contrast / colors than Zeiss & Canon, and Zeiss slightly better corners than Minolta & Canon, but it's only 18mm instead of 17mm!). Tokina corners are clearly inferior to the other three manufacturers.

S