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25+ "normal lenses" test, comparison
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The ultimate test for boke' would probably need some sort bright highlights in it.
Shooting trees is usually a pretty good test, but I'm guessing not many are filled with leaves right now.

bottle by berangberang, on Flickr

Maybe something shiny in the background will suffice.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I do appreciate the effort - and I know how much work goes into it, so thank you. One can go nutty comparing all those images and finding significant differences, except for the edges. When doing tests like this myself (but I usually screw something up), I end up disappointed because the tests rarely reveal the kind of differences I expect to see. I can easily convince myself from tests that various lenses are basically equal, but then during regular use, some seem to deliver more pleasing results than others.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
thanks for the hints for a bokeh test! ( not sure yet if it's gonna happen )


I am very much with you Woodrim, I think that I can confidently say that I am more of a practical guy and don't rely much on tests like this. Still I was curious how my lenses compare in such a set up.
However I won't publish too many of my personal conclusions, imo of tests published on the net those often are taken too serious. Anybody who takes the time to view the files will know himself what to think of it.

I just added a few lenses more,
Industar 50-2 f3.5 50mm
Helios 44-2 f2 58mm
Auto Takumar V1 f1.8 55mm
Auto Rokkor-PF f1.8 55mm

set up was still there unchanged, lightning is very similar too, position of tripod and cloth in the background will have changed slightly, therefor above all corner crops may not be exactly consistent with the earlier files


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
What is pretty interesting is when you can see the difference in the thumbnails: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/sets/72157632471750006/

TBH the results are mostly what I expected, with just a few surprises for better or for worse. Very interesting sets to look through and I thank you for your efforts.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I compared 13 normal lenses once, I concluded they were all good enough and differences were slight. Even in the bokeh, they were all similar, and I tried different lens designs, not just double gauss modern ones. In the end I concluded that it was really hard to find meaningful differences among most 50mm lenses and choice was more a matter of taste.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mos6502 wrote:
What is pretty interesting is when you can see the difference in the thumbnails


+1 for me SMC Takumar thumbnail 'pops' easily compared to others.

Viewing thumbnails is like viewing big slides on a light table -- sometimes differences are easier to see than when flipping between images -- or perhaps some differences are more noticeable using one or the other comparison method.

---

I think star field is good test to compare lenses -- those point sources of light reveal lens performance in fine detail over frame.

Does camera sensor crop lens image circle?


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
luisalegria wrote:
Huge amount of work here !
Thank you !

Looking at the f/1.4's and the Sonnar f/1.5, it seems to me that the only significant distinguishing characteristic as far as sharpness is the edge performance. The center performance wide open seems identical or nearly so.


differences of center sharpness are rather subtle, unedited the Sonnar looks a bit dull.
out of curiosity, see the 100% center crop of the CZJ Sonnar @ f1.5 and the S-M-C @ f1.4 but now edited in PS with 'auto level", "auto curves", "auto contrast" and same amount of added sharpness:


Sonnar
[/url]

S-M-C


imo the S-M-C still looks a tad sharper

luisalegria wrote:
Am I mistaken in that the best lens for edge performance wide open is the SMC Takumar ?
And the worst is the Sonnar f/1.5 ?


at the top right corner the differences are surprisingly subtle ( because of 3 dimensional object more easily in focus ? ) and the Sonnar falls behind
at the low left corner differences look much more pronounced ( focus failure or even more representative? ) best to me look Auto Rokkor Pf 1.7/55, OM 1.8/50, also Pen-F 1.5/60, the S-M-C and 'Hybrid" 1.4/50 and there are others that are weaker than the Sonnar

luisalegria wrote:

Nikon and Minolta seem to come second place to several Takumar and Pentax models.


Yes, in fairness there is only one Nikon and now 2 Minolta so there could be a rel. lemon or two, but on the other hand the many Taks / Pentax lenses look performing consistently well and specially the later models are very top.

luisalegria wrote:

Also interesting is that the V1 Super Takumar (8-element) is worse on the edge than the V2 Super Takumar. I thought from some other tests I've seen that the 8-element was better on the edge.


yes, mind that I have two 8 element lenses, had taken the test shots with both of them, difference of performance was hardly noticeable but I tried to choose the one that looked better. For me also interesting that my 'hybrid', which I believe to be a transitional piece between V1 and V2 and optically looks like a V2, is a bit better again


PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you again for your thoughtful comments.

I was just looking at the f/1.4 lenses plus the Sonnar, because the wide open performance on the most demanding designs seemed like where the most important practical differences would lie.

You are right, the flat image would magnify the effect of focus errors, which at f/1.4 can be very large, and may not be the most reliable test of edge performance.

In any event, the test is very clear about what one can expect practically, and in that regard the performance of the Pentax and Takumar lenses leaves little to be desired.


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
luisalegria wrote:
...
You are right, the flat image would magnify the effect of focus errors, which at f/1.4 can be very large, and may not be the most reliable test of edge performance.


actually I realized that more than focus error most likely a certain 'curvature of sharpness', specially at such a short focus distance, will be at play here. That is, when focused in the middle of the frame at a flat surface, e.g. in a 'brick wall test', a lens may have bad corner performance, but when focused at that corner sharpness there could be much better.

This became apparent since I first had made a series of test shots of the same set up focused at the flat surface of the miniature painting at the lower left corner. This had resulted in to inconsistent focus on the face of the bronze statue in the middle of the frame.

The test shown here was a re-shoot focused on the face of the bronze statue, and the corner performance of e.g. the Auto Takumar f2/55, a lens that I had mentioned elsewhere for having great corners, doesn't look specially good: ( the following 100% crops of the wide open shots, for showing more clearly, have additional editing in PS of "auto contrast" )



this is how the face I focused on looks like:



now the earlier take focused on the painting in the corner, I'd say pretty impressive for a wide open shot!



but then the face turned out 'backfocused'



do I make myself clear?
for me this is a quite important observation of a fact I was not aware of. In actual photography we may focus near the corner and that could be much sharper than a brick wall test would suggest.

Better I included the 100% corner crops of the takes focused on the corners to my test sets, but for some viewers this may be confusing.

luisalegria wrote:

In any event, the test is very clear about what one can expect practically, and in that regard the performance of the Pentax and Takumar lenses leaves little to be desired.


thank you, and I think so too.
As can be seen by the number of Takumar / Pentax lenses included I obviously specially like those lenses. Somebody may think that this test is a Pentax fan boy trying to prove something. However I published the results even before I had gone through the results myself Wink


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Great example of the effect of field curvature (showing also why the so-called "focus-recompose" technique may result in misfocused shots).


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Spotmatic wrote:
Great example of the effect of field curvature (showing also why the so-called "focus-recompose" technique may result in misfocused shots).


thank you for the correct technical term Peter!
The Auto Takumar f2/55 shows the effect of 'field curvature' most decisively of all lenses tested.
Nevertheless in my test series corner sharpness is better represented by the top right corner crops and those of the flat surface of the 'left lower corner crops' can rather be used to detect the field curvature of a particular lens.

For me personally this also proves that doing such a test does make sense, specially to get to know one's own lenses better and to ultimately use them better Wink


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
kuuan wrote:
do I make myself clear?
for me this is a quite important observation of a fact I was not aware of. In actual photography we may focus near the corner and that could be much sharper than a brick wall test would suggest


Zeiss tested some of their lens with field curvature and get the same resolution in border and in center (when focused there)
I never use focus-recompose and I rarely put my subject in center so I already knew that border resolution is excellent
I don't have problem with field curvature lenses as I work in WYSIWYG mode (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get)
sometimes for wide open infinity shots, I focus for the borders
when I calibrated my samyang 14:2.8, I set the infinity stop wide open on borders to be able to use it as hyperfocal from wide open
http://forum.mflenses.com/first-walk-with-samyang-142-8-on-5dii-t50565,start,17.html


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:

Zeiss tested some of their lens with field curvature and get the same resolution in border and in center (when focused there)


wow!

most lenses tested here do not show much filed curvature ( data of the 4 lenses included later are missing )
When focused on the painting in the corner Takumar f2/58, Helios 103, S.Tak V1, also CZJ Sonnar, Jupiter-8 and MC Rokkor-PG f1.4 seemed to result in some front focusing on the face in the middle of the frame, but it's difficult to say that 100% certain ( that would include all the Sonnars right? )
backfocusing on the face can be observed most prominently with Auto Tak 2/55 and Pen-F 1.5/60, somewhat with 'zebra' Auto Tak 1.8/55.

poilu wrote:

I never use focus-recompose and I rarely put my subject in center so I already knew that border resolution is excellent
I don't have problem with field curvature lenses as I work in WYSIWYG mode (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get)
sometimes for wide open infinity shots, I focus for the borders
when I calibrated my samyang 14:2.8, I set the infinity stop wide open on borders to be able to use it as hyperfocal from wide open
http://forum.mflenses.com/first-walk-with-samyang-142-8-on-5dii-t50565,start,17.html


very interesting and great samples!
I must admit though that I do not understand why setting the corners to infinity would make it a 'hyper focal lens' wide open.
If it was a less wide lens that wouldn't work, right?


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
kuuan wrote:
I must admit though that I do not understand why setting the corners to infinity would make it a 'hyper focal lens' wide open

the 14mm is very sharp but at f2.8 borders are weak when focused at infinity (on full frame)
by calibrating the infinity stop for the borders, center might not be optimal but borders are acceptable
better to use sharpening to restore the center than having bad borders that is the first part I usually check in a pic
by hyper focal, I mean I don't need to focus, I set infinity and everything is in focus


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:
kuuan wrote:
I must admit though that I do not understand why setting the corners to infinity would make it a 'hyper focal lens' wide open

the 14mm is very sharp but at f2.8 borders are weak when focused at infinity (on full frame)
by calibrating the infinity stop for the borders, center might not be optimal but borders are acceptable
better to use sharpening to restore the center than having bad borders that is the first part I usually check in a pic
by hyper focal, I mean I don't need to focus, I set infinity and everything is in focus


thank you for your clarification, your very good samples show that it works, at least with the 14mm!


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
I compared 13 normal lenses once, I concluded they were all good enough and differences were slight. Even in the bokeh, they were all similar, and I tried different lens designs, not just double gauss modern ones. In the end I concluded that it was really hard to find meaningful differences among most 50mm lenses and choice was more a matter of taste.


+1

Still, Its comforting to see the effort put into such a test above to confirm these suspicions Smile


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
First, thanks to kuuan for doing this. Doing something like that requires inordinate amount of work and dedication, personally I doubt I would ever undertake such an endeavor.

I am sure all these lenses are good enough for most practical purposes, so sorting out the wheat from chuff can not be the point. On the other hand, if I take the same scene say with Fujinon 50mm f1.8 the picture would be different to say Ricoh 55mm f1.4 or Pentacon 50mm f1.8. I am speaking about the lenses I have, but I am sure that there are similar differences between the lenses presented here.

So these lenses really are different, but when one looks at the test, the differences are not highlighted. IMHO that's the the problem of presentation, rather than of the test itself. I am not criticizing, but rather want to understand myself what's the best way to do and present lens shootouts between quality lenses.


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Actually I think some lenses were markedly softer than others, even in the resized images.

The Pentax 1.7/50 which was one of the top performers in my opinion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8354127311/in/set-72157632460038525

Vs. the Takumar 2/58: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8356692583/in/set-72157632460038525
or the Helios 2/58: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8364534292/in/set-72157632460038525

But these are both older designs, so it's no real wonder. It seems obvious that by the time lens design moved into the 1960s, most had figured things out pretty well and there's not a whole lot of noticeable difference. Even with these older designs, by the time the lens is stopped down to 5.6 or thereabouts it's pretty much impossible to see a difference in sharpness even in the corners unless you blow the image way up.


PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
For sure Petax 50mm f1.7 looks sharper than these two, but also notice that they are both 58mm lenses and the sides are not in the focus plane. This could be DOF effect.

On the second viewing 60mm Zuiko looks better on the sides too than 58/f2 Takumar and Helios too, so, probably that's not a DOF issue.


PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
What is the concensus on the Pentax S-M-C takumar 50mm F1.4? I had one that was fantastic and I always loved
the results with that lens....


PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
hifisapi wrote:
What is the concensus on the Pentax S-M-C takumar 50mm F1.4? I had one that was fantastic and I always loved
the results with that lens....


in the test it is a top performer and I always loved the results too!

Mos6502 wrote:
Actually I think some lenses were markedly softer than others, even in the resized images.

The Pentax 1.7/50 which was one of the top performers in my opinion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8354127311/in/set-72157632460038525

Vs. the Takumar 2/58: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8356692583/in/set-72157632460038525
or the Helios 2/58: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/8364534292/in/set-72157632460038525

But these are both older designs, so it's no real wonder. It seems obvious that by the time lens design moved into the 1960s, most had figured things out pretty well and there's not a whole lot of noticeable difference. Even with these older designs, by the time the lens is stopped down to 5.6 or thereabouts it's pretty much impossible to see a difference in sharpness even in the corners unless you blow the image way up.


I had presented this test at another site ( Sony NEX talk at dpreview ) and someone there asked me which lenses I'd keep if I only could choose 2. A hypothetical question impossible to answer Wink but I tried and wrote that, if used on dSLR, I'd choose the S-M-C 1.4/50 and the Takumar 2/58, if on NEX I could not let go of the Pen-F 1.4/40. The Takumar f2/58 may not fare well in this test but offers unique rendering taking amazingly beautiful photos!


PostPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
fermy wrote:
First, thanks to kuuan for doing this. Doing something like that requires inordinate amount of work and dedication, personally I doubt I would ever undertake such an endeavor.

I am sure all these lenses are good enough for most practical purposes, so sorting out the wheat from chuff can not be the point. On the other hand, if I take the same scene say with Fujinon 50mm f1.8 the picture would be different to say Ricoh 55mm f1.4 or Pentacon 50mm f1.8. I am speaking about the lenses I have, but I am sure that there are similar differences between the lenses presented here.

So these lenses really are different, but when one looks at the test, the differences are not highlighted. IMHO that's the the problem of presentation, rather than of the test itself. I am not criticizing, but rather want to understand myself what's the best way to do and present lens shootouts between quality lenses.


+1....I am interested in what the positive differences(what is special) between lenses are.
Very great effort with this test! I am just now looking through it.


PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:47 am    Post subject: new test of 32 normal lenses on Sony A7 Reply with quote
Just completed another test comparing 32 normal lenses, but this time on 'FF' Sony A7.
Opened a new flickr account for this, here it is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuanslenstests/collections/72157670921126335/

most lenses are the same as in the first test on NEX5n, some new ones, above all RF lenses, some left out, still Pentax / Takumar heavy.
I hope it will be of use, cheers, andreas


PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks!

Looking through your results -
First impressions - the older RF/SLR lenses are just, well, not suitable to this style of photography. or not unless they are stopped down a lot. The poor contrast and the "glow" is very apparent, and the corners are bad. Probably best for atmospheric portraits in available light - ideal if you need to photograph beautiful women smoking cigarettes in dark cafes.

Besides those there isn't a great deal of difference between the more modern lenses.

The standout among the f/1.4s, very slightly, seems to be the Pentax M 50/1.4, though others have better corners. Perhaps I am biased. Why anyone would care about corners at f/1.4, I don't know.

f/1.4 generally is not so good for high image quality regardless of the lens. Its got limited utility as something other than a special effect. Or at least its not good for shooting things in the garden in bright sunshine.

The second tier, the modern 50/1.8-50/2 are great values, capable of excellent results wide open.
The Topcor, the Oly and the SMC Takumar f/1.8's are the standouts I think in overall performance at their max aperture, the Rokkor PF being the runner up.

The Super-Takumar 55/1.8 was surprisingly mediocre.


PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
luisalegria wrote:
Thanks!

Looking through your results -
First impressions - the older RF/SLR lenses are just, well, not suitable to this style of photography. or not unless they are stopped down a lot. The poor contrast and the "glow" is very apparent, and the corners are bad. Probably best for atmospheric portraits in available light - ideal if you need to photograph beautiful women smoking cigarettes in dark cafes.

Besides those there isn't a great deal of difference between the more modern lenses.

The standout among the f/1.4s, very slightly, seems to be the Pentax M 50/1.4, though others have better corners. Perhaps I am biased. Why anyone would care about corners at f/1.4, I don't know.

f/1.4 generally is not so good for high image quality regardless of the lens. Its got limited utility as something other than a special effect. Or at least its not good for shooting things in the garden in bright sunshine.

The second tier, the modern 50/1.8-50/2 are great values, capable of excellent results wide open.
The Topcor, the Oly and the SMC Takumar f/1.8's are the standouts I think in overall performance at their max aperture, the Rokkor PF being the runner up.

The Super-Takumar 55/1.8 was surprisingly mediocre.


Hi Luis,

thank you for looking and commenting.

I agree with your assessments. Certainly some lenses are sharper wide open, have better corners, less glow, more contrast asf., characteristics which commonly let us call them 'better' lenses.

The older lenses, specially the old rangefinder lenses fall behind but that also means that they have strong characteristics which makes them interesting for creative photography, for portraits, I like using 'normal' lenses for portraits.

Of course one would not use a f1.4 lens wide open in the garden around noon on a bright summer day. Still I hope that the set up is telling though I understand it's not ideal for all. I hope it shows characteristics and that users will notice them, not judge performance in a converntional sense only.
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