Followup: 1966 Canon 28mm FL vs. 2012 Canon 28mm EF

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I apologize in advance if this is boring to anyone. After enjoying the Canon 35mm f/3.5 FD yesterday, I went looking around that same shelf for any other similar lenses and came across a Canon FL 28mm f/3.5. To make a longer story shorter, I ran a few comparisons between this lens (first released in 1966!) and a recent Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 IS. The FL lens is a 7 element lens with 6 diaphragm blades. The EF has 10 elements and 8 blades.

The lighting on the test subject was a friendly one for the old lens as I kept the sun at my back. The camera was, like yesterday, a Canon M6. Interestingly, the two lenses weigh about the same and are around the same size. My observations are that 1) it is amazing how consistent Canon has kept the colors its lenses produce over a half century* and 2) in terms of depth and 3D effect, I prefer the old lens' rendering to the new one in at least some respects — especially the 35mm f/3.5 FD I used yesterday.

Final notes: yesterday I took a candid portrait of my 18 year-old son with the 35mm FD lens (45mm equivalent on full frame). It produced a combination of sharpness, graceful tonality and dimensionality that was really extraordinary — as good as any lens I have ever used including Zeiss, as well as Canon. My wife said it looked like a frame from a movie. Unfortunately, my son doesn't want me to post it so you have to take my word on this. And remember that a M6 is a crop sensor camera so results might be very different on a full frame.

*The M6 was set to neutral picture style so the colors should be the product of the lenses, not the camera.

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[visualopsins]

Better to compare at same aperture imho.

[marcusBMG]

(canon eos M6 = 24MPx apsc)

Well that's nice - an old lens holding its own against a modern one. I've tried adaptalls, sigma miniwides, tokinas et al and overall I've gone a bit off vintage 28mm as tending to not offer that much more than a kit lens (specifically in terms of resolution) on average. I do like both my viv 28mm 1,9 and my pentax K 28mm 3.5 though.
Thanks for the wide open comparison. Is there much improvement stopping down?

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[quote="visualopsins"]Better to compare at same aperture imho.[/quote]

The aperture markings on the two lenses don't match, so one lens at f/6.3 might give the same exposure as the other at f/8, shutter speed being constant. Both of these photos are shot at marked f/8, it is the shutter speed that is adjusted to give similar exposures.

Thinking more about the results, this small comparison suggests how much older lenses might benefit from crop sensor cameras. Lopping off the edges and keeping only the central portion of the image may highlight their strengths and cover up a lot of weaknesses. The strengths can be pretty nice. They certainly are to me.