(Outdoors) comparing three 28mm lenses

eeyore_nl · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 837 Location: Netherlands

As a follow-up / improvement on my initial comparison yesterday, this morning I photographed the same (boring) backyard scene with three 28mm lenses (actually one of them being the Fujifilm XF 27mm).
I specifically wanted to see how the Pentax Takumar and Canon FD lenses matched up against each other. And of course, how good the native Fujifilm lens is, in comparison.

Here are the settings that I used on my Fujifilm X-Pro2:

ISO value 800
Shutter speed 1/1000
Aperture f/8 (probably the sweet spot of all lenses, and a sensible choice for city / landscape scenes)
Film simulation: Pro Neg Hi (noise reduction set to -4, sharpness to 0)
White balance: cloudy

The lenses compared:

#1 Fujifilm XF 27mm (the baseline)
#2 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 28/3.5
#3 Canon new FD 28/2.8

Looking at the full resolution files, before downscaling, here are my impressions:

Sharpness center & edge: #1 Fujifilm #2 Takumar #3 Canon FD
Contrast and colors: #1 Fujifilm #2 Takumar (but close to the XF27) #3 Canon FD
Color fringing: #1 Fujiflm (by a wide marging!) #2 and #3 shared place Takumar and Canon FD
Overall impression: #1 Fujifilm #2 Takumar #3 Canon FD

In good light, stopped down to f/8, the differences between the Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 28/3.5 and the Canon (new) FD 28/2.8 are small but visible.
Neither one is great for the color fringing, but the Takumar is a bit sharper and has livelier colors.

The Fujifilm XF 27mm f/2.8 easily beats both of them, which shouldn't come as a surprise.

BrianSVP · Joined: 09 Jun 2023 Posts: 353 Location: Philadelphia

Valuable observations, but I think the most interesting thing we've established is that your cat prefers the Takumar.
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