TEST 100mm for landscape: Macro vs Portrait

[stevemark]

Many vintage lenses in the 100mm range are well known excellent performers. Often they are small and quite lightweight - which means they are perfect for landscapes when hiking. Especially in the mountains a slightly longer focal length often is better than e. g. a 35mm or a 28mm wideangle; the mountains simply look more majestic from a distance (taken with 100mm or 200mm) than from near (35mm or 28mm).

For years I have been using the Minolta AF 2.8/100mm Macro as a small tele and macro lens when biking in our Alps, usually along with a 20mm, an 50mm and a fast 200mm APO.

Since most manufacturers did have a "portrait type" and a "macro" lens with 100mm focal length, I have compared the corresponding MF lenses from Canon (FD 2.8/100mm vs FD 4/100mm Macro), Minolta (MD 2.5/100mm vs MD 4/100mm Macro) and Nikon (Nikkor 2.5/105mm vs Micro Nikkor 4/105mm). In addition I have included two famous lenses from Minoltas first AF series, the AF 2/100mm and the 2.8/100mm Macro. Both are beautifully machined, and both have all-metal barrels (including the focus grip!). Finally two Minolta AF zooms from the same generation are included as well: The AF 4-4.5/28-135mm and the 4.5-5.6/75-300mm. Both zooms were aimed at professional users and priced >CHF 1000.-- around 1988. They were more expensive than the AF 2/100mm or the AF 2/28mm.

Now - here are the test images:



S

[eggplant]

Those zooms are looking pretty impressive, but then again not all the macro lenses are optimised for infinity, so maybe that's more impressive?

I think a bokeh test would seperate these out pretty quickly.

[alex ph]

AF lenses are impressively sharp in the corners, but have pretty visible purple fringing. That is about all others except the AF 2/100 lens which looks the best from all points of view.

Nice comparison, Stephan, thank you for delivering a clear idea!

[RokkorDoctor]

Interesting comparison, thanks.

The Minolta MDIII 2.5/100, was that really shot at f/2.8 (a bit tricky to do on that lens, no click-stop at f/2.8 ), or was it actually at f/2.5?


Also, I have seen that house a few times before!

Are the owners perchance getting a bit paranoid by now, or did you ever explain why you so often have a camera pointed somewhat in their direction?

[caspert79]

Remarkable performance of the MDiii 100/2.5. Especially considering its size.

[lumens pixel]

Agreed. FD 100 2,8 also if you can deal with chromatic aberration.

[flavio81]

Thanks Stephan/stevemark;

I'll say it again -- you are the reason I opened up an account here. Thank you so much for this test.

I would love if you could include the FD 2/100 in the future, a known fantastic lens. The minolta counterpart looks terrific.

I'm a big fan of the FD 100/2.8 so i am pleased to see it doing well. As for the Nikkor 105, probably what we're looking is field curvature... i wonder how a test with refocused corners will look.

You have uploaded a "bokeh test" of some of those lenses but the resolution is too low to judge. How about doing a portrait test with some of those lenses, using a real model (or a mannequin)? Because those 100 (except the macro lenses) were mostly intended for giving a pleasing, "natural" look.

[caspert79]

Also interesting to see the difference between the Minolta MDiii 100/2.5 and Nikkor-P 105/2.5 xenotar.

[stevemark]

Here are some of those lenses again, this time showing their performance at the image center:



As expected, most lenses have a really sharp image center. Wide open, the contrast may be slightly lower, but stopped to f4.0 both contrast as well as resolution are really good. The only exceptions are the Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumat 2.8/105mm and (to a lesser extent) the Mamiya Sekor SX 2.8/105mm. Especially the Pentax clearly has a lower contrast. When it comes to corner performance (not shown here), the Pentax is quite a bit inferior to most other lenses; only the Mamyia also suffers from a relatively low resolution.

S

[paulhofseth]

Sir,

I find the Leitz elmarit 100mm quite good both for close and far subject matter, but the helix needs quite a lot of twisting.

p.

[stevemark]

[caspert79]

[lumens pixel]

100mm seems to be Minolta's realm. Sure Canon's 100 2,8 or Topcor are doing extremely well. But why bother?