What is your sharpest/softest lens?

[Gerald]

Hi everybody

This is my first post, so firstly I would like to introduce myself. It all started, many years ago, when I was gifted with a Praktica LTL-3 with a 50mm F1.8 Pentacon lens. The LTL-3 was a SLR but the owner didn't have to be SLP (Single Lens Photographer) so over the years I went acquiring additional lenses…To make a long story short, I ended up with a collection of about two dozen different lenses with M42 mount (or compatible with M42, as the Zeiss Jena lenses for the Pentacon Six TL). All are fixed focal length (primes) with one only exception, a Fujinon zoom. I remember how the so called "universal" mount was despised in the seventies. Pentax, Fuji, Yashica, Chinon, and even Praktica in the end, all abandoned sooner or later the M42 mount. Ironically the M42 was to become one of the most prized mount in the digital photography era!

My lenses rested collecting dust for years until recently, when I decided to buy a FF camera body that could bring those old lenses back to life again. As a result, I am now quite busy evaluating, more or less scientifically, the resolution of all my lenses when mounted on a Sony A99…

My intention is to share the results of the tests in the next posts. However, I can already say that I got some rather surprisingly results. For example, I found out that one of my sharpest lenses is the Zeiss 80mm F2.8 Biometar, the normal lens of the Pentacon Six. Wide open, some residual aberrations can be seen, but they are quite small, and in fact, these aberrations are just what make this lens perfect for portraiture. At F5.6, and especially F8, the sharpness at the edges is extraordinary, and equals the center of the legendary 180mm F2.8 Sonnar at its best aperture. The Biometar's uniform sharpness across the field isn't totally unexpected since the Biometar was designed to cover the medium format. What is extraordinary is that it can outperforms many very good lenses, like the SMC Takumar 135mm F2.8, version 2, which was specifically designed for the135 format. Another strong point of the Biometar is a virtual absence of lateral color aberration.

In practice, the Biometar can be a very versatile lens. Are you interested in "character" and bokeh for a portrait? Use the Biometar wide open. Do you need an ultimate sharpness for a spectacular landscape? Stop down two or three points and get an exquisite definition. The Biometar is small, light, optically simple, mechanically solid, and wasn't too expensive to produce. For all these reasons, Zeiss Jena never needed to design another normal lens to replace the Biometar.

Going now to the dark side of the Moon… My softest lens appears to be the Fujinon 54-270mm F4.5, especially when used at the maximum FL. The Fujinon was the response of Fuji to the Nikon 50-300mm F4.5 zoom, a favorite among photojournalists in the seventies. Fuji acted very smartly and designed the Fujinon 54-270 by using the Nikkor 50-300 as a reference. Fuji increased the minimum FL by 8%, from 50 to 54mm, and decreased the maximum FL by 10%, from 300 to 270mm. As a result, the Fujinon has a zoom factor of 5x, while the Nikon lens has a zoom factor of 6x. In practice, this difference is not too significant, but the Fujinon could be made considerably lighter and shorter than the Nikon. And, of course, a 5x zoom should have been easier to design than a 6x.

Both lenses employ a very similar optical design with 15 elements, but Nikon claimed that an ED element was used in the front group. Fuji never commented about using low dispersion glasses, but Fuji has always been a leading name in lenses in Japan, so I have no reason to think that the optical performances of these lenses are much different. The truth is: in the seventies it was difficult to design a 5X or 6X zoom with the same resolution of a fixed focal lens. The Fujinon 54-270 is not a disaster, far from it, but the resolution at 270mm wide open is not a match to the Super Takumar 300mm F4, for example. Incidentally, I remember the member bernhardas also complained of the relative lack of sharpness of his Nikon 50-300 4.5 ED lens.

Stopped down, the Fujinon's resolution increases as expected, but never reaches a level that could be considered as very sharp. To give an idea, the Fujinon sharpness at 270mm is equivalent to a SMC Takumar 135mm plus a good 2X teleconverter. Mechanically, the Fujinon is a no-compromise design. It is all-metal and built like a tank. The screw-on front cap, for example, is a 66g aluminum disk with more metal than used in many modern lenses.

Thanks for reading''

[Rick1779]

I got pretty decent results from both the Jupiter 9 ltm and the trioplan 50, both are soft wide open and become very sharp stopped down

[kuuan]

welcome Gerald to the forum!
and then you for your interesting report, looking forward to read more from you and also to see some

[guardian]

Sharpest?

Hexanon 35mm f2

Softest?

Too many contenders to allow selection of a winner.

[ForenSeil]

Sharpest?
Sonnar 55/1.8 [AF]
Rodagon 105/5.6, Noritsu 50.7/9.5, Focotar-II 50/4.5, Summicron-M 50/2, Contax G Biogon 28/2.8 and Planar 45/2 and Sonnar 90/2.8, Voigtländer 15/4.5.... I had many damn sharp lenses, all inviting for pixel peeping.

Softest?
All faster triplets at wide apertures and some very crappy japanese zooms I had, some CCTV lenses like Fujian 35/1.7, Tarcus TV 50/1.3 and many others were rather soft aswell. And Industar 61 LD 55/2.8 LTM was one of the most disappointing lenses aswell as some people told it was and extremly sharp improved Tessar design... but actually it was only as good (or bad) as my in 1936 (!) made Leitz Elmar 50/3.5 or even worse, sweet spot was F11 etc.
But the softest I ever had was an Olympus OM 50/1.2 wide open, I still don't know if my copy was faulty but it was so extremly damn soft that only used it once and never again.

[norland]

Of manual lenses I've actually paid for....

Best : Tair 300A f4.5
love it -- best haze-slicing lens I've got for long-distance ... very good colour and sharpness; weight its only negative.

Worst : Super Komura 300mm f5.0 Uni Auto by Sankyo Kohki, Japan
has a good lens hood and (fwiw) nicely made removable M42 mount ... shame about the optical ability

[David]

Sharpest: Pentax FA Limited 31mm 1:1.8 between f4.5 and f8 or Pentax FA Limited 77mm 1:1.8. between f4 and f8 They're both within one or two lp/mms of each other.

Softest: Pentax FA Limited 31mm 1:1.8 when shot wide open. It has this soft, great-for-portraits look.

[inombrable]

Welcome to the forum Gerald.

Sharpest: Carl Zeiss Planar 50 1.4 and the 1.8.

Softest: Prakticar Auto 135 2.8. At all apertures is very soft, wide open gives a dreamy look.

[Lightshow]

Sharpest, macros are obvious, but non macros? Most of my Topcors are very sharp wide open, but the one that makes me go wow is my FD SSC 35/2.8 Tilt Shift, I can see cells in my flower shots, it's as good as any macro I've used.

Softest? My canon AF lenses when mounted on my 30D & 40D, I have so many great shots that were just way too soft, the AF on those body's was just bad bad bad, after micro adjusting my 1DIII I realized it wasn't my technique but the shitty AF system, then with my NEX-7 I manually shot a few frames and realized just how bad the AF was.
For manual lenses, my Isco Göttingen 50/2.8 Exakta is very soft wide open and not much better stopped down.

[bernhardas]

Edited

[Attila]

All lenses sharp at F8 and almost all soft wide open LOL, some exception are apply one of my exception is Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 35mm f1.9 brutal sharp at all apperture even wide open. Softest Tamron SP 150mm f2.8 in soft focus level III.

[Langstrum]

Except my Canon L lenses, nothing can beat my Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 (AI) wide open, it's definitely a must have Nikon manual lens. Similar sharpness but for macro is the enlarger lens Vega-11U, I always choose this tiny lens for shooting details.
Softest, maybe Jupiter 9 (wide open), but it's also acceptable at f/4. Many of my lenses have similar sharpness around f/4 or f/5.6.

[Gerald]

[Attila]

I am not fond of Leica and I like Russian and East German items, I had Leica-R 50mm f1.4 once , Helios is not come to close from any aspects , lens is not only an lpm statistic. Leica-R price is not 1000 USD because buyers have no brain and easy to replace with Helios-44 . Zeiss and Leica usually step before others, Zeiss is much more affordable even if perform same than Leica or even better. For professional work I always select Zeiss, I buy and sell Leica I can't afford to keep them for multiply more price than Carl Zeiss (Jena) items. I did test several thousands lenses, cameras only sharp or not sharp not say much about a lens.

[memetph]

Interesting opinions from you Gerald.
I agree that there is too much stress on large aperture nowadays.
As a result , many pictures shown as benchmark are simply unsharp. It is a fashion.
I recently bought a A7 and constantly struggle to have enough depth of field . I prefer to find a backgroung for portrait which is not so disturbing so that I can shoot f4 or f5.6 with my 105mm.
A nice bokeh is fine but not to the expense of subject's sharpness. Of course it is my taste and even for me it suffers exceptions.

About 50mm 1.4 lenses they are often (but not always) sharper at f2 than 50mm f2 lenses. It can be another reason to have one.

[bernhardas]

Edited

[iangreenhalgh1]

Far, far, far too much emphasis is put on the sharpness of lenses. Quite simply, a lens is either sharp enough (for the taste of the user) or it isn't, end of story.

[ForenSeil]

Ah I almost forgot... in terms of physical resolution, uncoupled to magnifcation, my highest resolving lens is a Celestron 2000mm F10

[Arkku]

I haven't objectively measured the sharpness of my lenses, but manual focus ones that come to mind when I think of the most impressively* sharp lenses are Samyang 14mm f/2.8 (especially edge sharpness on full frame wide open beats many famous lenses, including macros), and P6 CZJ MC Sonnar 180mm f/2.8.


* By “impressively” I mean that the lens subjectively exceeds my expectations. For example, if I had bought the Zeiss Otus, which I haven't, I would expect it to be my sharpest lens, but I wouldn't consider it particularly impressive compared to my expectations and the price. If that makes any sense.

[bernhardas]

Edited

[sammo]

It could be that my softest lens is also the sharpest, depending on the aperture used...nikkor ais 50 f/1.2.

[Gerald]

[bernhardas]

Edited

[Gerald]

[ForenSeil]

+1 that colors can be very important.
I would pay 25% more for my Sonnar 55/1.8 if it had modern natural Leitz colors instead of poppy Zeiss T* colors and another 25% if it had slightly more harmoic bokeh, even if it would kill a little contrast and a tad resolution. But only lens I know which should fit that demands is the over-overly expensive Apo-Summicron 50/2 which's price is very far above my personal pain limit (about 6000€ in local camera store I think).
But I'm a guy who became quite nerdy with colors the last two years. That's also why I don't like to use many sovjet- and Canon lenses, as well as several Zeiss T* and CZJ and others I know, simply because I don't like their colors sheme (anymore). But actually most people don't even see the small difference.

PS: As far as I know the sharpest mass produced lens for 35mm is the Zeiss ZM Biogon 25/2.8. It reaches something around 400lp/mm in center between F2.8 and F4. "Only" around 1000€ new and 650-750 used - what a bargain compared to Otus and Apo-Cron which are both much softer ;D
Unfortunately it doesn't harmonise well with most modern digital sensors (except Leica M Mononchrom I think), both in center but especially in the corners, otherwise it would be a must have for me. At the moment you can only use it's full resolution with ISO3-ISO6 B/W film . I hope that the 54MP Sony A9 will solve most of that issue in early 2015, than my wet pixel peeping dreams might come true, even if 54mp would be sz´till not enough to outresolve that lens