TEST 28-85mm: Can/Min/Nik/Yash/Zeiss

[stevemark]

Here are the first raw results of the test I did yesterday. For time being I just publish the corner crops at f=28mm, f=50m and f=85mm. These results are intriguing to say the least, and I will add a few remarks later on.

As a reference I have included three well known Minolta MC Rokkor primes of the corresponding focal lengths (MC 3.5/28mm, MC 1.4/50mm and MC 1.7/85mm) - these Rokkor primes are roughly ten years older than the zooms, but nevertheless quite a bit better.

Information on distortion - an important subject for zooms - as well as on flares / flare resistance and handling qualities will follow later.

S

f=28mm:



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f=50mm:


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f=85mm:


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[Ultrapix]

Here the Canon looks the best to me

[stevemark]

[kiddo]

sorry guys, might be the late hours but i don´t see canon better, in some cases nikkor f11 and primes of course - sincerely, i have expected better results from zeiss zoom

[stevemark]

[Dejan]

To my eyes, the Nikkor looks the best in this corner test (or the least bad), but not with every aperture/FL combination, as expected. With 85mm it would be Zeiss, where it actually doesn't look bad. But of course, for now we only saw corners like you said. I guess some of them will have at least decent to good center sharpness, somewhere. Midframe? Probably not in most cases, but who knows. When we account for the distortion, size difference, aberrations, speed etc., I don't think I regret not having one of these. But I was quite curious to see the results. Although, even with new GM and similar zooms, copies vary in terms of what's their best FL, or so they say.

[ZuikosHexanonsandVivitars]

Stephan, thanks a lot for your continued effort to provide interesting new content here.

[BrianSVP]

[Ultrapix]

[Ultrapix]

[lumens pixel]

Excellent info, again.

I have considered my copy of the Minolta 28 85 as a good 35 70, with exceptional colours and contrast excluding the corners.

The bad news is that I already had an even better 35 70 from Minolta.

I was not enough picky at that time about proper shimming of my adapter and I always wondered if a better adapter would have provided better results.

[Dejan]

[stevemark]

Let's talk abou the colors now. Interestingly, the color rendering of these lenses is surprisingly ... well: diverse



These JPGs are directly from the A7II (apart from the reduced size, of course), and they all were taken at the same color temperature settings (6000K / M1). The lenses were set to 28mm / wide open. The Canon (und to some extent the Nikkor) is transmitting more magenta than the Minolta and the Zeiss, and the Yashica has a pretty pronounced yellowish color cast.

Another thing is the effective (real) focal length. At the wide end, Minolta is the widest lens (=best). The Canon and the Nikkor are about 0.6% longer, the Zeiss about 1.3% longer, and the Yashica a full 6% longer than the Minolta (=worst). If the Minolta is really 28mm at its short end (I doubt it, usually they are about 29 or 29.5mm), the Yashica would be nearly 30mm ... which means in reality the Yashica is probably more a 31mm than a 28mm lens!

Looking at the long end, the Yashica is the longest (=best); the Nikkor has about 99.5% of the focal length of the Yashica, the Minolta and the Zeiss both about 98.5%, and the Canon only 96% of the Yashica (=worst).


So much for today - tomorrow we'll talk about contrast in general, flares & ghosting, and coma. It will be interesting

S

[stevemark]

Here a few more remarks on the resolution of these 28-85mm lenses (and the primes mentioned above). These remarks are based on looking at the entire images of several test series (and not only the crops of one series, as shown above), and they should summarize my findings regarding resolution.

At f=28mm
Let's start with the worst corners, because that's pretty obvious: The Yashica ML 28-85mm as well as the Zeiss Varion Sonnar 28-85mm. Wide open, even the borders (image height of 15 - 18mm) look simply unsharp. The Minolta looks slightly better, and the Nikkor is pretty similar. Not really good, but .... Of course the tiny and humble Minolta MC 3.5/28mm is better than all the zooms, and by quite a margin. Here's a comparison from the borders, showing the prime along with the best zoom (wide open):


At f11 the differences are still visible:


Looking carefully at the entire images I would say that all five lenses are pretty similar at f11. The only exception is the Yashica which has a different color rendering and a different correction of the secondary spectrum (blueish-yellow lateral CAs instead of magenta-green with all the others).

f=50mm
Here we have to differentiate a bit.
Looking at the corners, and wide open, the Canon is by far the best - all others are simply bad.
Looking at the borders (about 15-18mm image height) the Canon is still the best, but not by such a wide margin as with the corners. Interestingly, the Minolta MC 1.4/50mm at f4 isn't better than the Canon zoom!

Now looking at an image height of about 12mm (Zeiss image was mirrored to better show the differences):



It's pretty clear that the clarity and microcontrast of the Zeiss are better than that of the Canon. Stopping down to f6.7 eliminates most differences between the lenses, and at f11 they are pretty equal. Weird enough, the Canon corners actuall get worse when stopping down! I triple-checked - yes, it's true.

f=85mm

Wide open, there's a clear winner now - the Zeiss Vario Sonnar! Apart from the extreme corners, the entire image is surprisingly clear and sharp, even better than the Minolta MC 1.7/85mm at f4!! Compared to the Zeiss, all other zooms (including the Canon) look pretty much "veiled". Apart from the Zeiss, the Minolta delivers at least in the center of the image a pretty good contrast. Here's an 100% crop from the test images at f=85mm and wide open (f4 or f4.5); the image height is about 15-18mm:



Stopped down to f6.7 and f11 the Canon looks pretty good too (but not on the level of the Zeiss), while Minolta, Nikkor and Yashica don't get really good even at f11 (Zeiss is better at f4 than Min-Nik-Yash at f11).

As you can see now, over all the Zeiss does look much better now, especially wide open. When it comes to corner resolution, the Canon is clearly better than the Zeiss, especially at f=28mm and f=50mm. However, the Canon images at f4 look pretty low-contrast and - worse! - have a magenta color cast that is difficult to remove. I might prefer the Canon for landscapes, but the Zeiss delivers much better results when used wide open and in the typical "reportage" situations it probably was made for.

The Nikkor, the Yashica and especially the Minolta are much smaller (and slighhtly slower) than the Zeiss, and stopped down to f11 not that far away from the Zeiss, but - similarly to the Canon - hampered by their missing contrast and "bite" in the f3.5 ... f5.6 range.

S

[caspert79]

[Ultrapix]

[Ultrapix]

I hope you don't mind, Stephan, just as a little experiment; I applied a modest amount of contrast mask to half of the photo taken with the Canon; it is obvious that a lens that does not need it is preferable, and I myself rejoice when a file comes out nice and crisp without digital artefacts, but we all know that everything in the real world is compromised, and of the many options I prefer a file where the detail, even if somewhat veiled is present, and therefore improvable, to one where it is completely flaky.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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[stevemark]

[Vintage_Photographer]

Thanks for doing this work. I'm watching with great interest as I'm looking at the wishlist of lenses to add to my Contax RX. Obviously I'm pretty limited by choice of lens mount (CaMiNik are out of the question) but it's great to see why I should not get a Yashica ML!

That 28-85 has definitely made it to the shortlist reading through all your results.

[caspert79]

[stevemark]

[lumens pixel]