Canon FD vs. Kit Lens Comparison Photos

S

Seansense

New member
So I thought it would be interesting to do some photographic comparisons of the GH1 kit lens and Canon FD lenses. I setup the GH1 on a tripod about 8 feet from a bookshelf and took several photos at various apertures.

Lighting was overhead incandescent bulbs. The camera was set to manual mode, ISO 100, Standard Film Mode (0/0/0), Incandescent White Balance.

**EDIT: Redid image this morning just to be sure I had the focus right, and included originals.**

Here is the first comparison:
Kit Lens @ 50mm, f/5.5, 1/1.6 sec (Original JPEG)
Canon FD 50mm 1:1.4 @ f/5.6, 1/2 sec (Original JPEG)

Kit_FD50_f5.6.JPG


It's interesting to note that the FD lens is less contrasty but actually sharper at this aperture.

Anybody find this interesting? It's a bit of work to prep the comparison images, so if nobody cares I won't do any more, but I did take a bunch of photos with the above lenses as well as a Canon FD 135mm 1:2.5 SC and a Canon FD 75-200mm 1:4.5.

Yes, I know, it's an exciting Friday night... But my mother-in-law is visiting so I'm hiding in my office. :D
 
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awesome! I've been waiting for someone to do this, as I am too lazy and not much of a photographer anyway. Please, put up whatever else you have.

I think the kit lens, just overall, is proving better image quality in that shot. To me, the canon fd seems softer.
 
Yes, I've noticed that my Canon FD lens have less contrast than my kit or Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens using the same settings which also made the kit/20mm lenses appear to be sharper but I guess not when you really look at it closer. Good to know. I'm surprised how close the color between the two lenses is in your comparison also.

Randy
 
Thanks for the comparison... Any solution to the FD softness? I was thinking about picking a few up...
 
Guess you guys are misreading what he or I wrote. He stated that the Canon FD lens is sharper than the kit lens and if you look at the pic he provided you can clearly see that this is the case.

Randy
 
Cavemandude said:
Guess you guys are misreading what he or I wrote. He stated that the Canon FD lens is sharper than the kit lens and if you look at the pic he provided you can clearly see that this is the case.

Randy
Click to expand...

No. I'm just disagreeing. I think I'm allowed to do that. It'd be cool to have the full-sized image to see which is sharper. But I think the kit lens simply looks better.
 
d1rockwild said:
No. I'm just disagreeing. I think I'm allowed to do that. It'd be cool to have the full-sized image to see which is sharper. But I think the kit lens simply looks better.
Click to expand...

I updated the original post this morning to add links to the full-size images for your viewing pleasure. I was also questioning whether or not I got the focus just right so I redid the kit lens photo and the results were the same. I changed the 100% crop area to a more detailed portion of the photo so you can see the clear difference in sharpness.

I think that zoomed out the kit lens photo has more "pop" because of the better contrast and slightly more vivid colors. The sharpness of the two lenses is about the same at the center, but the kit lens falls off towards the edges. This is what you would expect comparing a zoom lens to a prime. Overall I think that the FD lens holds up very well; the difference in contrast can easily be corrected in PP.
 
Here are a couple more comparisons to finish out the FD 50mm 1:1.4 SSC:

Kit Lens @ 50mm, f/5.6, 1/1.6 sec (Original JPEG)
Canon FD 50mm 1:1.4 SSC @ f/1.4, 1/25 sec (Original JPEG)

Kit_f5.6_FD50_f1.4.jpg


It's interesting to note above how soft the FD lens goes at wide open aperture, although it does retain a good amount of detail. Because it's taking in such diffuse light, the colors start to blend together, even though all the details are still there. It's a nice effect when used wisely. It seems that effect starts past f/2.8 and gets more pronounced on the way to f/1.4.


Kit Lens @ 50mm, f/8.0, 1.3 sec (Original JPEG)
Canon FD 50mm 1:1.4 SSC @ f/8.0, 1 sec (Original JPEG)

Kit_FD50_f8.0.jpg


Here you can clearly see that the kit lens is much sharper at f/8.0 than it was at f/5.6 and is beating out the FD lens at the edges of the image. The FD lens seems to be past its sweet spot here.
 
Ah, now we are talking... man each one has their advantages and drawbacks.

The FD lens has its sweet spot - where I think the kit lens holds its own throughout the tests. Thing is the kit lens isnt fast enough to have the problems a 1.4 lens has like you said, Sean.
 
hey seansense, if you're so inclined, and your mother-in-law is still there, i wonder how this same test of lenses would compare when taking screen grabs from video capture. I'm sure in video, it will be less obvious which lens is performing better but who knows.
 
It's kind of suprising that the Canon 50mm is so soft at F8, when it's plenty sharp in the corners at F5.6. Usually the "sweet spot" of these fast primes are F4-F11.

Interesting to note also that your tests are evidence that contrast is not directly related to resolution. Lens makers will often go for contrast and micro contrast over resolution, because often perceived "sharpness" for the human mind/eye is achieved more by contrast than resolution.

It would be interesting to see a test of these same lenses on a human face in daylight. The softness of the 50mm at f1.4 and f2. might have a kind of dreamy 70's look and certainly kinder and less videoish,
 
dadoboy said:
It's kind of suprising that the Canon 50mm is so soft at F8, when it's plenty sharp in the corners at F5.6. Usually the "sweet spot" of these fast primes are F4-F11.

Interesting to note also that your tests are evidence that contrast is not directly related to resolution. Lens makers will often go for contrast and micro contrast over resolution, because often perceived "sharpness" for the human mind/eye is achieved more by contrast than resolution.

It would be interesting to see a test of these same lenses on a human face in daylight. The softness of the 50mm at f1.4 and f2. might have a kind of dreamy 70's look and certainly kinder and less videoish,
Click to expand...

I have a hard time believing that the Canon 50mm @8 would really be that soft - we're talking 1 second exposures here, that's a lot of time for something to go wrong,.
 
Thanks for doing this test! It's really interesting, though hardly surprising - 50mm prime will almost always be sharper than a 10x superzoom. However, I'd like to comment on one aspect of your first comparison (@ f/5.6):

When viewed full sized, the bottom right corner is sharper on the FD lens than it is on the kit. However, look at the left side at full size, and they're almost exactly the same sharpness, although the kit lens edges out with contrast.

I've noticed the exact same issue with my kit lens (being sharper on the left side than the right side), and it's most apparent when I shoot 16x9 format photos. Can anyone else corroborate this? Is it a lens design issue? Just curious. I don't noticed the difference in sharpness on 4:3 or 3:2 format photos, it's just on that extreme right side of 16:9 images.

BTW - the sharpness difference (between the kit & FD lens) isn't enough to make a difference in video mode, from what I can see, and I've looked pretty closely. It's mostly just a contrast difference in video.
 
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