paulcurtis
Veteran
I'm starting this thread as a suggestion from Nirv, i've got and experimented with quite a few odd lenses and tested them quite a bit, perhaps others will find the information useful. I will dig out some example frames when i've got time too.
This came about as a suggestion to look at OM Zuiko lenses instead of Canon FD. I found the zuikos a little better than the FD range, both in terms of image quality and construction. The focus seemed a little better but that could also be put down to sample variation. Overall the zuikos tend to be smaller than the FDs but they have the aperture rings at the front of the lens that might be awkward in some cases. Both ranges have a good number of primes however you would be hard pushed to find many wide lenses because APS-C sized sensors or film weren't around when these lenses were made, so 20mm was actually very wide.
If you prefer zooms then most of these vintage zooms tend to extend and also not be very fast and/or ramp through the range. There are some 3rd party zooms from sigma but the quality was never that high. There is an Angenieux f2.6 zoom which has a lot of fans although some of the images i've seen from it seem pretty average to me. There is a OM f2.8 zoom 35-80 f2.8 constant which has a great reputation but i couldn't get one to test. Again the zoom range is really aimed at full 35mm sized film.
Moving up a bit you have the Leica R lenses and the Contax Zeiss range. The R lenses are the most expensive and i only have a 135 elmarit and a 28-70 zoom. Most zooms were not made by Leica but OEM'd. The one i have was actually a sigma. It was quite underwhelming in performance. The 'feel' of the Lecias was great though. There is a very expensive Leica made zoom at f2.8, i think in the 28-80mm range. The contax zeiss were my personal favourites and i'm working on collecting these. I've included an example from a OM f1.4 vs Contax f1.4 50mm. You can see the effects of the T* coatings quite clearly. CZ have some nice zooms as well, i have a really flexible lightweight 35-70 that i like a lot.
One of the biggest advantages of the FS100, and one of the features that would stop me getting an F3, is the short flange distance. This means you can adapt practically any lens out there.
So you can also adapt rangefinder lenses. These are very different designs to SLR lenses because they sit much closer to the film plane/sensor. They can be problematic because of this closeness and on some cameras produce colour shifts at the edges because of the light angle. Leicas themselves suffer from this with some of the wider lenses. So far i've not see these problems on the FS.
On the rangefinder side you have Leica M, Zeiss ZM and Voigtlander. Leica Ms remain out of my price range, amazing as they are. I'm thinking about getting some ZMs but mostly i have voigtlanders which really are great price/performance and i love them. I use them mainly for stills. But you get lenses such as the 12mm f5.6 (the widest full frame lens available i believe), the Nokon f1.1 50mm and various in-between. All primes, no zooms. Tiny lenses which from a practical viewpoint might be awkward in some situations. I find it amazing that these little lenses can outperform the big SLRs in some cases. The main downside for me with these lenses is that the minimum focus distance is usually quite long - 0.7m usually. You can however get an adapter (E mount to Leica M) that is a helicoid and you can use that to bring the minimum focus down. Imagine a 50 at f1.1 at 20cm away!
There are also huge numbers of vintage rangefinder lenses. I particularly like the Canon RF range which i feel produces from distinctive beautiful skin rendering. We're talking lenses from the 50s and 60s, not coated like modern lenses. I have a 50 f1.4 and a 50 f1.2. There are also russian copies of Leica lenses, the jupiter range and they can be cheap and distinctive too.
I'm a bit of a lens junkie but i also believe the glass in front of the camera can really impact the image, both technically and also emotionally. There is something about the way certain lenses 'render' the scene. The way the focus drops off (the infamous zeiss 3D look), the quality of the bokeh and the way it performs with flares. Voigtlander have a modern f1.4 35mm which is single coated and flares beautifully. It's technically quite a distortion prone lens but it has character and works beautifully for people.
I would love to hear about other lenses. I keep meaning to see if i can find some russian lomo lenses on OCT mounts, these are 35mm movie lenses. And i'm also on ebay window shopping for bizarre things!
I've included a quick comparison (spot the Contax Zeiss vs the OM Zuiko) and i'll see if i can dig out other examples. I have some nice comparisons between modern CZ zooms and vintage lenses and also with modern canon zooms. But if people are interested in specific things lets see whether we can find them.
cheers
paul
This came about as a suggestion to look at OM Zuiko lenses instead of Canon FD. I found the zuikos a little better than the FD range, both in terms of image quality and construction. The focus seemed a little better but that could also be put down to sample variation. Overall the zuikos tend to be smaller than the FDs but they have the aperture rings at the front of the lens that might be awkward in some cases. Both ranges have a good number of primes however you would be hard pushed to find many wide lenses because APS-C sized sensors or film weren't around when these lenses were made, so 20mm was actually very wide.
If you prefer zooms then most of these vintage zooms tend to extend and also not be very fast and/or ramp through the range. There are some 3rd party zooms from sigma but the quality was never that high. There is an Angenieux f2.6 zoom which has a lot of fans although some of the images i've seen from it seem pretty average to me. There is a OM f2.8 zoom 35-80 f2.8 constant which has a great reputation but i couldn't get one to test. Again the zoom range is really aimed at full 35mm sized film.
Moving up a bit you have the Leica R lenses and the Contax Zeiss range. The R lenses are the most expensive and i only have a 135 elmarit and a 28-70 zoom. Most zooms were not made by Leica but OEM'd. The one i have was actually a sigma. It was quite underwhelming in performance. The 'feel' of the Lecias was great though. There is a very expensive Leica made zoom at f2.8, i think in the 28-80mm range. The contax zeiss were my personal favourites and i'm working on collecting these. I've included an example from a OM f1.4 vs Contax f1.4 50mm. You can see the effects of the T* coatings quite clearly. CZ have some nice zooms as well, i have a really flexible lightweight 35-70 that i like a lot.
One of the biggest advantages of the FS100, and one of the features that would stop me getting an F3, is the short flange distance. This means you can adapt practically any lens out there.
So you can also adapt rangefinder lenses. These are very different designs to SLR lenses because they sit much closer to the film plane/sensor. They can be problematic because of this closeness and on some cameras produce colour shifts at the edges because of the light angle. Leicas themselves suffer from this with some of the wider lenses. So far i've not see these problems on the FS.
On the rangefinder side you have Leica M, Zeiss ZM and Voigtlander. Leica Ms remain out of my price range, amazing as they are. I'm thinking about getting some ZMs but mostly i have voigtlanders which really are great price/performance and i love them. I use them mainly for stills. But you get lenses such as the 12mm f5.6 (the widest full frame lens available i believe), the Nokon f1.1 50mm and various in-between. All primes, no zooms. Tiny lenses which from a practical viewpoint might be awkward in some situations. I find it amazing that these little lenses can outperform the big SLRs in some cases. The main downside for me with these lenses is that the minimum focus distance is usually quite long - 0.7m usually. You can however get an adapter (E mount to Leica M) that is a helicoid and you can use that to bring the minimum focus down. Imagine a 50 at f1.1 at 20cm away!
There are also huge numbers of vintage rangefinder lenses. I particularly like the Canon RF range which i feel produces from distinctive beautiful skin rendering. We're talking lenses from the 50s and 60s, not coated like modern lenses. I have a 50 f1.4 and a 50 f1.2. There are also russian copies of Leica lenses, the jupiter range and they can be cheap and distinctive too.
I'm a bit of a lens junkie but i also believe the glass in front of the camera can really impact the image, both technically and also emotionally. There is something about the way certain lenses 'render' the scene. The way the focus drops off (the infamous zeiss 3D look), the quality of the bokeh and the way it performs with flares. Voigtlander have a modern f1.4 35mm which is single coated and flares beautifully. It's technically quite a distortion prone lens but it has character and works beautifully for people.
I would love to hear about other lenses. I keep meaning to see if i can find some russian lomo lenses on OCT mounts, these are 35mm movie lenses. And i'm also on ebay window shopping for bizarre things!
I've included a quick comparison (spot the Contax Zeiss vs the OM Zuiko) and i'll see if i can dig out other examples. I have some nice comparisons between modern CZ zooms and vintage lenses and also with modern canon zooms. But if people are interested in specific things lets see whether we can find them.
cheers
paul
