which vintage prime 50mm lens to buy

M

mike_fuse

New member
I want a prime standard lens, thats good for my Canon 7D

I have found these on ebay

- Canon 50mm Mk1 Fast Prime lens f1.8
everywhere i read everyone says get this over the mkII

- Contax Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.7 MM T* lens

- Contax Zeiss Planar T* 50mm/f1.4 MMJ lens

Can all these lenses work ok on my 7D?
the contax lenses are more expensive than the canon, almost double $350 US dollars
are they worth the extra cash?

any advice much appreciated
mike
 
The - Contax Zeiss Planar T* 50mm/f1.4 MMJ lens.

Great lens.

The Canon is surprisingly good (no CA) but unfortunately the throw is not great or easy to work with for video.
 
supertakumar 50mm 1.4 is an excellent lens. (get one without yellowing) or if you do get one with yellowish tint it can be removed easily. just google how. Mine was in very good condition.
 
super takumar 50mm 1.4

super takumar 50mm 1.4

re the
super takumar 50mm 1.4

it looks good
what sort of adapter do I need for Automatic aperture?
can i do that with the old cameras?
mike
 
the supertakumar is full manual. aperature is controlled from the lens. the adapter i use is an m42-eos adapter from fotodiox. i think fotodiox are very good...i have another one for my yashica lens. no play in those adapters. the adapter u use depends on the lens mount.
 
For the Canon EOS mount you can get manual mechanical lens adapters for many different lenses -- the following list does not include adapters which include corrective optical elements (which can degrade the image):

Nikon F
Pentax K
Contax/Yashica MM
Olympus OM
M42 (eg. Pentax)
Leica R
 
Seriously, for a small-sensor cam with the footage undergoing Canon's video compression... you don't have to go nuts. A Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF is pretty fabulous... older MF lenses will generally have better focus damping, too. Keep in mind a 50 on the 7D is going to have the field of view of about a 70mm; you may find you reach for a 20, 24 or 28mm more often.
 
So Michael
are you saying I should consider a modern lens?
will the Nikon lens fit my 7D or do i need a mount

why the nikon over the canon

if i was reverting back to the
- Canon 50mm Mk1 Fast Prime lens f1.8
is this auto focus and auto aperture?


I was getting into the idea of a Pentax 1:4

 
I have a carl zeiss jena "zebra" pancolar 50mm f/1.8, and it's a very nice lens

like jambredz, I also use a fotodiox M42 to EOS adapter

it's fully manual focus and aperture (the lens has an iris ring); in order to use auto focus and/or camera-controlled aperture, you'll need a more modern lens, and, if it's not an EOS-mount lens, a more expensive adaptor than the dumb one I have, which is just mechanical

this was shot entirely with my pancolar; it's a very quick edit, nearly straight out of the camera, though poorly compressed because of vimeo's free user limit of 500MB per clip (720p24, H.264, low Mbps):
http://www.vimeo.com/16358850

I'll try to post a shorter clip with higher res and bitrate... (see edit below)

* lens sharpness does matter, even for 1080p video; I'll try to post some tests next week
* there's more to image quality apart from sharpness, other lens characteristics are also important; for example, I like my czj pancolar 50mm f/1.8, but I don't like my father's similarly-priced canon 50mm f/1.8 II, even though it is indeed a very sharp lens; and it's not just because of the poor construction quality and akward focusing ring...
* as Michael said, a 50 may not be your best bet for a main lens on an APS-C camera; mine is a 35mm f/2.8 (leica elmarit-r, great lens, a bit more expensive)

my "one dollar resolution chart" sharpness tests:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/lenstests/lenstestsa.html

EDIT: here's the higher-quality excerpt:
http://vimeo.com/16540052
 
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