New lens, but no images till I get an adapter

[Inkanyezi]

I got this lens in a second hand shop today. The price tag was irresistible, about $10.

So now I'll have to find an adapter for my µ4/3 camera.
Thinking of a Speed Boster. A 1½" f/0,95 would be some nice portrait glass. Should have reasonable bokeh, but it is a heavy beast.

[rpcrowe]

The Canon FD 50mm f/1.2 is an excellent lens...

[Inkanyezi]

I think it could replace the Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 that I might sell with the Contax RTS I had for so many years.

[dje]

Urban

I recently dug out an old Canon FD mount 50/1.8 I had and found an adaptor for my Sony a6000 on ebay (from China for about $10). Fotga was the brand and it works well. You should find a similar adaptor for the m4/3 mount on ebay. Manual focus and exposure only of course.

Dave

[Black Pearl]

Now thats a cool buy and a bargain to boot.

A Speed Booster sounds like a nice idea but I'd be tempted to just bung it on a basic (no glass) adapter to see how it performs without 'mucking about' with the optics.

[ionian]

As nice as the speedbooster would be, with a f1.2 lens would you find yourself needing the extra speed? That's already going to be pretty thin DOF, even on M43. I'd get myself a £10 adapter and then buy the speedbooster later, there's no way I could wait to put that on my camera!

I did a trawl of charity shops last week, and found nothing. I got excited when the lady found a big old olympus box in the back but it was a 90s film compact. One day I will come across that Leica system...

[Inkanyezi]

Of course I already ordered a cheap adapter, and I truly doubt that I would ever get a speed booster. After all, it does not change the size of the aperture, more so the angle of view. I already have used the Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 quite a bit, so I know about how much bokeh is possible at a rather similar focal length. The vantage here is that to sell my Contax RTS, the lens might have to go with it, so I'll still have that focal length with a large aperture. The Canon asph lens is also a bit sharper at large apertures, whether anyone would notice or not. The advantage of the speed booster might rather be that it comes with a tripod mount. This chunk of glass is heavy.

But the adapter won't be here until some day next week. Until then I'll just hide it away and do something else.

[Inkanyezi]

I received the adapter today, and I have taken a couple of test shots to compare with the Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1.4. So far it seem to fare no better, and it is substantially heavier. It is considerably warmer in tone, and there is one property that makes it less suitable for digital. The AR coating of the rear element reflects rather much light back to the sensor, like many older lenses, which causes a soft spot in the center at small apertures.

It does not seem to be sharper than the Planar, so my best strategy might be to sell it to someone who might appreciate it and keep the Planar as well as the other two lenses I have from the RTS. They are very good, and the Distagon 35 mm with a macro teleconverter is a very good 70 mm macro lens focusing from infinity to twice life size.

[ionian]

Well it seems it's not the right lens for you, especially if you already have a (very) decent 50mm. Out of interest, what camera are you using it on? And would a speed booster solve the bright spot?

I'll give you $15 for it if you can drop it off to me in the uk

[Inkanyezi]

It's the OM-D E-M5
I have not only one, but three very decent lenses around 50 mm, the sharpest of them from 1959, a Shneider Xenar 50/2,8 for Edixa. As I use a tilt adapter for M42 lenses, I also have a Fujinon 55/1,8 that is very sharp and has decent bokeh. In fact I also have a 50 mm enlarging lens that's good for macro, the Rodenstock Trinar, which is also from about 1960.

So the only reason to use the f/1,2 lens would have been if it had given better result wide open than the Planar, and also if I could get some money back from selling my old RTS camera with lenses. As it looks, this Canon lens might fetch better money than the Contax, and it is no better than the Planar lens. These two images are with the Canon and the Zeiss lens, and it is evident also with the somewhat shrunk images that both are sufficiently sharp, but the Planar has less disturbing bokeh. (I didn't bother about the colour discrepancy here, jpegs SOOC are warmer with the Canon lens, but I ran them QaD through Darktable and for some reason the Zeiss came out warmer.) For small spots, the Canon bokeh looks somewhat better, but I hate it for straight lines as the cupboard and digital image frame in the background here.

Canon FD 55/1,2 SSC Aspherical


Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1,4 T*

[ionian]

The oof areas near the picture frame and cupboard have very heavy chromatic aberration, in particular from the canon. I wonder if it would look better with this corrected - but still the bokeh will be contrasty I think.

What aperture was this shot at? Looks like around f2.8 to my eye (on iPad so no exif) - if it's wide open then I'd expect much more subject separation. If so, is it better at f1.2 or too soft generally?

I have the Vivitar 55mm macro which works really nicely as a portrait lens on m43, but I can't get away from the Olympus 45mm f1.8 for people pictures, it's an absolute gem, and stops me lusting after more expensive and legacy glass.

[Manfred M]

Urban - have you read this article? As a mFT shooter who just bought a Canon lens to use on it, you might find this interesting.


https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/201...dapted-lenses/

[Inkanyezi]

It wasn't a lot of lusting that gave me the Planar, as I had it since the seventies, when my camera of choice was the Contax. I had three Carl Zeiss lenses for it, and still have them all, although it was about 2003 that I stopped shooting film. The Contax RTS was one of all cameras I had, but the only one that stayed along after I sold the other ones. For some time I even used a Topcon Uni for professional shooting, as it was the only leaf shutter camera for 35 mm slide film that I could easily find (for combining strobe with natural light), and at that time I made prints on Cibachrome. Of course my reason for acquiring the RTS was that it was top of the line at that time, and it is still a very good camera. But I don't shoot film any more.

So I use that "legacy glass" with the µ4/3 camera, because I have it, and I like the result, and some of it I acquired cheaply at charity second hand shops. BTW the one at the top of this thread is done with Sonnar 85/2,8. I also had a couple of Tamron SP lenses, a 135/2,5 that rivals the Zeiss lenses for sharpness, and a 24-48 zoom, that I still use at times with the µ4/3 system and the tilt adapter. Other lenses suitable for tilt are Chinon 35/2,8 and Fujinon 28/2,8 as well as the Fujinon 50/1,9 and Tamron SP 17/3,5. The Tamron SP 17 mm was traded for another piece of equipment by a friend, and the Fujinons and Chinon acquired in second hand shops just as the Canon lens, for nigh to nothing.

Of course I have to admit that I happen to like that old glass. In a way it takes me back to the time when we didn't have AF and fully automatic cameras.

And I was a bit disappointed by the less than perfect performance of the Canon lens, I had expected it to be better. It surely is very good for shooting with film, but for digital, the soft spot in the middle is a drawback it shares with lots of older glass. For example the EL Nikkor 80 mm and 50 mm Componon are unusable for this reason, although a very old Rodenstock Trinar rivals lenses branded "for digital". That Trinar lens also was purchased at a charity secondhand shop.

So that's the truth. All legacy glass is not suitable for digital shooting, because of the reflective properties of the filter in front of the sensor and reflecting surfaces on and in the lens, causing them to create a soft spot in the centre at small apertures and softening at larger apertures. Some old lenses however are surprisingly good, as the Trinar and the Xenar lens from the fifties that is crisp and clear as the original Olympus lenses.

So legacy glass is miss, miss, miss and then hit. Much of it isn't up to par, but after kissing some frogs, a prince may be found. The Canon 55/1,2 was not it.

[Shadowman]

It's the OM-D E-M5
I have not only one, but three very decent lenses around 50 mm, the sharpest of them from 1959, a Shneider Xenar 50/2,8 for Edixa. As I use a tilt adapter for M42 lenses, I also have a Fujinon 55/1,8 that is very sharp and has decent bokeh. In fact I also have a 50 mm enlarging lens that's good for macro, the Rodenstock Trinar, which is also from about 1960.

So the only reason to use the f/1,2 lens would have been if it had given better result wide open than the Planar, and also if I could get some money back from selling my old RTS camera with lenses. As it looks, this Canon lens might fetch better money than the Contax, and it is no better than the Planar lens. These two images are with the Canon and the Zeiss lens, and it is evident also with the somewhat shrunk images that both are sufficiently sharp, but the Planar has less disturbing bokeh. (I didn't bother about the colour discrepancy here, jpegs SOOC are warmer with the Canon lens, but I ran them QaD through Darktable and for some reason the Zeiss came out warmer.) For small spots, the Canon bokeh looks somewhat better, but I hate it for straight lines as the cupboard and digital image frame in the background here.

Canon FD 55/1,2 SSC Aspherical


Carl Zeiss Planar 50/1,4 T*

Are you judging by SOOC?

[Inkanyezi]

Are you judging by SOOC?

I am judging colour caracteristics of the lens by SOOC, as it shows differences between lenses. The SOOC images of these are quite different from the ones posted here. The Canon image has a pinkish tint while the Planar one is cold in tone. The conversions here, made in Darktable are not SOOC, and in front of the image frame on the shelf there is a white balance card. (I wrote that it was a quick and dirty job, actually rather sloppy.) I have no idea why the eyedropper tool got it wrong for the Canon image, but I was too lazy to do anything about it, as it is not important for evaluating the usefulness of the lens.

I thought of making images of the softening and the coloured centre spot that appears when the lens is stopped down, but I didn't take time to do it. I'll put an example image later. I can also post the colour differences SOOC if you wish, but it is surely so, that SOOC uses exactly the same parameters for conversion, which rather truly can tell us whether there is a difference in colour rendition. Whether one is right and the other wrong is another thing. Probably both are wrong in some way. (Of these two, the one taken with Planar seems pretty close to correct colours, while the Canon one is way cooler, and colours are far from what the eye sees. However, what I wanted to show was sharpness and bokeh.)

[inkista]

Of all my legacy adapted glass, my C/Y Zeiss lenses (Planar 100/2 and Distagon 28/2.8) are still my favorite, and when I shifted to micro four-thirds, I debated long and hard with myself about getting some Contax G lenses to use on it (decided against, eventually, going path of least resistance with wide-enough native mount glass). But second to the Zeiss love, I ADORE my Olympus OM 50mm f/1.2. It's the same size as my EF 50/1.8 II and takes a 49mm filter, which I seriously love. The Nikkor 55/1.2 I briefly owned and returned was a scalloped monster in comparison. The OM 50/1.2 cost significantly more than your FD 55/1.2, however.

See if you can get some catseye bokeh out of it. That's the other fun thing to do with f/1.2 lenses, aside from shooting available dark.


50D+OM Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.2

[Inkanyezi]

See if you can get some catseye bokeh out of it. That's the other fun thing to do with f/1.2 lenses, aside from shooting available dark.

Of course I could, but the difference in aperture between f/1.2 and f/1.4 is rather marginal. What is most notedly apparent is the difference in weight and size.

So trying this behemoth of 55 mm lens rather tipped me over from thinking about selling the Planar 50/1.4 to keeping it. It really is a very good lens, and I would regret swapping it for the Canon.

[Inkanyezi]

So here are the images that show the defect of too much reflection back from the rear element of the lens at small apertures. I shot the toaster on my kitchen window-sill, as it is rather easy to see the spot there, but it is not as much annoying in this situation as when there is something detailed in the centre of the image with bright space around it. Many of the lenses I tried share this defect, the Agfa Repromaster lenses I had, and both my Componon 50 and EL-Nikkor 80 mm, as well as my now sold Olympus 60/1.5 for Pen F, which otherwise is a very pleasant lens.

So both shots here under are with the Canon FD 55/1.2,
First the shot wide open, where the rosy reflection will cover the entire frame, although it is subdued by the sheer amount of light that enters to form the image.


Then without changing vantage point, the same scene at f/16.