anyone tried?

-- Yossi (yosslee@yahoo.com), April 23, 2002

Answers

Yes, it's good.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), April 23, 2002.

I am also interested in this or the Canon 50/1.8 which is less expensive. More specific info would be appreciated as to performance wide open, resolution, contrast, etc. Also how they might compare to the Leica versions of the same period ( Sumilux, Ridgid Sumi).

-- Gerry Widen (gwiden@alliancepartners.org), April 23, 2002.

these canon lenses can be quite good, but some are also quite bad. there is significant sample to sample variation. shoot a few frames with any earl canon rf lens before you buy (if possible).

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), April 23, 2002.

You may find Dante Stella's take on some of these lenses to be useful. In comparison, here's his article on the nikkor LTM lenses.

Gerry:

My opinion pretty much tracks Mr. Stella's. I don't do rigorous performance chart tests, but in my everyday shooting experience, the Canon 50/1.8 (mine is a black 1 from c.1956-58) is a very good performer for the money (I think you can find them for < $200 on eBay), w/only slightly less resolution than my 50 Summicron DR (@ f/2) & a similar low-contrast look to the DR (both compared to my 50/1.5 & 50/2 Zeiss Sonnars & 50/1.4 Nikkor).

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), April 23, 2002.

Thanks Chris.

Im offered the 50 /1.8 for USD150. I will get it tomorrow. ;)

-- Yossi (yosslee@yahoo.com), April 23, 2002.

I'll second Chris's opinion. I recently replaced my 35 Elmar with the Canon 50 F1.8 an am quite pleased. This past weekend I did a direct comparison with my 35 Asph Summicron, a portrait against strong backlighting, to see just how much poorer the Canon was against modern glass. I was quite pleasantly surprised. There was only a bit more flare with the older lenses, in particular the kind that gives a soft, feathery edge to the subject, but the overall contrast of the face was good, with little veiled flare. As with most lenses of this ere, wide open it was little soft - nice for portraits but probably a little to soft for other kinds of shooting. But by F3.5 I found it to be as sharp as anything else I've got. I also tried (at the same time) a friends Nikkor 50mm F1.4 (much more expensive) and found that at F4 it was a tossup for sharpness, though if you regularily shoot in dark closets F1.4 is invaluable. I don't know about the quality control mentioned above with the Canon, but I've found it to be a very good lens.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), April 23, 2002.

BTW, FWIW, here's an example of a shot taken w/the Canon 50/1.8 (1/250 sec. @ f/4, Kodak T400CN). As a rough point of comparison, here's a snap taken w/the post-WWII Zeiss 50/1.5 (1/1250 sec. @ f/2, Kodak T400CN). Unfortunately, I don't have any comparable Summicron DR shots to show you.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), April 23, 2002.

1. You have to think of these things in terms of effective speed.

a 50/1.8 Canon is a lens designed for f/4-f/8 at 10-15 feet (BTW, the 50/1.8 Canon is a fantastic lens for general purpose work). The same goes for a 50/1.4 Canon and the Summarit and basically anything else. They are mid-distance, mid-aperture lenses for general purpose use.

2. When you start looking at the Sonnar variants like the (well) Sonnar, the original Voigtlander Nokton 1.5 ($1,300+ used) the Canon 1.5 (or Serenar 1.5), the Nikkor 1.4 or the Zunow 50/1.1, you might as well not even have aperture blades. They'll all designed to be shot wide open. This came from Zeiss's original design philosophy of a better high-speed lenses wide-open.

A 50/1.4 Nikkor takes the Zeiss design philosophy a step further, too far for some people's taste. It is designed for f/1.4-f/2.8 at 3-10 feet. It is a very extreme computation of a Sonnar. In fact, the veiling flare (from focus field curvature that increases with distance) becomes so fantastic at infinity, that you have to stop down to f/2.0 to control it. See here. But that situation is outside its intended purpose, which is to see in the dark at close range. I have seen things in the shadows of Nikkor negs that I have not seen at all in any others. There is a very good reason that the Nikkor is so expensive: it is a single purpose lens that performs admirably in that purpose, even compared to modern glass. So what if it's $400? It's still a damn sight cheaper than a Summilux, and for some aesthetic purposes, superior. The 50/1.2 Canon has the same close/open optimization but does not do quite as well at it.

3. By the time you hit f/4 on the Nikkor, things are poised to go downhill, and the image starts to degrade at f/5.6. When you hit it on a Canon or a Leica, things are still looking up. But either the Canon or the Nikon at f/ 4 will be blown out by a 50/3.5 Elmar atf/4, because the Elmar is easier to make well and has far fewer choices to make. Fast lenses need big glass and optical compromises. By and large, smaller maximum aperture lenses will always outdo larger-aperture lenses in resolution.

 

-- Dante Stella (dante@dantestella.com), April 23, 2002.

Recently tested the following lenses: canon f1.4, modern nokton f1.5, collapsible summicron f2. Nokton is significantly sharper across all apertures. Summicron was significantly sharper than Nokton across all apertures (obviously not f1.5 before some helpful person points that out). Difference between the Nokton and Summicron was such that I would use both depending on circumstances but I took back the Canon. BTW, a similar test of the black canon 85 f1.8 was very impressive although not as good as the 75 1.4 summilux.

-- Mark Eban (markeban@compuserve.com), April 24, 2002.