M42 and film era lenses vs digital lenses

mastertrinity

mastertrinity

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I hear a lot about old film era lenses having excellent image quality compared to newer kit lenses (cheap lenses) and the like and wondered if anyone had real world comparisons to prove it?
 
Depends what film era lenses you're talking about.

Fast primes will be, in a lot of cases, stellar like the newer fast primes (a fair few of which seem to be based on old optical designs anyway).

But cheaper old zooms can be crap, I've got my dad's old solitel PK 75-150mm f/3.9 and it's quality is abysmal on my 40D.
But his other two lenses, a cosina 24mm f/2.8 and pentax asahi 50mm f/1.7 produce lovely images on my 40D. Easily comparable to my 150mm macro (a superb performer) for sharpness, let alone cheap kit lenses.

Some old lenses are among the sharpest you'll ever find.

I've never bothered with comparisons.
 
squishy said:
Depends what film era lenses you're talking about.

Fast primes will be, in a lot of cases, stellar like the newer fast primes (a fair few of which seem to be based on old optical designs anyway).

But cheaper old zooms can be crap, I've got my dad's old solitel PK 75-150mm f/3.9 and it's quality is abysmal on my 40D.
But his other two lenses, a cosina 24mm f/2.8 and pentax asahi 50mm f/1.7 produce lovely images on my 40D. Easily comparable to my 150mm macro (a superb performer) for sharpness, let alone cheap kit lenses.

Some old lenses are among the sharpest you'll ever find.

I've never bothered with comparisons.
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I would never touch a film era zoom as they had teething problems in the early years. I'm talking about 35mm f2.8 type primes etc just for collection purposes and to use at the same time. I'm sorta thinking M42 mount era and MD mount era if that's any use :)
 
photon said:
So, why do peeps pay £300+ for e.g. the Tamron Adaptall ƒ/2.8 70-150mm?
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Some obviously have a high value worth but for me I don't like using zooms anyway let alone using old zooms, plus I'm talking like £30 20-35mm etc zooms and not £300 wide aperture zooms, also I don't like the push/pull mechanism.
 
Not M42, but here's Ken Rockwell's opinion of the Tokina f/3.5 17mm. I've never used/owned a kit lens, but the first lens I bought for digital was the Tamron f/2.8-4.0 17-35mm (also usable on film) and the 17mm Tokina was no worse (though I never pixel-peeped).
 
photon said:
So, why do peeps pay £300+ for e.g. the Tamron Adaptall ƒ/2.8 70-150mm?
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The vast majority of early 3rd party zooms were awful, and you know it - no need to pick on a generalised statement when it covers most of the early zooms pretty accurately.

To answer the question - yes, film era lenses can still be excellent performers. I use a beaten up Nikkor-N 24mm f/2.8 (1971-1972) and it is still an excellent lens. Even the modern day 50mm f/1.8 tend to be based on 'classic' optical designs, so nifty fifties from decades ago often share a very similar (or even identical) optical design - albeit lenses now have more aspherical elements/dispersion elements and all that jazz to try and minimise other lens problems. Over the years there has been some seriously impressive bits of glass made that can be picked up for relatively cheaply.
 
freecom2 said:
The vast majority of early 3rd party zooms were awful, and you know it
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Granted, but the OP hadn't said he didn't like using zooms and there are plenty of zooms from 1980-2000+ that should not be tarred with the same brush. Not all have a trombone action and not many are likely to be M42.
 
I'm using the m42 28mm vivitar f2.5 (with a very slight wobble when focussing - still like it loads tho :)

I have a 135 hoya too (test lens) although it fools the light meter/exposure and appears to soft focus, when manually set up is pretty crisp.

Its a bit close to the 105mm macro I have tho so I might be moving it on to a new home in the near future :)


Some are worthwhile, but I do miss the AF .. .as does my wife when she has to pose a little longer (say a minute) incomparison to the af zip take a pic...

But makes you feel a hell of a lot better when a great shot comes out... :)


Check the m42 link to flickr pics...
 
I have both the 50mm and 35mm Nikon E series lenses which cost about £80 for the 2. these were supposed to be a cheap and cheerful way to use what had been expensive primes but they produce stunningly sharp images for very little layout.

Andy
 
I have a Takumar and Pentacon 135mm 2.8 and would say money well spent IMO.

Pound for pound the best portrait lenses money can buy.
 
+1 for the Takumars. Fun, beautiful feel, and good results on my nikon. However I stress the fun part- for serious shooting I would miss AF too much:)
 
hej_pk said:
+1 for the Takumars. Fun, beautiful feel, and good results on my nikon. However I stress the fun part- for serious shooting I would miss AF too much:)
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What M42-Nikon adapter are you using, and have you noticed any decrease in quality from the infinity focus element?
 
Most film era zooms are indeed terrible, since they weren't filled with the Apserical and Apochromatic elements which are now commponplace. There are some decent enough ones though - Vivitar Series 1 zooms are acceptable for example (Though big and heavy!)

A lot of old primes are excellent, in fact some are still in production today with a few tweeks.

If you have the ability to use it, a Minolta Rokkor 45mm F2 is a very inexpensive GEM of a lens. A Zuiko 50mm f1.8 makes a great portrait lens on crop thanks to it's relatively low saturation and contrast vs modern lenses.
 
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