50mm Shoot-off, wide open

ziggy53

The following is a test of 4 lenses I own, Pentax 50mm, f1.4 (M42 mount), Canon 50mm, f1.8 (the Fantastic Plastic), Sigma 18-50mm, f2.8, Canon 18-55mm, f4.5-5.6 (the Kit lens).

All lenses were tested at maximum aperture. The Pentax was focused using an EOS/M42 adapter and the focus confirmation chip. All other lenses were allowed to autofocus, center dot only.

The only manipulation was to use PS Levels to adjust for minor exposure differences.

Note the difference in "bokeh" between the images.









Full resolution images available here:

http://ziggy53.smugmug.com/gallery/1610355

Thanks,

ziggy53

Nikolai

Thanks, Ziggy!
Very nice shoot-off!
From my POV, "Fantastic plastic" rules!
Hard to tell the difference from Pentax 1.4 without neatpicking, and you can't beat the price:-)
Appreciate the effort and sharing!

TylerW

I almost like the bokeh of the pentax more, except for two oddities - there's a diagonal line across the roof in the background. i don't know what that's coming from (its not there in the other pictures) and I want it to go away. Also, there's the weird blobby shapes to the left of the pentax. Other than that, looks like the canon 1.8 is the best by a hair.

Manfr3d

Very nice to see the Pentax performing.
I wonder how the Canon 1.4 would have
been in comparison.

marlinspike

Man I wish you had a ZF 50 1.4...wide open it sorta kicks the butt of anything else.

kini62

IMO and eyes the 50 1.8 is easily the WORST of the bunch. It's obviously softer than the rest at max aperture.

gtc

smc takumar 50mm/1.4 rules
smc takumar/1.4 rules!

from where I sit it looks to be the sharpest wide open and lovely bokeh.

and for less than $50.00 who needs a $500 ZF Zeiss?

thanks for the shootout Ziggy.

Manfr3d

kini62 wrote:

IMO and eyes the 50 1.8 is easily the WORST of the bunch. It's obviously softer than the rest at max aperture.

I dont have a comparison but on paper it outperforms them sigmas.
Unarguably the 1.8 has a crappy bokeh once stopped down.

Edit:

Just googled a comparison of the 1.4 and 1.8 from photo.net if u care:
http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/

Roger_Salmon

Is it my imagination or is there some flare in the lower left with the 50mm Canon? Also, this image looks slightly out of focus to me. I would expect it to be sharper. My version of this lens front focuses at this subject distance.

ziggy53

My own notes about this test and these lenses:

I did not use a lens hood for these lenses. Only the Sigma came with a hood. It is clear that a hood is desireable and important in many cases.

These were shot around 10 AM and the sun was to the right and in front of the camera, a backlit scene. A few scattered thin clouds, but I would call it "sunny bright" at the time.

Both the Pentax 50mm and the Canon 50mm show flare. The Pentax flare is across the roof (Tyler saw it) and the Canon is towards the bottom (where Roger picked up on it). Both could have benefitted from a hood, in this case.

I believe the Pentax flare affected contrast, and that's the primary reason the roof is so much lighter in that shot.

Flare can also affect autofocus. I don't think the Canon 50mm is OOF, but I have never gotten very sharp results wide open with this lens. It could be a bad copy. I agree that the Canon is the softest of the group.

I believe the Sigma is the best contrast of the group. This is great because that lens has a very large front element, and it's not unusual to see lenses in this class of zoom display considerable flare which affects contrast. I am very pleased with the Sigma performance against the primes.

The "kit" lens actually performed much better than I originally anticipated. It's still not a great lens, kinda slow aperture, but not too bad in the "proper" circumstances. Forget about bokeh except with close-focus.

Neither the Sigma nor the "kit" lens measures focal length accurately. The Sigma at 50mm is more like 45-47mm, and the Canon 18-55 at 55mm is more like a 50mm.

I plan to acquire a hood for the Pentax lens as it might replace the Canon 50mm in my standard kit. More tests to come.

BTW, I don't put too much stock in the absolute accuracy of MTF tests, as I previously discussed in another thread, but PhotoDO has some comparisons of MTF from Pentax, Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olymus and others. The Pentax 50mm, f1.4 easily held its own against Canon and Nikon lenses of the same aperture. A good copy is just a great lens, and we'll see if I got a good copy. (I believe the PhotoDO tests are about +-.3 MTF in their own tests and cannot be compared to other MTF results from other sites.)

http://photodo.com/nav/prodindex.html

ziggy53

illuminati919

I just ordered the 50mm Canon f/1.4, . But I'm out 300 bucks :cry . Can't wait for it to get here.

RedSox

illuminati919 wrote:

I just ordered the 50mm Canon f/1.4, . But I'm out 300 bucks :cry . Can't wait for it to get here.

Anyone care to post some 50/1.4 images, especially wide open. I am considering buying one too for indoor/low light. Currently my fastest lens get me f2.8 it is too slow for most indoor shot. I know I can bump up the ISO but anything beyond 400 on my XT has very visible noise. I cannnot stand the noise over 800, I can use NeatImage, but I will loose the sharpness.

Blurmore

That Pentax is silly sharp compared to the plastic fantastic, and manages to make the Canon Bokeh look lumpy with its smoothness.

gtc

pentax smc takumars,almost all of them,are optically very good.

sometimes with the teles you may get some CA,but apart from that and no AF they are just just as good as modern lenses,or better,especially on 1.6X crop cameras-sharp across the frame.

you can pick up a 50/1.4 for about $50.00

my400/5.6 cost me about $400 and the cheapest i could get a 400/5.6L was about $1800AUD.

I have the 300/4 and the 200/4 and they are both excellent- the 200/4 is an absolute gem of a lens.

the 85/1.9 is also legendary (but hard to find and expensive-i want one though)as is the 20/3.5 and the 135/2.5.

there is something very addictive about old glass and its good to resurrect these lenses and get them working again.

arroyoshark

Ziggy, this may seem like stupid question, but are using the takumar lens on the Canon? I have some nice K-mount takumars that I'd love to use.

Must be an adapter available somewhere?

Red Bull

^I had that same problem. I have a few K-mount lenses that I would love to use on my 20D, unfortunately there is no adapter for them. Sad, I know. :cry I think it's not possible due to the aperture thing sticking too far out.

arroyoshark

Ooops, my bad. Appeared to be one of those "help vampires" (who knew? ). I took a peek at ziggy's profile and see he lists a Pentax KM. I have an old KX.

ziggy53

arroyoshark wrote:

Ooops, my bad. Appeared to be one of those "help vampires" (who knew? ). I took a peek at ziggy's profile and see he lists a Pentax KM. I have an old KX.

To clarify, the "KM A2" in my profile stands for "Konica Minolta A2", a very sweet digicam. I own both Pentax Screwmount/Universal/M42 cameras and lenses and one Pentax "K" mount body and a few lenses.

I believe there was an adapter developed to use Pentax K mount lenses on different bodies, although I don't have one, so I'm not sure how well it works.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Bague-dadaptation-dobjectif-M-42-reflex-PENTAX-K_W0QQitemZ7559939675QQihZ017QQcategoryZ100744QQcmdZViewItem


Here is a brave soul who made his own adapted-adapter:

http://oomz.net/kadapter/

I think I also read where someone added the focus confirmation chip, but I couldn't find that just now.

ziggy53

gus

I will defend my elcheapo 18-55 kit lens till the cows come home. To me it can be as sharp as anything i own. So many seem to hate it...i must have a good one (if thats possible)

ziggy53

gus wrote:

I will defend my elcheapo 18-55 kit lens till the cows come home. To me it can be as sharp as anything i own. So many seem to hate it...i must have a good one (if thats possible)

Gus,

Lots of people have good copies of that lens, just apparently not me. I have not tested to see if it's a front or back focus problem, but that's possible too. Sharpness is definitely a problem for me wide open.

A fair number of folks also have problems with the lens, so I think Canon has some quality control issues to deal with. Remember that a large aperture lens is always tricky wide open, so even small variations could produce problems. Plus Canon is selling them so cheaply, they may only test samples from each batch.

I am not trying to cast a bad light on the lens in general, but I try to be impartial and present the facts as they appear to me. I also try to substantiate my observations with samples, whenever possible, so everybody has a chance to judge for themselves.

I may look for another copy of the Canon lens to test, just to test the QC hypothesis.

Thanks,

ziggy53

tbcass

ziggy53 wrote:

The following is a test of 4 lenses I own, Pentax 50mm, f1.4 (M42 mount), Canon 50mm, f1.8 (the Fantastic Plastic), Sigma 18-50mm, f2.8, Canon 18-55mm, f4.5-5.6 (the Kit lens).

All lenses were tested at maximum aperture. The Pentax was focused using an EOS/M42 adapter and the focus confirmation chip. All other lenses were allowed to autofocus, center dot only.

The only manipulation was to use PS Levels to adjust for minor exposure differences.

Note the difference in "bokeh" between the images.

http://ziggy53.smugmug.com/gallery/1610355

Thanks,

ziggy53

I may be missing something but the only difference I see is the result of the f stop of the various lenses, which is to be expected. The greatest DOF is achieved with the fastest lens.

judah

kini62 wrote:

IMO and eyes the 50 1.8 is easily the WORST of the bunch. It's obviously softer than the rest at max aperture.

Sorry to jump late in here, but after lookin' at the images the Canon 50 1.4 looks really.....mmmhhh....how do I put it........awful?!!
Maybe it's my newbie eye but to me it looks incredibly soft. The 18-55 is so much better. Did I got something wrong?

ziggy53

tbcass wrote:

I may be missing something but the only difference I see is the result of the f stop of the various lenses, which is to be expected. The greatest DOF is achieved with the fastest lens.

The greatest DOF is achieved with the "smallest" f stop, not the fastest lens.

The most narrow DOF is achived with the largest aperture, and that's the Pentax, in this case.

ziggy53

ziggy53

judah wrote:

Sorry to jump late in here, but after lookin' at the images the Canon 50 1.4 looks really.....mmmhhh....how do I put it........awful?!!
Maybe it's my newbie eye but to me it looks incredibly soft. The 18-55 is so much better. Did I got something wrong?

Hi Judah,

The 50mm, f1.4 is a Pentax lens.

You almost have to look at the hi-res versions, at the link in the first post, to understand the true relationships between the lenses.

The Pentax image has a "creamy smooth" complexion that is very much sought after and similar to some of the Leica lenses that made the Leica rangefinder so popular.

The image is sharp, but only in a very narrow "plane" or section. There is also a problem with reduced contrast due to flare, which makes the image appear soft. I have a lens hood for that lens now and the situation is much improved.

BTW, the f1.4 is an old manual focus lens adapted to a modern dSLR, but not designed for it. It is considerably more challenging to use, but lots of fun when you get into a method of use in the right situation.

Thanks,

ziggy53

judah

ziggy53 wrote:

Hi Judah,

The 50mm, f1.4 is a Pentax lens.

You almost have to look at the hi-res versions, at the link in the first post, to understand the true relationships between the lenses.

The Pentax image has a "creamy smooth" complexion that is very much sought after and similar to some of the Leica lenses that made the Leica rangefinder so popular.

The image is sharp, but only in a very narrow "plane" or section. There is also a problem with reduced contrast due to flare, which makes the image appear soft. I have a lens hood for that lens now and the situation is much improved.

BTW, the f1.4 is an old manual focus lens adapted to a modern dSLR, but not designed for it. It is considerably more challenging to use, but lots of fun when you get into a method of use in the right situation.

Thanks,

ziggy53

Hi Ziggy,
sorry, my mistake, I was referring to the Canon F1.8. I downloaded the hi-res photos and to me it looks very soft compared to the 18-55. I suspect it's my newbie eye fooling me.

ziggy53

judah wrote:

Hi Ziggy,
sorry, my mistake, I was referring to the Canon F1.8. I downloaded the hi-res photos and to me it looks very soft compared to the 18-55. I suspect it's my newbie eye fooling me.

Judah,

My copy of the Canon 50mm, f1.8, "is" very soft wide open. My intent for that lens is some applications that require wide open, so the Pentax 50mm, f1.4 has replaced the Canon 50mm in my basic kit.

You are not mistaken in what you see.

ziggy53

tbcass

ziggy53 wrote:

The greatest DOF is achieved with the "smallest" f stop, not the fastest lens.

The most narrow DOF is achived with the largest aperture, and that's the Pentax, in this case.

ziggy53

OOP's, I meant to say narrowest DOF is achieved by the "fastest" lens which of course gives the largest aperture.

judah

ziggy53 wrote:

Judah,

My copy of the Canon 50mm, f1.8, "is" very soft wide open. My intent for that lens is some applications that require wide open, so the Pentax 50mm, f1.4 has replaced the Canon 50mm in my basic kit.

You are not mistaken in what you see.

ziggy53

Thanks Ziggy, at least I know I can trust my eyes a bit. :
In fact I was surprised to see the sharpness of the 18-55 after hearing many bad reviews on the net. Coming from a similar field (audio engineering) I understand that photography it's basically the same, a lots of ranting on the net but very few people really have facts to prove what they are talkin' about. The Pentax looks good to me. Thanks again for your clarification. :