Old glass on a new camera

[GrahamS]

Taken with an Olympus MC Zuiko 50mm f1.4 MF lens @f5.6 mounted on a Fuji X-E2s with an adaptor.
1/500th @ f5.6 iso 320

[Shadowman]

Nice visual.

[lesno1]

Nice picture Graham i used to use old Minolta lenses on my Sony they can be quality

[GrahamS]

Thanks for the kind comments, John and Les. One thing that you don't get when using legacy glass on a digital camera is the in-camera image corrections, but this can be done in post. There is something very satisfying about bringing old friends back into use.

[rpcrowe]

Some photographers use legacy lenses because they are less expensive than modern lenses. However, I use these lenses for their creative renditions which are usually a result of optical flaws in the older lenses...

[Manfred M]

+1 to Richard's comments. The older lenses can be quite quirky and in today's world of ultra sharp lenses, these aberrations create images that are quite interesting. One member at one of the photo clubs I belong to has done some stunning work with the Meyer-Görlitz lenses and the "bubble bokeh" they exhibit.

[GrahamS]

I think we need to be clear what we mean when we use the terms "older lenses" and "optical flaws." Most of the brand name lenses made for 35mm film and 6x6 film between 1960 and 1990 are pretty damn good. Their "optical flaws" are nothing more than their incompatibility with digital sensors and are not optical faults. I still use some of my Nikon and Zeiss glass on high resolution digital cameras with stunning results but some of my legacy glass from this era just don't work well with digital sensors. Some lenses made before 1960, especially the non-coated examples made for B&W use only, can indeed exhibit optical flaws such as chroma, aspherical aberrations and field curvature. When used with a digital sensor, strange and sometimes wonderful things can happen. At the height of the 35mm film revolution still camera lens design had to shift up a gear to comply with the demands of the medium and some very good optics were the result. (Motion picture lenses of the day were equally as good as those made today.) These lenses were designed using slide rule and paper. There were no computers to do the design work, as there are now. On the other hand, film was not as demanding as today's high resolution sensors and mass market lenses were made to a certain cost.

[Manfred M]

I think we need to be clear what we mean when we use the terms "older lenses" and "optical flaws." Most of the brand name lenses made for 35mm film and 6x6 film between 1960 and 1990 are pretty damn good. Their "optical flaws" are nothing more than their incompatibility with digital sensors and are not optical faults. I still use some of my Nikon and Zeiss glass on high resolution digital cameras with stunning results but some of my legacy glass from this era just don't work well with digital sensors. Some lenses made before 1960, especially the non-coated examples made for B&W use only, can indeed exhibit optical flaws such as chroma, aspherical aberrations and field curvature. When used with a digital sensor, strange and sometimes wonderful things can happen. At the height of the 35mm film revolution still camera lens design had to shift up a gear to comply with the demands of the medium and some very good optics were the result. (Motion picture lenses of the day were equally as good as those made today.) These lenses were designed using slide rule and paper. There were no computers to do the design work, as there are now. On the other hand, film was not as demanding as today's high resolution sensors and mass market lenses were made to a certain cost.

I don't think things are quite as simple as that Graham.

Yes, there is a difference between lenses designed for digital cameras and film cameras. The optical stack in front of the sensor is the main issue here and this is a bit of a variable, even among different cameras made by the same manufacturers. There are a few useful articles on the web discussing this issue. With the micro four-thirds cameras being particularly problematic. Film lenses would obviously lens of an issue. The micro four-thirds cameras are the outliers here and having tested Leica glass on my mFT Panasonic camera, I am quite sure that this is more than just a theoretical consideration. The stack thickness

//www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter/


You are discounting the advances in design and manufacturing technology as well as the improvements in glass technology (specifically high index and extra low dispersion glasses). Many of the lenses in the 1960s and even into the 1970s were still very much variants of designs from the 1800s and early 1900s, with the Zeiss Tessar and Planar versions still being produced. In fact, the post-WW II Planar designs finally came into their own with the introduction of thin film anti-reflection coatings as this technology made this design workable by eliminating losses from internal reflection.

Computer design of lenses was actually started by the USA and seems to have worked its way into practice because of needs of the military. This seems to have gotten into more mainstream design by the 1970s through an unlikely avenue. Leitz Canada designed and manufactured lenses for both Leica cameras and through it's ELCAN group (which used the same design group under Dr Walter Mandler) and manufactured optics for the military. Leitz Canada was using these tools while Leitz Wetzlar was still using the paper and slide rule approach for optical design. Ray tracing replaced optical formulae over time and as computing power went from being mainframe based to "affordable" mini-computers and eventually micro-computers, the practice became more refined and commonplace by the mid-1970s and early 1980s. So if we look at the 1980s and 1990s lenses, we are definitely looking at a more modern design approach with the notable exception of the old East Block countries that were still using the old fashioned approach; lenses out of East Germany (Zeiss Jena and Meyer-Görlitz) and the USSR (primarily the Ukraine through the Arsenal works in Kiev) still made quirky lenses based on pre-WW II German designs.

By the 1960s the Japanese lens designs were very innovative and often superior to the German designs from that era. The Japanese were working with aluminum mechanical lens components while the Germans were still working in brass.

The popularization of computer assisted machining in mould production took the process producing aspheric lenses from expensive hand-made production to mass production in both glass and composite (plastic aspherical element bonded to glass element) found even in low cost kit lenses. Parts that had to be machined in the past can now be moulded or die cast.

These machining processes made it possible to introduce floating elements into lenses in a cost effective way through their ability to machine complex mechanical lens elements relatively quickly and inexpensively.

So while I agree with you to a certain extent, for instance the f/2 or f/1.8 50mm lenses were very good, the faster f/1.4 50mm lenses were no where nearly as good as their modern counterparts.

All lenses are designed to a price point, as are all cameras. Even 10 years ago film cameras and digital cameras were fairly evenly matched in terms of image quality but that did not last and the last three of four generations of digital cameras are definitely out-performing their film counterparts. The same can be said for the lenses as well as modern high resolution sensors definitely outperform film cameras when looking at resolution and dynamic range. We definitely have a differentiation between kit lenses, amateur lenses and pro glass; that was not nearly as prevalent in the film camera days.

[rpcrowe]

Manfred wrote... "East Block countries that were still using the old fashioned approach; lenses out of East Germany (Zeiss Jena and Meyer-Görlitz) and the USSR (primarily the Ukraine through the Arsenal works in Kiev) still made quirky lenses based on pre-WW II German designs."

Quirky Meyer Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f/1.8...


You either like or dislike the "quirkiness" of some of these old lenses or dislike the renditions that they produce. For the most part, I like them but would not want to depend on them for the majority of my imagery...

OTOH...

I was given a Tokina ATX Pro 28-70mm which was built from the design of the French Angenieux 28-70mm f/2.6 zoom of the 1980's. Angenieux could not produce the f/2.6 lens at a competitive price and sold the design to Tokina who produced it as the Tokina ATX Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 for Japanese domestic production and as the f/2.6-2.8 for International distribution. It was not long before Tokina realized that it could not produce this excellent lens at a price low enough to be competitive with lenses from other Japanese companies... Tokina soon replaced it with a watered down version designated as the SV or Special Value model (it was not)...

Anyway I love this lens and it is one of the older lenses I own, the quality of which will match the more modern glass. I have no hesitation to use this lens when I want good quality imagery on either crop or full-frame Canon DSLR cameras...





The EXIF data from this lens keeps trying to identify it as a Canon EF 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 wich it is certainly not!

[xpatUSA]

I don't think things are quite as simple as that Graham.

Yes, there is a difference between lenses designed for digital cameras and film cameras. The optical stack in front of the sensor is the main issue here and this is a bit of a variable, even among different cameras made by the same manufacturers.

//www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter/


<>

Good ole' Roger knows his stuff, eh?

Taking it that film has no "stack" per se (?) I am pleased to note that my Sigma DSLR has a) no CFA and b) no UV/IR blocker on the sensor ... just microlenses which aren't real thick. All of which means that my M42 Asahi Lens Co Takumars work about as well on it as on the cameras for which they were designed.

[GrahamS]

Richard, that Tokina is legendary! I envy you.

[rpcrowe]

A little back story...

When I was a chief petty officer in the Navy, I had a young lad working for me who showed all the attributes of great leadership. I convinced him to apply for the warrant officer program and kept after him until he completed the application...

We were both Navy Photographer's Mates and he knew that I had a soft spot in my heart for the Angenieux 12-120mm lens that I used on a Navy 16mm Arriflex motion picture camera. He also knew that I coveted the Angenieux 28-70mm f/2.6 lens for 35mm still cameras but, could never afford one of my own.

Well, I retired from the Navy and my shipmate who had become a warrant officer continued on active duty. Our assignments kept us apart but we occasionally crossed paths. A few years ago, I got a phone call from him that he had just returned from a port visit to Japan and that he had something for me. It was the 28-70mm f/2.8 Tokina ATX Pro, Angenieux copy, that he had purchased for me on the second hand market in Japan. He said that he owed it to me.

I told him that I wanted to pay for it and asked him how much, Resigned, he smiled and said, "O.K. How about a case of beer?". That's the neat story of my Tokina which I really love.

[purplehaze]

Great story, Richard. And from your sample images, I don’t wonder that you love that lens!

Oh, and Graham, I do love your image.

[Wavelength]

Very pleasing image;wonderful colours....