Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
These show the scene and compare for any color cast difference: CV 50 AL full frame 1 by Doug Stevens, on Flickr
Voigtlander 50mm Apo-Lanthar ("CV50")
and now for the all important corner test - I reframed with Mt SInopah in the top left corner. Heere is the composition (CV 50): CV 50 AL 50 full frame 2 by Doug Stevens, on Flickr
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
and now for the all important corner test - I reframed with Mt SInopah in the top left corner. Heere is the composition (CV 50)
807494744_9acbc419a0.jpg[/url]CV 50 AL 50 full frame 2 by Doug Stevens, on Flickr
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the. best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
Out in the yard again this am - temp 84 degrees with the 85mm f1.4 ais the modified tc-16a (even though I manually focused in 9 fps bursts) camera set to CH. I found it was an incredibly easy way to create stacks from 4-19 frames each. By the time I got back inside it was 90 - still morning.
Doug, thanks for showing this real world example. A lot more fun than shooting a chart on the wall too
I am surprised at how the 50 HC held up in the corners. I guess it goes to show that at the “sweet spot” aperture most lenses perform well. Focus peaking to critical focus on the mirrorless helps too.
graytrekker wrote:
Battle of the 50mm F2s
Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
GeorgeBo wrote:
Doug, thanks for showing this real world example. A lot more fun than shooting a chart on the wall too
I am surprised at how the 50 HC held up in the corners. I guess it goes to show that at the “sweet spot” aperture most lenses perform well. Focus peaking to critical focus on the mirrorless helps too.
Yes, its excellent performance here has me a little intrigued. Perhaps I'll do a few more corner shots at other f-stops
Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
Thanks for sharing these Doug. The old Nikkor held up extremely well. All the 50mm HC images on this thread always look good to me. I have thought about getting one many times.
Phong, the glass in my copy is very yellow. My understanding is that's from a radioactive element in the glass. I haven't used it in a while, but I don't remember it being soft.
Maybe a biased opinion, but I like the Nikkor shots the best graytrekker wrote:
Battle of the 50mm F2s
Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
Last week I spent. a couple of days at Two Medicine in Glacier Nat'l Park. A storm blew in on the second day which limited photography opportunities. I did get a night shot. - moonset over 2 Med Lake (see Sony Voigtlander 50mm Apo-L thread). That morning was reasonable nice, so I shot the scene with my Sony A7R III and 3 - 50mm f2 lenses for comparison - the Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar, Zeiss Loxia and my old Nikkor 50 HC on an adapter. This was not an in-depth scientific comparison - for that see Fred's thread on the CV 50. I was curious to see how my 50 year old Nikkor would stack up against two of the best manual 50mm primes in the E-mount
Since I only really use these in landscape photography, I was only interested in that application. I shot all three at f5.6, 8 and 11. I will be showing only the f8 images. All these were captured at ISO 100 and 1/400 s. Focus peaking was used to confirm focus. All imported into LR using the Adobe Standard profile, WB was set to 6000 (half way between daylight and. cloudy) and tint to +10. Exposure was raised by +0.25. OK - here we go:
Granted, these are not the most demanding conditions, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the old Nikkor stands up against 2 of the best manual focus lenses for Sony mount, especially in the corners.
I picked up a mint h.c several years back and was so impressed by the price to performance ratio that I ended adding the entire series to the collection. They are not bokeh monsters but are excellent everywhere else and as an added bonus, very little CA in my experience.
I have read the Ai may be the slightly better performer but I have not found much of a difference of between the multi coated versions.
