Been thinking about giving one of these a try, but not sure which way to go or if it really matters. Can anyone shed some light on the variances between the two (other than the obvious physical aspect)? Thanks.
Very little (except for price and size), at least on the a7. I bought the concave because people raved about it and then picked up the nFD 35/2 in a trade. The concave was a hair sharper in the center wide open, but one click down and that difference disappeared. The nFD has better corners until f/8, where I couldn't tell a difference between the two.
Of the copies I had my impression is that the f22 SSC convex was the sharpest at infinity. Maybe the concave has better bokeh.
And then the nFD is the smallest and best balanced for e.g an A7, plenty of sharpness and a good form factor.
As said, a very close match, but I think that the 35 f2 Canons are the best of the classical MF lenses. The Olympus, Pentax K and M and the Nikon 35 f2 were definitely worse.
The Nikkor 35 f1.4 is equivalent to the Canons at the same apertures (f2 and upwards) but it has an extra f1.4 aperture to play with. Not 100% usefull but it can work in some situations.
I have never owned the concave version but have owned the nFD 35/2 since the early 80's. I recently tested it on my a7r and found it decent but not quite as good as the Minolta MD 35/2.8 (which is tack sharp wide open with well controlled aberrations which is not the case with the Canon nFD 35/2 I own). My bet is that the Canon 35/2.8 is likely a better lens overall than the F2 version (and at F2 on the Canon, you may get some nasty aberrations). Perhaps some of the earlier SSC F2 versions are better wide open? I don't know.
I have the concave f16 and it's one of my favorite lenses. I don't know if it's better or worse than the other versions, but it's pretty darn good.
For such an old lenses, it compares pretty well for the "brand new" FE 35. Little worse, but not a complete blowout. Obviously there are differences (size, AF vs MF), and in characters such as bokeh etc.
Thanks everyone. I was curious as to the bokeh of either of the f/2 variants, as well as sharpness across the frame. I haven't seen too many sample shots from this lens in the FD lens thread, hence the question.
Thank you very much...I appreciate your taking the time to do this. The images produced by the lens have a nice 'look' and 'feel' to them. Although 95% of the I'm a tripod-toting landscape shooter, for times when I'm not the FD35/2 could make a nice complement to my FL55/1.2 for walk-around shooting. Thanks again.
Without knowing the f/stop the field shot is not too encouraging for landscape use - but the portraits are sweet! Looks to be a great portrait and city walk-around lens.
dbehrens wrote:
Without knowing the f/stop the field shot is not too encouraging for landscape use - but the portraits are sweet! Looks to be a great portrait and city walk-around lens.
Agree, that's pretty much what I was thinking about with this lens...the portraits are killer in the posted samples.
dbehrens wrote:
Without knowing the f/stop the field shot is not too encouraging for landscape use - but the portraits are sweet! Looks to be a great portrait and city walk-around lens.
I would say it was something like f4. Definitely not f8 or f11 as I wanted edges to be a bit blurry.
Not sure about distortion with this lens, but it certainly can be used for landscapes on the A7, which it likes a little better than the A7r
here it is on the A7r @ f/8: DSC04369 by unoh7, FD 35/2
Edge to center relative performance is better on A7 in my estimation.
The lens is most famous for turning yellow if left in the dark, which made for some cool B&W film work. This was the front line Canon "journalist" 35, and my understanding is that it's as sharp as any nikon 35 of the era, or better.
You can bet the nFD 35/2 is 1/3 lighter and probably cheaper. I'm not sure about performance comparison, but most of the nFD primes are pretty good to excellent, if sometimes more fragile, e.g. the famed 24/2 which can't take too many bangs.
Anyway my 35/2 SSC concave is the highest performing 35 I've had on my A7 both portrait and landscape, with the possible exception of the CV 35/1.2. I don't have the native 35.
These days I use the M9 and zm 35/2, but if the Leica goes down I will grab this 35 and the A7 without hesitation.
