Two by the Contax 50/1.7 (modified to Nikon mount)... Unfortunately sRGB and the flickr mandatory "we will recompress the s**t out of your picture" kills all of the fine detail contast in the saturated yellows. In print or on a good wide-gamut screen they really pop!
The bokeh seems a little harsher, obviously due to higher degree of correction which would account for the sharpness wide open. Gets pretty nice at f/2.0 though
Stuck an Oly Zuiko 55mm ƒ1.2 on the 20D today. I sold the 5D to make way for the MKII.
The lens seems to improve massively between ƒ1.2 and ƒ2.0, it's a shame there's no intermediate stops as it's quite a jump.
Very dull and overcast unfortunately. Will be hard to get a feel for the lens until the sun actually rises one of these days.
I like the f/1.2 shot a little more, probably because of the interesting subject matter and composition. The bokeh looks like heat rising from the ground.
But I agree, most of these ultra-fast normals sharpen up a LOT one stop down.
Paul Yi wrote:
I had that lens before, SMC-A 50/1.2, and it was the only lens that beat Rokkor 58/1.2 on the sharpness wide open.
I have owned two of those A50/1.2 lenses, one NIB. They both performed very similar and they certainly didn't match the Rokkor 58/1.2 (owned one copy only, quickly sold it). The A50/1.2 is (in my experience) pretty soft wide open due to low contrast.
I guess I'm saying I don't understand this. Maybe your Rokkor was a bad one?
Both the SMC-P A50/1.2 and the Rokkor 58/1.2 make a lot of bright rings in the background OOF highlights, pretty much on par as I recall it. The Pentax foreground bokeh is softer than the edgy background bokeh. I have no opinion on the Rokkor in that case. My Rokkor had a terrible focus shift and if changing the aperture value one had to refocus. I noticed no focus shift with the A50/1.2.
OK, I'm just trying to describe what I found with these lenses.
I only referenced to the sharpness of SMC-A 50/1.2
My Rokkor is a very sharp copy. ( Out of 3 I had )
However, SMC-A 50/1.2 was sharper wide open. ( low contrast for sure )
However, Rokkor 58/1.2 gets bleedingly sharp by f/2.
As far as overall performance between the two, I kept Rokkor and sold the Pentax.
Rokkor really has a dual personality or character.
What you see is a tricky situation, made up to torture the lens and make it fail. The problem is that it fell harder than some other lenses (including the flare SMCP A*85/1.4)
"Unprocessed" - shot raw and developed using ACR with everything set to neutral or zero or flat, and of course no sharpening.
