I'll hide some opinions in this little-visited thread, concerning the look of old versus new lenses. Here are two images shot within moments of each other at f8, with independent standard processing. Zoom is more like 40mm here, but the magnification and comp differences here have little impact on visual character IMO. The characteristics I mention are far more important to the final impact of the images generated. One of these is from the acclaimed Sonnar 35/2 attached to the RX1, a lens that positively bristles with technology - five asph surfaces, hand assembled with a rear lens oh so close to the sensor. The other is our old timer, the 1982 design 35-70/3.4. The master designer of this one went on to be a luminary of Leitz during the Solms era.
My contention is that the better older lenses deliver greater realism, truer color, better tonal gradation, all with enough 'sharpness' (micro-contrast in this case) to lay the foundation for the superior imaging performance, where depth perception matters. In my work it always does, you want your images to jump off the screen or page. I check this elusive quality by glancing around the subject matter in the full image, looking for the shapes of objects and the gradual roll-off and roll-on of color and tone in them. [this is a diametrically opposed approach to most lens reviews, which eschew full image assessment for 100% crop inspections.]
Any sign of false color degrades this perception, as does 'flat' unvarying color tones. As you look at these two, observe the subtle tone shifts shown in each surface of the chortens in the 35-70 image, then check the RX1 image. Look at the shadow detail in each. Even the dirt is more real in the zoom image. Now the sky - see the perfect drawing of the clouds, they have much greater volume and 'presence'. The zoom's blue sky is more convincing, asph lenses can tend to a slight weak purpleing. Subtle colors like the far blue chorten are much more realistic. The separation between the hot whites on the chorten fronts are much better drawn, these were not the bland clinical whites the RX1 Sonnar portrays here. I really like the RX1 for what it does best, but coming second to a 35 year old lens, well.
Sonnar 35/2 (RX1) - 8/7
CY 35-70/3.4 - a7II - 10/10
35-70 image showing color depth (sky) alongside clean near-neutral building and 3D quality, fine texture.
I wish I had your power of description and comparison. YOU are a great example of why I love this site so much. Please keep making great contributions.
philip_pj wrote:
I'll hide some opinions in this little-visited thread, concerning the look of old versus new lenses. I don't think your opinions need hiding in this forum. The rendering style differences are the reason to use alternative lenses (10 year ago we had to use them for general performance e.g. Canon didn't have decent wide angles for full frame - now all fullframe brands seem to have general performance in native lens options available). For sure there are also people who want to shoot slanted landscape images and then pixel peep corners for their lens evaluation. The new high performanse lenses for sure are sharp, but tend to render objects looking very flat. I'm not very sure what's the point to print very large (why the übersharpness was needed) print, which look rather flat.
What I do not like modern lenses is that their aim on perfection have caused modern lenses to have mostly uglier DOF/boke transitions and they tend to have more contrast in boke than older lenses. For example I don't like much Sony FE 55 due to the high contrast in boke, which ruins it for me, and I prefer almost any old Zeiss 50mm over it: C/Y f/1.7 or f/1.4, G45, ZM f/2, ZE/ZF f/1.4(2/50 I hate even more than FE55), Loxia50.
I appreciate that Zeiss did use "old rendering style" on some Loxia lenses. At least 35(not 100% sure, I don't have the lens but seen thousands of sample images and played with some RAWs),50 and 85 seem to have the "old rendering style". They did similarly in original ZE/ZF series for few lenses.
[It might be that people think it's a few cranks fooling around with old lenses, hence my comment.]
It's getting to the point where I recognise the signature of this lens in other people's images like this lovely one of yours, Samuli. Here is one shot in tough conditions at the other end of the spectrum. It took a bit of work to get this point, but the lens just comes through with that elegant yet accurate look it has. The micro-contrast and tone depiction in rocky areas is something for which I am very grateful to the designer. Zooms are such a great concept if you stick to the basics, they have lost their way a bit IMO.
Brief demo on new asph -vs- old optical lenses. #1 is Sony's 55/1.8 and #2 is Carl Zeiss's 35-70mm zoom. Both shot at f8-1/250s-ISO 100 at infinity focus in similar poor light conditions, Sony image is actually better in that regard (mixed light). #1 lacks depth in mountains and has feeble and brittle 'off' color to the rock. This one took a fair amount of work to get even here, local contrast brush, tone, gradient for riverside greenery.
#2 is very close to 'light formula' PP out of camera - tone range (exposure), WB, sharpen, final color. Details in #2 stand out in elegant range of convincing color, scree very well drawn in near faces, superb depth along river valley, great cut through of UV. This one was a 'reject' image from the trip too. So many modern lenses require the best light to work well - sunsets, low light, astro, close ups, super saturation. My Loxia 85mm struggles to match the zoom for open sky work - for color/contrast, which is very often more important to final quality than outright 'sharpness'.
Reason is probably that some older lens designs payed more attention to transmitting colors and rendering them in some pleasant ways. Today a lot of lens designs is created way "it will be handled in post-processing".
I know some probably like Sigma lens, but I never could get over that "everything has yellow filter" type of colors. Old Minolta and Zeiss lens are IMHO pretty good in this. Sure they have tints too, but colors are there.
35mm - the weakest FL, however totally usable at landscape apertures. 95% of the frame is great by f8, however the extreme corners take f11 to peak on my copy. On my adapter (Novoflex) 35mm reaches peak infinity focus at the 15m/50' marking on the lens barrel.
40mm - a little stronger than 35 although not a dramatic difference. Still good to use f11 for peak corner performance, slight weakness remains at f8. On my adapter 40mm is critically focused around half way between the 15m marking and the infinity marking.
50mm - Probably the strongest part of the lens. Peaks at f8 in the corners on my copy, f11 shows no improvement other than DOF. With my adapter 50mm reaches peak focus dead-on the hard stop.
70mm - About as good as 50mm. My copy exhibits a tiny amount of decentering at this FL, with one corner needing f11 to peak but the other three peak at f8. Difference is not massive between them though so you could shoot at f8 or f11 with comfort. Similar to 50mm, peak focus is dead-on the hard stop.
I'd be interested to hear from other adapter users if the hard stop is also peak focus for them at infinity from 50mm onwards?
Here are some infinity testing full-size files at the above peak apertures if anyone is interested.
These files were shot in RAW, had minor sharpening applied in LR (45/0.8/40) and possibly some slight exposure adjustments but that's it. No adjustments to contrast, microcontrast etc.
I've had the lens about a year now, and it was well worth the $400 on eBay. Here's a few examples of actual images taken with the lens:
For landscape I am extremely happy with this lens. Look elsewhere if wide-open performance is important to you, though.
Aztatlan wrote:
I'd be interested to hear from other adapter users if the hard stop is also peak focus for them at infinity from 50mm onwards?
Beautiful images! I haven't used mine recently but I'm pretty sure my copy reaches peak focus at infinity at around the 10m mark. I can't say I've noticed much if any variation on this issue among the different focal lenghts, and I've centainly never hit the hard stop. I'm using an A7II with a Fotodiox Pro adapter but I've also tried a Novoflex with the exact same results. I suspect my copy is decentered, though, so this could be a factor. I've often thought about trying for a better copy as I really like the lens.
EDIT: I've just checked again and my copy reaches peak focus at infinity at a hair before the 15m mark. I tried at both 35mm and 70mm and it was the same.
mudlake wrote:
Finally broke out the 35-70 tonight. I've been using the Contax 35-135 for the past few months. The light was very nice in the desert this evening.
Beautiful pictures. The 35-135 seems to be quite rare. How does its IQ compare to the 35-70?
I don't think your opinions need hiding in this forum. The rendering style differences are the reason to use alternative lenses (10 year ago we had to use them for general performance e.g. Canon didn't have decent wide angles for full frame - now all fullframe brands seem to have general performance in native lens options available). For sure there are also people who want to shoot slanted landscape images and then pixel peep corners for their lens evaluation. The new high performanse lenses for sure are sharp, but tend to render objects looking very flat. I'm not very sure what's the point to print very large (why the übersharpness was needed) print, which look rather flat.
