"Old" glass on micro four thirds

[belgiumreporter]

I've been able to buy a lot of micro four thirds adapters to diffrent mounts.

My plan is to make a (semi) permanent set up in wich i can test and compare diffrent brands of lenses and see how they perform on MFT.

The test won't be very scientific as i realise i won't be able to create lab conditions and the olympus EPL1 is'nt exactly high end, but maybe it'll be fun, confirm what is commonly known or hold some surpises.

Offcourse i'll share my reults on this very camera collectors forum in this or another thread
.
To be continued....

[kodaker]

I will be interested on your results.I too have several lens adapters for 4/3 but only have a few other lenses to try out. I have screw mount Leica and Pentax and bayonet mount Canon, Nikon, and Olympus OM lenses.

[Stephen]

The EPL-1 is not bad in performance, and it has a built in flash, and delivers the goods on M4/3
I think the surprise with some older glass is the high performance from lenses not too good on full frame 35mm. The explanation is obvious, only the middle of the lens is used, and even poor soft edges at large apertures have less effect. One or two 135mm lenses like the early Tamron, and the Russian 135mm work exceptionally well.
Hoods can make a big difference, it simply minimises the internal reflections, increasing contrast. The effect is more noticeable on digital than film.

Stephen.

[belgiumreporter]

Okay, here we go, i've made a simple comparison of two rather diffrent 50mm 1:1,4 lenses on the olympus.

It's the (pentax made) cosmicar 50mm 1:1,4 C-mount TV lens and the somewhat better known nikkor 50mm 1:1,4 F mount lens.

When i started in trying comparing lenses i soon realised it isn't that simple if you want consistency in the results. What i did to day is just go out in the garden and shoot something i thought would be suitable to distinguish sharpness and contrast of a given lens.

It would have been okay if i only tested one lens, but to compare both they have to be used in exactly the same circumstances. Those circumstances weren't ideal as it was sunny with fast moving clouds, so i had to be quick to make the shots in the same light. It is my aim for further comparisons to go to my studio in the old part of town.

There i'll be able to test everything 'ive got (for the moment) in an controled enviroment and an afternoon of shooting hopefully will provide some interesting results.

But for now the garden shots :





The scene































Not much diffrence in the rendering of the out of focus areas






All in all the nikkor is sharper, has more contrast and performs better in the corners, but wasn't that what you could expect?
Stil at f4 the cosmicar behaves very well ( center)  and seem to have less CA than the nikkor

[paulhofseth]

I have not done any systematic comparisons, but find that the in-body stabilization of the Olympus variety of the MFT is very useful. I have even been able to handhold a 250mm (angle of view and difficulty of holding still equal to 500mm on full frame).I recently switched to the Pen F type which has a rangefinder type ocular so as to avoid using a screen to focus; the camera is easier to hold steady and one can see the picture even in strong light.


Apart from the multitude of knobs that risk being inadvertently pressed or twisted, it comes closer to a Leica style simplicity than many other devices.

p.

[olddocfox]

Dear belgiumreporter,

Thanks for starting this! It's nice to see a little science used to evaluate a lens. Setting this kind of thing up is detail-oriented and time consuming. You are to be commended for undertaking it! I look forward to seeing an eventual comparison library.

I used a similar setup some years ago when I got into a discussion about focus-shift with aperture setting on another forum. Here's a PDF with my test results: link to PDF 

[belgiumreporter]

When going through some boxes to search for the lenses i want to test i came across some miranda's i've forgot about,before i put them away again here's a pic of the lot.

tomorrow i'm gonna get in the studio and start testing the lenses i've found...

[belgiumreporter]

Here's what i've "tested"



1) Rollei planar 50mm 1.8

2) nikkor 50mm 1.8 AF-D

3) nikkor 135 mm 2.8 Ai

4) nikkor 50mm 1:1.2

5) Angenieux 2x35 2.5

6) soligor 135mm 3.5

7) canon 55mm 1:1.2

8) leitz elmar 5cm 2.8

9) leitz elmar 9cm 4

10) Zorki 50mm 3.5

11) Konica hexanon 50mm 1.7

[belgiumreporter]

This is what i used to test the lenses on,newspapers on a washing line lit by the modelling lights of my godard studio flash( the olympus can't be synced with studio flashes and the flash is to powerfull to do tests at full aperture) it won't say anything on on resolution in lines per mm or colour rendition and very little on contrast.

What it will show maybe in a primitive way is how these lenses perform sharpness wise whe coupled to the olympus micro four thirds camera. It did held some surprises for me and made me yearn for more tests but this is how far i've got this time.










rollei vs Konica wideopen center ( first pic allways rollei, second konica)






center @ 5.6








Corner wideopen





 Corner @5.6



In these series the rollei planar 50 1:1.8 is compared to the Konica 50mm 1:1.7 the rollei planar is significantly better wideopen, @5.6 things inprove for the konica.

Of all the leses tested the rollei planar will come out as the best ( as a nikon fan i feel sorry to say this, but i'll keep testing to see if it was coincidence or not)


It seems like i've bitten off more then i can chew and messed up the posting of the files, i'll try to find a solution for this. Posting multiple photo files isn't as easy as i thought it would be :-(

OK. i've sorted it out and hope i can proceed with the next test from what i've learned now

[olddocfox]

Dear belgiumreporter,

You latest post was a valiant effort. I liked your hanging newspaper target idea. This might work better for you with a fixed light source (or a relatively consistent natural light source). For many things, I have had good luck using inexpensive clamp-on work lights with spun aluminum reflectors. These are sold by home repair supply stores quite inexpensively. I like to use daylight-rated (5600 K) CFL bulbs in them to keep the heat down.



I have had good luck posting multiple photos from PhotoBucket to CameraCollector. My aged computer still runs Windows 7. I use Google Chrome as my browser. It allows me to open multiple windows. I use one window for CameraCollector, one for Photobucket and one for Google Drive if I am going to add a PDF to my post. This makes it pretty easy to add photos or files where you want them.

The biggest problem I have with a collection of "Test Photos" is keeping them straight! The best answer I have found is to have the ancillary data (lens, aperture, etc) written on something in the picture. But, you have to be careful to delete any test shots made with the wrong data card!

Thanks again for undertaking this work. You results will be useful to many of us.


With best regards,

George

[belgiumreporter]

Thanks Olddocfox for your advice and support. It gave me the courage to proceed with this testing task. i hope the way i am able to publish my results in these postings  will be good enough for all who wishes to view them.
Furthermore, the studio modelling lights work fine for doing the tests, but i forgot to adjust the white balance on the olympus, wich gives the newspapers the brown reddish cast. Everything i've done so far has this color cast but as this isn't a color test i decided to leave it this way, not meddle with the files and keep them the way they came out of the camera.
More results will follow the moment i've got time to organise things.

[belgiumreporter]

Here's the results for the nikkor 50mm 1:1.2 and the canon 55mm 1:1.2

(nikon 1st and canon second image)







@ 1:1.2 center







@5.6 center







@1:1.2 corner







@5.6 corner



The canon is somewhat better wideopen in the center,

however strangely enough it dosn't inprove much at 5.6 neither in the center nor the corners.

The nikkor gets A LOT better when at 5.6 and is also better in the corners even at 1,1.2

[hansz]

Francois, are you sure the Canon pics are correct? Almost unbelievable bad... I must be lucky not to own one...:-)
Hans

[belgiumreporter]

Jun 15, 2016 2:52:02 GMT -5 hansz said:

Francois, are you sure the Canon pics are correct? Almost unbelievable bad... I must be lucky not to own one...:-)
Hans

I can hardly believe it myselve, especially if you see the canon's performance wideopen, it's on my to do list to do some further testing with the canon as it is hard to believe it would be that bad...i do hope i did something wrong.

[belgiumreporter]

These are the results from the nikkor 50mm 1:1.8AF-D and the angénieux 2x35 1:2.5 zoom used at 50mm



wideopen center (nikon@1:1.8 and angénieux @1:2.5







center 5,6 







Corner wideopen







corner 5,6







Center and corner wideopen the angénieux is slightly better ( but nikkor is 1:1.8 and Angénieux is 1:2.5)

At 5.6 things change rather dramatically in favour of the nikkor. Sidenote the angénieux costs about 10 times as much as the nikkor, still it's maybe an odd pair to compare.