How do vintage manual focus lenses perform on a 45 megapixel digital camera?
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- čas přidán 1. 02. 2022
- I test several vintage manual focus Nikkor lenses as well as a few newer AF lenses on a 45 megapixel Nikon Z7 and compare image quality with the same lenses on a 24 megapixel Z6.
Email me at: jlvphoto@yahoo.com - Jak na to + styl
Simple answer.. the Z7 doesn’t have the AA filter that the Z6 does which slightly blurs the image so there is no moire. I can tell the same difference between my D750 and D850.
This is the answer!
The D800E also doesn’t have an AA filter as well.
I don't have an AA filter on my Fuji X-T100 so I set sharpness in camera on minus 2.
I have micrographs of Panatomic -X emulsion (ASA 25) with halide crystals measuring ~ 1µm. My dad in his research regarding exposure for his Electron Microscope doing electron diffraction with emulsionless glass plate negatives determined that they could get well below that in crystal size for the EM because 1 electron hitting a crystal was all it took to render the crystal developable (higher energy level). With photons and ~1µm crystals the minimum needed was 4 photons. I shot a lot of Pan-X slow speed with the common lenses of the day. This was in the late 60s to mid 70s. I believe all my old vintage glass can handle the 4.34 µm pixel pitch of my 850.
Maximum sharpness = 55mm f/2.8 AIs.
2023 and I'm still using a nikkor 28mm f/2.8 ais CRC on my d850.
The best wide-angle lens I've had so far.
I still use the nikkor 105 f/2 DC for portraits.
I never owned the DC, but I know it’s a great portrait lens.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696
DC Nikon lenses in their times had no competition. if you wanted a designed-for-portraiture lens in the last decade of the film era, the 105 and 135 DC were pretty much the golden standard and the ones to get.
Even nowadays, combined with high-megapixel sensors, there is no reason to get rid of them.
The only problem that appears in the era of mirrorless cameras is the AF system based on a motor in the body. Some people may never experience such good lenses because of this.
@@TheRapTrue It would be great if Nikon produced DC type lenses in Z mount.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 Exactly, they made a noct for the Z mount and it would be great to see modern versions of DC lenses again.
It would also be a good idea to make an ftz adapter with an AF motor for D lenses.
I use the 24mm MF F/2.8, the 50mm MF f/1.4, the 55mm micro-Nikkor f/2.8, and the 200mm MF f/4. plus the 55mm micro-Nikkor D AF, and the 85mm D AF lenses on both the d800E and the d850. They perform brilliantly. At the optimal f/stops, usually f/5.6, they are as sharp as any of my more modern lenses. I am a retired commercial photographer. I also have used the old 28mm f/3.5 and both the 24mm f/2.8 and the 55mm MF micro on my Fuji 24mp cameras and they perform especially brilliantly.
My Nikkor 28mm f2.8 Ai-S lens performs well on my D750. The only issue is lens flare if shooting into (or nearly into) the sun.
Softness caused by diffraction is directly related to the physical size of the aperture and the wavelength of the light. It’s not directly related to the f-number. At any given aperture diffraction will be more noticeable on a wide angle lens than on a telephoto lens, because, even though the aperture is the same f-number in the telephoto the size of the hole is larger. It’s the physics of light you can’t change that.
On balance this video was a long-winded way of stating what ought to be obvious … a 45 MP Z7 with no anti-alias filter gives sharper results than a 24 MP Z6 with an anti-alias filter … whatever the lens used. In effect you tested your camera sensor using several different lenses.
I’ve shot Nikon for over 25 years, bought a 50mp mirrorless camera, fujifilm and used my older lenses, it was always super much better than my last 26mp D610.I’ve recently sold my Fuji and bought a D850, same as the the Fuji, sharp and beautiful images, older lenses have a lot less elements. I believe you just have to pick and choose your lenses, but I would definitely say stick with the AIS lenses they seem to be sharper. Of my favorite lenses is the 80 to 200 D, I prefer it over the 70 to 200.
Thanks for watching. The D850 just may be the best DSLR ever made.
I have a Minolta MD 55mm 2.8 Macro and a Pentax 50mm 1.4, adapted to Sony A7C and a6000. They are both sharper than the e-mount Sigma 30mm 1.4. Way more "character" of course and more fringing, less contrast from flaring in bright lights - but if you find the sweet spot wide open they perform better. Thanks for your video!
Well done and informative. I do not have any high megapixel count cameras (20 MP is the highest), so I was interested to hear your results. I confess I am not surprised, but , because I am not a physics/optics expert, my "guess" was purely speculative. I have long been suspicious of claims that older lenses don't have the resolution to perform well on newer cameras - I have to wonder if somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of camera manufacturer's marketing vaults, the rumors came forth to ensure new lens sales. It is hard to make money when folks purchase 50 yr old lenses from used camera sites! Cheers!
In my experience most of the older manual focus lenses perform well on 45 megapixel cameras. However the Nikon Z lenses are the best performing lenses I ever used. Thanks for watching my video.
Actually using Canon cameras for video with Nikon AI Lenses because of the image quality, contrast
Ergonomics, color and easy to manual focus
The Tamron 90mm Macro F2.5 SP is one of my favorites for portraits. Very sharp and good bokeh. I also like the Nikkor 55mm F2.8 ais for its high resolution.
There’s a guy in the Facebook Nikon user page typing out long winded gish gallops about how older lenses can’t resolve on a sensor larger than 36mp 🤦🏾♂️
I tried to tell him that the “resolving power for a higher MP sensor” is at the end of the day marketing gibble gabble passed down to the gear blogs to get you to buy newer lenses. Nikon outdid themselves with the glass produced the decades and the few years before G lenses were released. 105DC on a d850 = chef’s kiss
I agree with you. Overall I think the Z lenses are better but not by very much.
Interesting thoughts, certainly, but I'd have liked to have seen the photos and side by side comparisons.
I have the Nikkor 105mm/2.5 P.C and I have used it with m43 bodies with Metabones Speedbooster. With that it is comparable with the one of the best Olympus Zuiko lenses, the Olympus 75/1.8. That old Nikkor is even or better than the newly developed Oly.
The higher the resolution sensor the better a vintage lens is going to perform, because the pattern of diodes, having an array so small, the less evident it gets: therefore, it performs closer as an emulsion would do.
This is simple because those lenses were designed for film, and the engineers did their best to pull every ounce of microcontrast and acutance from the glass.
Early "digital" lenses did not care about microcontrast because the sensors lacked the resolution needed to perform well in that regard, and the acutance in low resolution digital images is extremely high if you want it.
Nowadays we are entering in an era when new lenses have to perform stupidly perfect in every regard, except distortion. Which is good, of course.
The cross comparison is that film versus digital is that 25 ASA = 200 megapixels, 50 ASA = 100 megapixels, 100ASA = 50 megapixels, 200ASA = 25 megapixels. So until sensors are over 200 megapixels and lenses designed for 200 megapixels plus, then legacy lenses will still adequately perform. The issue with legacy lenses that are 20 plus years old is the cleanliness of the optics. As haze, dust builds up on the inner lens elements. This reducing significantly the performance of the lens. In reality, if you are using legacy lenses, it is worth having them totally stripped, cleaned and lubricated. So they are good for another 25 years. But this cost about $150 per lens or more.
I really love my small collection of manual focus Nikon lenses that I have adapted to my Canon r
They work really well my favorites so far are the 105 DC, 180 both the D and Ai-s. Now the 300/2.8 Ai-s is magic. The Zeiss Distagon 35/2 zf lives on my body 90% of the time.
That’s one of things l love about mirrorless.
Thank you for your nice tests, comparing Z6 and Z7 with the same lenses. It is not at all astonishing, that all lenses perform better on the higher resolution sensor. The final resolution of an "imaging-chain" is the result of a sequence of deterioration that the individual "originator of loss" impose on the result. There are very many different "originator of loss", but to make it simple, let's only take a few, as (a) diffraction, (b) aberration, (c) haze on the lenses, (d) movement of the camera during exposure, (e) finite number of sensor points arranged in a periodic grid and in addition having an area smaller than the pitch of the grid and finally (f) to summarize the effects of all the electronics and image processing until you judge the image on a screen. Only this last term, (f) may be a number >1, all others are numbers e1, then it is obvious that the final result r2 for the Z7 is larger compared to the result r1 for the Z6: r2=a*b*c*d*e2*f > r1=a*b*c*d*e1*f .
To make things quantitative, it is easiest to use the concept of the modulation transfer function (MTF), i.e. with a certain spatial frequency at a certain point in the image field. The MTF of the sensor is given by its Fourier-transform (FT), and the smaller the pitch of the sensor, the higher the value of the FT for a certain frequency. I will stop here but mention that the Nyquist frequency associated with the generation of moiré is another effect to favor the higher resolution sensor.
Hi Jules, JN, I can't answer your question about a 45Meg pixel cameras and vintage lenses (don't own one), but I was wondering, what do you think of using the vintage Nikon lenses on the Nikon Df. I don't own one (yet); it has 16.2Meg pixels and apparently takes all Nikon lenses. Have you ever considered owning a Df, reasons for yay and nay?
I thought about it a while back because it can use pre AI lenses, but now that I have a Z6 and Z7 I don’t need it. It’s a great camera with the same sensor as the D4.
I would love to see the photos
I’ve taken it to simply mean to get the most from your high megapixel sensor use the best glass you can get. They weren’t implying older glass would look worse on high megapixel cameras.
I think you are right. Thank you.
It’s much better than my 1st D100 😂. Technically has come a long ways.
Great video. Did I hear you correctly in saying the 105mm f2.5 P.C. version has the same coating as the AI version?
I believe so. Not positive.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 just thought I’d share this… so I begged and pleaded and yelled almost and nearly profane things at my local camera store until the owner let me try the PC and regular AIS lens he had for 105mm. He agreed as long as I never ask him to pose for my test shots ever again. Unfortunately there was no one else around and so he did pose. Barely noticeable difference in saturation. We had to upload it to Lightroom and zoom in and compare to see it. Both shot flawlessly sharp and beautiful contrast. So then he made buy the AIS version. But I’m happy with the purchase.
Z6 has antialias filter over the sensor which blurs the image to hide moire. Z7 does not need it
My 43-86 AI is very sharp and was my favorite lens for all my film shooting. My largest blow-up (30x40) was done with it on Kodachrome 64. It is too bad the first version was so bad that no one took its successor seriously. My 55 2.8 AI Macro has taken awesome shots on my D750.
Agreed. The 55mm 2.8 is one of Nikons sharpest manual focus lenses.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 …but still slightly outperformed, to my considerable surprise, by the cheap China-made 1.8/50 mm AF-D in a plastic barrel - at least in the range of f/5.6…f/8 on a D810 where I tested it (around f/11 diffraction takes over, and from there on they perform almost identically). In any case I think we all here do agree that the best of the lenses Nikon made in the analog age are just fantastic even according to today’s standards, and will provide outstanding results even with latest high res digital cameras.
Seems that the latest and the best Z lenses also perform better on high resolution sensors
I am not so surprised that a higher definition sensor gives sharper images than a lower one… it will get more details so will be sharper. When Nikon said for his 36mpix to use new sharper lenses they probably first thought to their economic interest (better for them to sell high priced primes) but also true that to take the maximum of a precise sensor you need to have high quality lense on all the field and we all know that new lenses are generally better and better on the edges. That s why wide anGles are now high priced (they are very fast too), but true also - as you said - that for portrait for instance you don t care the edges.. so here old lenses (85-105-135-180) are good enough. I am afraid that if you compare the old 20-24-28 mm and the new ones it won t be the same … but interesting to see the difference with moderns lenses.
Y'know, this whole "resolve the sensor" crap is just that. Crap. It's a marketing gimmick to make sure the manufacturers get the most money out of the upgrade treadmill.
🔥🔥🔥
Why not show the photos for us to decide?
I'm surprised with your experience with all these lenses. I have a collection of older and icons as we're in the age of mirrorless, and I really don't know what to do with myself with lenses. I have that gas issue. Gear acquisition syndrome? And I feel like I need better glass but it seems like everything that I do leads to better lighting. Like, I have invested more in speed lights than I have in class. Owning about eight speed lights now. The only issue I have is autofocusing. Or just focusing in general. How have your lenses held up now? Are you still using vintage lenses?
I still use many of the manual focus lenses on occasion. I especially love the Nikon 105 2.5, 55 2.8 micro and also the 28mm 2.8 AIS. The Canon 50mm 1.4 New FD is also great. Then of course are some of the Minolta and Pentax lenses. I also have a bad case of GAS. As good as these lenses are the Nikon Z mount lenses are better.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 The current cameras I own are the D40X, the Fujifilm S5 pro which is pretty much a d200 with Fujifilm guts, a D2X, and a d300. What I want to know is if you have experience with focusing screen experience? I'm still learning about focusing screens and if they're universal?? So far I'm seeing they're not universal and they're not really in production...
@@Liazon098 All of the cameras you listed are auto focus cameras and do not have interchangeable screens. Cameras such as the Nikon F, F2 , F3 and most of the FM and FE series do.
Continuing my comment: there are autofocus cameras with interchangeable screens such as the Nikon F4 and F5. Also some of the Olympus and Canon manual focus cameras do. To my knowledge no digital cameras have interchangeable screens. They have other aids for focusing such as focus peaking, magnified view and electronic rangefinder on some models.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 fun fact since you mentioned that I have an f3, F4, F5. But I do not use them. I got them in a box and I kind of cherish them, and think that I can use them one day. I honestly think that I might have to sell them. But truth be told I do own a dark room too. And to stay on point, I have a box of focusing screens for the f3. So that's good to know what you just said.
Nikon don’t want you to buy old stuff used. They want to sell their new 2000$ lens. Off course they say the old one don’t do great
I have several of the Z mount lenses and I think they are better, but the F mount lenses are still very good. Thanks for watching my video.
@@julesvuottosphotofocus4696 my point is more that even if they are better, a 2000$ Z lens is probably not 20 time better than a 100$ 1990 lens. Better value at least for my needs.
So where is comparison? :)
Some nikons are OK. Most not. I adapted quite a few Leica R and they do all right and the APO 100 2.8 and 180, 250 are spectacular. I have switched over to Leica M10R and not longer worry about what is good or bad.
Naikor ? Nikkor. As in Nick.
Last I heard in Japan is more like kneecor on a kneecon camera.