{"id":1915,"date":"2014-12-31T09:50:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T09:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2015-04-26T01:45:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T01:45:36","slug":"boring-photos-good-lenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/boring-photos-good-lenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Boring photos with quite good lenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A little while ago (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/photographs-with-awfully-bad-lenses\/\">great photographs with awfully bad lenses<\/a>),\u00a0I rambled on about how I didn&#8217;t care that much about how good certain lenses were supposed to be. I still don&#8217;t. But, just for a bit of fun, I decided to see how much difference there really is between different versions of a particular lens. In this case, the Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.4.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Those who know about such things (I read it on the internet, so it must be true), claim that there are several versions of this lens. There are certainly at least two variations \u2013 signifed by the different colour of the tip (or nose) of each lens. The earlier version has a silver colour, the later version is black. In addition, the later versions have a multi coated lens, whereas the earlier versions are single coated. So far so good. There are also apparently a few more variations on this lens, depending on the serial numbers, but I&#8217;m not going to go deeply into that here. The silver tipped lens I&#8217;ve used here has a serial number of under 1 million, the black tipped one is over 1 million, but under 1.1 million (which some claim is the &#8216;best&#8217; version).<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the easiest way for me to test these was to use an adapter and stick the lenses onto my Sony A7 and place it on a tripod. Obviously, these have both been manually focussed, so we can&#8217;t put too much emphasis on the scientific nature of this test. But I did take a couple of sets of photos and the results were similar.<\/p>\n<p>First off, I shot both lenses at \u01921.4. These images have had a basic curve applied to them, in Photoshop.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1920\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1920\" class=\"wp-image-1920 size-full\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODdhAQABAPAAAP\/\/\/wAAACwAAAAAAQABAEACAkQBADs=\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024.jpg\" alt=\"Image of camera, box of film and test chart\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" data-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024-730x487.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024-50x33.jpg 50w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1920\" class=\"wp-image-1920 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024.jpg\" alt=\"Image of camera, box of film and test chart\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024-730x487.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/silver-1.4-1024-50x33.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><\/noscript><p id=\"caption-attachment-1920\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Older &#8216;silver tipped&#8217; Zuiko 50mm, shot at \u01921.4.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1919\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1919\" class=\"wp-image-1919 size-full\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODdhAQABAPAAAP\/\/\/wAAACwAAAAAAQABAEACAkQBADs=\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024.jpg\" alt=\"Image of camera, box of film and test chart\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" data-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024-730x487.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024-50x33.jpg 50w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1919\" class=\"wp-image-1919 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024.jpg\" alt=\"Image of camera, box of film and test chart\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024-730x487.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/black-1.4-1024-50x33.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><\/noscript><p id=\"caption-attachment-1919\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">More recent, black tipped Zuiko 50mm, shot at \u01921.4.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What seems clear to me, about the above images (apart from the vignetting), is that the later black tipped Zuiko is sharper across the image. Even at f8 (below) this is quite obvious. Below, is a 100% crop at \u01928.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1922\" style=\"width: 750px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1922\" class=\"wp-image-1922 size-full\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODdhAQABAPAAAP\/\/\/wAAACwAAAAAAQABAEACAkQBADs=\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup.jpg\" alt=\"closeup\" width=\"740\" height=\"356\" data-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup.jpg 740w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup-730x351.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup-50x24.jpg 50w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1922\" class=\"wp-image-1922 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup.jpg\" alt=\"closeup\" width=\"740\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup.jpg 740w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup-730x351.jpg 730w, https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/closeup-50x24.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 500px\" \/><\/noscript><p id=\"caption-attachment-1922\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The image on the left was taken with the older Zuiko 50mm. The one on the right, with the newer version.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>All fascinating stuff and perhaps worth knowing. Although we probably ought to make allowances for possible sample variation, between lenses \u2013 perhaps my copy of the earlier version is from a bad batch and my copy of the later version is from a very good batch? Also, the very age of the older lens may have rendered it not as clean and sharp as it once was. Who knows? Also, I wonder how much needs to be allowed for the fact that I am running these tests via a modern digital sensor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/its-all-a-bit-different-with-film\/\">rather than film<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I wouldn&#8217;t base any buying decisions on this. Interesting though.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two versions of the Olympus Zuiko 50mm lens tested, on a Sony A7 camera.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-film-photography","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crunchyspaces.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}