Are there pros of using lens designed for digital FF on 35mm bodies?

MFstooges · Jul 15, 2024

I know nothing about optics but I remember when Nikon and Canon started to roll out their first affordable digital SLRs which soon followed by lenses which were specifically designed for digital SLR. Unlike film coating which is pretty thin, the architecture of digital sensor is said to require a light ray comes in narrow angle of incidence in order to maximize its performance. And the rear element has better anti reflection coating. So since modern lenses for digital cameras are generally pretty sharp and I assume have higher resolving power for the megapixels, are there any advantages of using modern lens on film? AFAIK the TMax and Delta haven't improved much for years. Tons of reviews about the legacy lenses performance on digital body but I have never read about the opposite.

None of the new lenses comes in smaller package as film era lenses so the size difference is clearly a con.

For the admins : I understand I mentioned about digital here but it has nothing to do with the actual workflow which is 100 percent analog but if considered not suitable please remove the thread.

Ian Grant · Jul 16, 2024

The major issue is with Wide Angle lenses, but SLR WA lenses were already a compromise with increased back focus to allow for the mirror. Yes designs may be optimised for better digital performance, that won't be detrimental to film output.

The problem is more critical with much larger sensor sizes. Look at Schneider's Apo Digitar range of lenses, the f4.5 90mm N has an image circle that just covers 63x63mm and an angle of view of 53º, it's ideal for a 37x49mm sensor.

Ian

250swb · Jul 16, 2024

Assuming the same or adaptable mount, and assuming the lens can communicate with the SLR body to adjust aperture etc. (because modern lenses tend not to have an aperture ring), then we are left with the words 'specifically designed for digital'. And that is where the lens manufacturers 'cheat' by having the cameras software correct for complicated optical problems once dealt with by expensive designs and materials. That is why lenses specifically made for digital cameras are so good and so (relatively) cheap. There's no doubt that lens formulas and materials have improved over time, but the lens profiles you can use in Photoshop to correct 'faults' in a manual prime lens are similar in principle to the inbuilt profiles your camera carries around in its firmware. So I don't think there would be any advantage in using a specifically digital lens on an SLR body even if it was possible.

neilt3 · Jul 16, 2024

I think the first lenses sold specifically for digital were for crop sensor bodies , so unless your using an APS SLR, basically Canon and Nikon , these are no good .
Minolta's APS used the Vectis V mount rather than A mount , so can't be mounted on a full frame body anyway .

Other differences were , as you say , down to the rear lens coatings due to reflections in it off the shiny sensor , and changing how the light hits the sensor .

Something to be aware of is that the more recent lenses ( ignoring ones for mirrorless cameras ) in some cases rely on in camera lens correction to digitally correct distortion, CA and vignetting.
Used on film , these lenses can give poor results .
On film era lenses , the corrections all had to be optical , so corrected at the design point .
Most of my lenses are from the film days and I only have a few that were designed for digital cameras , but I don't seem to have any issues using them .
That said , compared to an equal quality lens from the film era , I don't see an improvement either .
Amongst other things , I'm using Canon L lenses on film and digital from the film era and they are equally good on both medium .
I'm also using Minolta G lenses , Sony G lenses and Sony Carl Zeiss lenses on my A mount film and digital cameras as well as adapted to my Sony E mount a7Riv with good results .

The old Minolta , Sony and Canon lenses are performing great on the a7Riv due to 100% spot on AF being sensor based , rather than via a mirror.
So looking at the results , I can't fault the old lenses , and the newer lenses I have don't give me any better results .

So as long as your buying good quality lenses , I don't see it makes a difference if they were "made for digital" or not .
Most of the changes to the lenses had to be made just to give them satisfactory results on a digital sensor due to issues that weren't present with film .
Just be aware of compatibility issues .

Some third party ( Tamron , maybe others ) Canon EF lenses don't play well on film bodies due to power requirements, often showing a flat battery despite them being fresh .
Some Nikon lenses have electronic apertures which can't be operated on any film camera ( or early digital ) .

And it's pot luck with Sigma as it's always been if they'll work or not !

Thwyllo · Jul 16, 2024

I'd agree with others.... so many modern digital lenses have built in faults ranging from CA to significant distortion because they can, because the camera software is perfectly capable of correction all these things. Obviously that isn't the case with 35mm film cameras which would leave you having to do post rectification on digital scans.

I would have thought your bigger problem would be finding adapters although that would depend on your mount.

neilt3 · Jul 16, 2024

Thwyllo said:
I would have thought your bigger problem would be finding adapters although that would depend on your mount.

I think rather than an adapter, if there was a lens of a different mount to what you usually use you'd just pick up a compatible body and use it with that .
The only modern dSLR lens that can really be adapted would be on a Canon EOS body .
But as most modern F mount lenses don't have an aperture ring you wouldn't be able to alter the aperture.
Cameras like Nikon F80 , Minolta Dynax 5 , Canon EOS 500n etc bodies are cheap to buy and readily available.

Marcelo Paniagua · Jul 16, 2024

neilt3 said:
I think rather than an adapter, if there was a lens of a different mount to what you usually use you'd just pick up a compatible body and use it with that .
The only modern dSLR lens that can really be adapted would be on a Canon EOS body .
But as most modern F mount lenses don't have an aperture ring you wouldn't be able to alter the aperture.
Cameras like Nikon F80 , Minolta Dynax 5 , Canon EOS 500n etc bodies are cheap to buy and readily available.

Agree, haven't seen many (if any) digital cameras lens with aperture rings.

MFstooges · Jul 16, 2024

Ian Grant said:
The major issue is with Wide Angle lenses, but SLR WA lenses were already a compromise with increased back focus to allow for the mirror. Yes designs may be optimised for better digital performance, that won't be detrimental to film output.

The problem is more critical with much larger sensor sizes. Look at Schneider's Apo Digitar range of lenses, the f4.5 90mm N has an image circle that just covers 63x63mm and an angle of view of 53º, it's ideal for a 37x49mm sensor.

Ian

That sounds bigger than 35 FF sensor

250swb said:
Assuming the same or adaptable mount, and assuming the lens can communicate with the SLR body to adjust aperture etc. (because modern lenses tend not to have an aperture ring), then we are left with the words 'specifically designed for digital'. And that is where the lens manufacturers 'cheat' by having the cameras software correct for complicated optical problems once dealt with by expensive designs and materials. That is why lenses specifically made for digital cameras are so good and so (relatively) cheap. There's no doubt that lens formulas and materials have improved over time, but the lens profiles you can use in Photoshop to correct 'faults' in a manual prime lens are similar in principle to the inbuilt profiles your camera carries around in its firmware. So I don't think there would be any advantage in using a specifically digital lens on an SLR body even if it was possible.

Agree that cheating with software is probably responsible for some areas like correcting distortion, CA etc. But they can improve resolution, can't they? That's why I'd be interested with the result if people had tested several of these "designed for digital" lens on film.

Thwyllo said:
I'd agree with others.... so many modern digital lenses have built in faults ranging from CA to significant distortion because they can, because the camera software is perfectly capable of correction all these things. Obviously that isn't the case with 35mm film cameras which would leave you having to do post rectification on digital scans.

I would have thought your bigger problem would be finding adapters although that would depend on your mount.

Some film bodies can accept these new lenses w/o problem excluding the transfer of the "lens profile". I.E. Nikon F100, F6 with Nikon FF digital lens and maybe Pentax film bodies with Pentax digital lenses (I am not really familiar with Pentax so I'm not sure their compatibility other than the same mount shared between film and digital)

MattKing · Jul 16, 2024

MFstooges said:
Some film bodies can accept these new lenses w/o problem excluding the transfer of the "lens profile". I.E. Nikon F100, F6 with Nikon FF digital lens and maybe Pentax film bodies with Pentax digital lenses (I am not really familiar with Pentax so I'm not sure their compatibility other than the same mount shared between film and digital)

They will accept them, but you will have to decide whether the different design priorities suit you.
One issue that is relatively easy to design around with computer corrections available is geometric distortion - e.g. pinhole or barrel distortion - so it is quite possible that the digital lens designers prioritized other issues, while knowing that the image processing can handle the distortion.

Sal Santamaura · Jul 16, 2024

I can only address the use of my Sigma Art 35mm and 50mm f/1.4 lenses, purchased for a D810, on my F6. Combined with CMS 20II, they've provided negatives of incredible quality. That's a very significant "pro."

MFstooges · Jul 16, 2024

Sal Santamaura said:
I can only address the use of my Sigma Art 35mm and 50mm f/1.4 lenses, purchased for a D810, on my F6. Combined with CMS 20II, they've provided negatives of incredible quality. That's a very significant "pro."

Sigma ART 35mm is currently considered as the best IQ in 35mm focal length along with Samyang (in digital world). Glad to hear that the quality of Sigma is also recorded well on film. So the large dimension of the lens serves good purpose.

Mark J · Jul 16, 2024

As a lens designer, I'm still not convinced that there is a lot of aberration that you can realistically leave in a lens and then post-correct. Not if you are serious about retaining resolution. (If that was the case, then mobile phnoe camera lenses would not consist of 7 elements and be built to insane tolerances !)
The obvious ones are distortion and lateral colour in the field - as mentioned above.
It seems that in-camera lens corrections have been used more in the last 10 years, than before.
The correction differences between film/digital lenses are likely to be more apparent for cameras like the Sony, with thicker sensor windows.

I have used a couple of my Zeiss ZE lenses, and the Tamron 35/1.4 SP on a Canon film body, and they are excellent, as Sal has commented.

Ian Grant · Jul 16, 2024

Mark J said:
As a lens designer, I'm still not convinced that there is a lot of aberration that you can realistically leave in a lens and then post-correct. Not if you are serious about retaining resolution.

I have a Minolta Dimage 7i, I've not used it in the last 20 years, although I do fire it up every so often. Despite being only 5mb the image quality was surprisingly good, however the fixed zoom lens suffered from spherical distortion but the dedicated Minolta software could correct this, and probably a few other issues, but I never needed to use it with the images I was making. I moved to a Canon DSLR within 2 years, the Minolta had poor low light level image quality and ate batteries, as it had an electronic view finder, and a poor rear screen.

But perhaps what's missed is that transitional period of the early 2000s is a time of increasing use of aspherical lens elements, which brought huge improvements in smaller format lens designs, particularly wide angle zoom lenses. The previous huge step changes was Super Multi coatings in the early 1970s, that revolutionised Zoom lens possibilities.

Ian

reddesert · Jul 16, 2024

Nearly all Nikon AF film bodies can use Nikon G lenses without the aperture ring. You control the aperture from the camera. They were already set up to control the aperture from the camera with pre-G lenses, because that enables P and S exposure modes. Some of the older film AF bodies are limited to P and S mode with G lens, and the newer ones can do PSAM. Where you run into trouble is the newest lenses with AF-P focusing, or with E electronic diaphragm. Even many of the older DSLRs aren't compatible with those. There is an extensive table at https://kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm

I suspect that the main thing being corrected in-camera for newer lenses is distortion. There could also be correction for color fringing, but that is probably less of a problem on film anyway.

The advantages of using such a lens could be ... if it gives you something you can't get with an older lens, or it saves you from carrying around two sets of lenses.

MFstooges · Jul 16, 2024

Ian Grant said:
But perhaps what's missed is that transitional period of the early 2000s is a time of increasing use of aspherical lens elements, which brought huge improvements in smaller format lens designs, particularly wide angle zoom lenses. The previous huge step changes was Super Multi coatings in the early 1970s, that revolutionised Zoom lens possibilities.

Ian

Are you referring to period when manufacturers started to offer wider than 34mm zooms like 28-70, 24-120 etc.?

reddesert said:
I suspect that the main thing being corrected in-camera for newer lenses is distortion. There could also be correction for color fringing, but that is probably less of a problem on film anyway.

Do you mean BW film?

reddesert · Jul 16, 2024

MFstooges said:
Do you mean BW film?

No, I mean that (without getting into a film vs digital debate) some types of color fringing at the edges of a picture that require post-processing, probably are related to the sandwich of Bayer color filter and digital sensor. Film doesn't have that issue because the thickness of the different color layers in the emulsion is not significant. Of course a lens can still have its own lateral chromatic aberration that shows up in both types of detectors.

Mark J · Jul 16, 2024

Ian Grant said:
But perhaps what's missed is that transitional period of the early 2000s is a time of increasing use of aspherical lens elements, which brought huge improvements in smaller format lens designs, particularly wide angle zoom lenses.

Yes, but there was at least as much progress from inclusion of anomalous-dispersion glasses widely in both primes and zooms. Fluor-crowns are only one example.

Paul Howell · Jul 16, 2024

neilt3 said:
I think rather than an adapter, if there was a lens of a different mount to what you usually use you'd just pick up a compatible body and use it with that .
The only modern dSLR lens that can really be adapted would be on a Canon EOS body .
But as most modern F mount lenses don't have an aperture ring you wouldn't be able to alter the aperture.
Cameras like Nikon F80 , Minolta Dynax 5 , Canon EOS 500n etc bodies are cheap to buy and readily available.

You can include Sony full frame A mount, the 5 and 8 pin lens without micro motors will work on Minolta A bodies and SSM lens will work on Minolta 5, 7 a few 9 bodies that were factory modified will also work with SSM lens. The question is, are Sony lens in this category digital lens, for the most part updated Minolta designs still made by Konica Minolta. The other is Sigma, full frame SA mount lens will work on older film bodies, the SA7 and 9. I have a late model 24 to 70 2.8 with VR feature, although the VR feature does not work, AF, and all exposure modes still work. Again, not sure this counts as the design may predate the S9 to later mirrorless bodies with SA mount.

Oren Grad · Jul 16, 2024

The discussion of software correction is mostly beside the point. The lenses that have extreme software correction requirements intentionally "designed in" are offered exclusively in mirrorless camera mounts that are not compatible with 35mm film cameras.

With the possible exception of some cheap low-end kit zooms, late-model lenses in legacy 35mm mounts are generally excellent on film, exactly as you'd expect from advances in optical design and production capabilities.

The only late-model SLR lenses I've used on film are the Canon EF 40/2.8 and the Canon EF 35/2 IS. Both are just fine, with the latter a step forward from the original EF 35/2, which I have as well. The 35 IS, like several other late-model Canon EF zooms and primes, offers the advantage of anti-shake with film. Depending on the situations in which you want to make pictures, that may have greater practical impact than improvements in the glass.

Oren Grad · Jul 16, 2024

reddesert said:
I suspect that the main thing being corrected in-camera for newer lenses is distortion. There could also be correction for color fringing, but that is probably less of a problem on film anyway.

Linear distortion, lateral CA, and vignetting.

But again, extreme designed-in corrections are irrelevant to film because the lenses that require them are not offered in film-camera mounts.

MFstooges · Jul 16, 2024

Oren Grad said:
The discussion of software correction is mostly beside the point. The lenses that have extreme software correction requirements intentionally "designed in" are offered exclusively in mirrorless camera mounts that are not compatible with 35mm film cameras.

With the possible exception of some cheap low-end kit zooms, late-model lenses in legacy 35mm mounts are generally excellent on film, exactly as you'd expect from advances in optical design and production capabilities.

The only late-model SLR lenses I've used on film are the Canon EF 40/2.8 and the Canon EF 35/2 IS. Both are just fine, with the latter a step forward from the original EF 35/2, which I have as well. The 35 IS, like several other late-model Canon EF zooms and primes, offers the advantage of anti-shake with film. Depending on the situations in which you want to make pictures, that may have greater practical impact than improvements in the glass.

Which Canon 35 mm bodies can use the lens IS feature?

ic-racer · Jul 16, 2024

MFstooges said:
I know nothing about optics but I remember when Nikon and Canon started to roll out their first affordable digital SLRs which soon followed by lenses which were specifically designed for digital SLR.

Which lens? I can't find any mention of this in this lens 'specifically designed for digital SLR' in this 2018 Nikkor brochure.

https://cdn.nikoneurope.com/imported/images/web/EU/learn-and-explore/brochures-leaflets/nikkor/nikon_brochure_nikkor_en-GB--original.pdf

MFstooges · Jul 16, 2024

ic-racer said:
Which lens? I can't find any mention of this in this lens 'specifically designed for digital SLR' in this 2018 Nikkor brochure.

https://cdn.nikoneurope.com/imported/images/web/EU/learn-and-explore/brochures-leaflets/nikkor/nikon_brochure_nikkor_en-GB--original.pdf

I don't recall if it's on the brochure or press articles but around 2003-2008, approximate time of the launching of EOS 300D and Nikon D70

Oren Grad · Jul 16, 2024

MFstooges said:
Which Canon 35 mm bodies can use the lens IS feature?

The first Canon EF IS lens was introduced in 1995, back when Canon SLRs were all film cameras and well before Canon offered any DSLRs:

https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/ef330.html

So far as I know, the IS feature, in those EF lenses that have it, will work on all Canon EOS film bodies.

Oren Grad · Jul 16, 2024

MFstooges said:
I don't recall if it's on the brochure or press articles but around 2003-2008, approximate time of the launching of EOS 300D and Nikon D70

All lenses offered by Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta etc. as dedicated for their APS-C SLRs and by Olympus and Panasonic for 4/3 SLRs were "designed for digital" in that they were designed with image circles inadequate to cover a 24x36mm frame (some APS-C zoom lenses will cover full frame over part of their zoom ranges), nor were there any film cameras with smaller frames that utilized those lens mounts.

Are there pros of using lens designed for digital FF on 35mm bodies?

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