old glass ever better then new?

I would be very interested to know if there are any situations whereby old lenses were actually better, in some ways, than new lenses of the same brand. For instance, with preset or stop down lenses, there was the luxury of more aperture blades (no need to have instant auto stop down), thus giving, perhaps, better bokeh.

But, in terms of actual resolution, contrast, or whatever: were any older ones actually better? I have a Pentax semi-auto 2/50 from the H1a days whose resolution is at least matched with the best of today. - David Lyga

Sharper lenses? Today's lenses are better. The coatings are better. So the answer is no. But if you want the effects of no lens coatings or single lens coating, lenses not corrected for color, or the swirls of Pretzel lens, the old may be better

Depends, perhaps, on how old the older has to be...
The first Canon EF (autofocus) 400mm f2.8 was a dog compared to the FD 400mm 2.8 – it was about as sharp as a chocolate knife in a dishwasher at 2.8! I did not know anyone who kept theirs, we all used either the FD version or one of the other EF long lenses. V2 was a different story though!
Additionally, the first version of the EF70-200mm F2.8 was generally softer than the EF80-200mm F2.8, but it did have other advantages. New doesn't always equate to better.

David Lyga said:

I would be very interested to know if there are any situations whereby old lenses were actually better, in some ways, than new lenses of the same brand. For instance, with preset or stop down lenses, there was the luxury of more aperture blades (no need to have instant auto stop down), thus giving, perhaps, better bokeh.

But, in terms of actual resolution, contrast, or whatever: were any older ones actually better? I have a Pentax semi-auto 2/50 from the H1a days whose resolution is at least matched with the best of today. - David Lyga

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David, I am bad about trying to answer a question with a question. This time with two. Black & White or Color and how old? I, for instance, don't really consider the lens mentioned above as "old glass", especially for color, which I rarely shoot. For B&W, an uncoated lens can lend nice effects to a picture and "multicoated" seems like overkill to me. But then, I am an "old fart" and set in my ways and really see no reason to change.......Regards!

Sirius Glass said:

Sharper lenses? Today's lenses are better. The coatings are better. So the answer is no. But if you want the effects of no lens coatings or single lens coating, lenses not corrected for color, or the swirls of Pretzel lens, the old may be better

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+1

One is bulk and weight.
Some of the older manual focus lenses are much smaller than todays larger lenses.
Example the 35-105 variable aperture and the Nikon 75-150/f3.5 Series E zoom are rather small lenses.

The sharpest lens I own is a Pentax A 50 2.8 I use it for digital duping with a DSLR. That being said my EF 50 1.8 II gets the most use and it's as sharp as I need.

Hi David:

I don't think I would be able to generalize that old lenses are better then new lenses, but there are some fantastic examples of old lenses that are astonishingly good. Personally, I use the Nikkor 28mm f2.8 AI lens for my work, and it outperforms all but a handful of current lens designs. Plus, mechanically it is a jewel.

I would have to say that it is better then the Nikkor 28mm f2.8 AI-S version, which is the current production version. The 'throw' of the AI version is significantly greater then the current version (I have both), and focusing at a distance is more accurate and a breeze with the AI---not so, with the AI-S.

Further, the AI-S update split the middle relay lens into a two-part floating element system so that close range correction could be performed. But in so doing, the corners of the AI-S version are soft until f5.6---but again, not the case with the AI version. Since almost all of my work is photographing between 2 meters or greater, the CRC version is actually a downgrade with the soft corners and imprecise focus throw.

The Zeiss Otus 28mm is a great example of design gone bad. It is so over-optimized for short distance work that it is all but useless at distance. What is the purpose of a 1.4 wide angle lens if you cannot precisely focus between 2 meters and INF? But the close range correction in the lens became the design priority, and a long throw was completely sacrificed. Bad dog!

Also, try to find a lens produced today that has a metal filter thread! For those of us that use filters constantly, a plastic lens thread is worthless and pointless.

The new Canon EOS 35mm f1.4L ii has outstanding optical performance if you don't mind the 3 stops of vignetting that make using it wide-open silly. Too many lenses today are designed with significant vignetting because the designers believe (falsely)that math will correct this issue in post production.

I am not dead set against the use of modern optics materials for designs, but my experience with aspherical lens elements has been quite mixed. I think they work well on the final projection lens for the backside of an SLR design (CV 40mm f2 SLiin), but not so well as a field equalizer to push better focus into the corners. Yes, it works, but then again it seems to effect the quality of the bokeh considerably. I have seen a lot of lenses that have little coma, great corner response, only to have harsh bokeh.

I don't think computer aided optics design has helped. I think there is too much heads-down thinking, not enough experimentation. It leads to designs that look good on paper, but make for photographically unexciting lenses. But like most industries, no one actually wants to listen to their customers anymore, so what you get, is literally what you get---plastic and all.

Pete

That depends on your definition of better. I would say old lenses are different rather than better. Many have their own signature, which is what makes them great. It is a bit like saying is a realist painting as better than an impressionist painting.

Today new lenses sometimes have bigger distortion than older versions (because it is easy to fix it with digital flow) - but pixel peeping sharpness is usually better - because that is what is selling the lens nowadays.

Older lenses tend to be better made, and often lack the sterility of most current offerings.

ac12 said:

One is bulk and weight.
Some of the older manual focus lenses are much smaller than todays larger lenses.
Example the 35-105 variable aperture and the Nikon 75-150/f3.5 Series E zoom are rather small lenses.

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This is a matter of optical design, but also of used material for the barrel (Plastics in place of aluminium or even brass).

David Lyga said:

But, in terms of actual resolution, contrast, or whatever: were any older ones actually better?

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In terms of resolution, all the fixed focal length manual lenses I have personally tested have not been the limiting factor. The limiting factors have been: film type, method of extracting the detail captured, manual focus and/or the target itself.

ac12 said:

One is bulk and weight.
Some of the older manual focus lenses are much smaller than todays larger lenses.
Example the 35-105 variable aperture and the Nikon 75-150/f3.5 Series E zoom are rather small lenses.

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That's the case with quite a few lenses and not just zooms.

darkosaric said:

Today new lenses sometimes have bigger distortion than older versions (because it is easy to fix it with digital flow) - but pixel peeping sharpness is usually better - because that is what is selling the lens nowadays.

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Perhaps with lenses for DSLR's etc sub full frame.

The most surprising thing is most DSLR's lenses are often much slower and the faster lenses fitting 35mm/full frame DSLR's are now very expensive. Overall lenses are optically better but except for the really high end lenses build quality is nowhere near as good.

Pentax lenses were always amongst the best, I used S1a's and their 50mm Takumars alongside my SMC lenses and the coatings and sharpness were indistinguishable in the final negatives/transparencies. I've gone back to shooting screw mount Pentax cameras 35 + years after selling my original 3 camera and lenses kit - no regrets

Ian

I am mostly a digital shooter with a healthy dose of film on the side, so I've got a foot firmly in both camps. I don't expect my Takumars or my film-era Pentax lenses (especially the manual focus ones) to outperform modern glass in lines/mm or freedom from distortion/chromatic aberration; I expect them to give me something special in the rendering and fun in the using.

When I want and NEED corner to corner sharpness and flat-field consistency, I have macro lenses I can turn to. As it is, even some of my Pentax-M glass will take a lot of zooming in on digital before things start to get fuzzy, especially on a K-1. On film (Pentax S1a and MX mostly), my shooting and darkroom technique (especially the latter) are still very much the limiting factors. I would possibly shoot and develop a lot more film than I do, but I'm on call at the local hospital one week in two and it's hard to contemplate darkroom work when I'm necessarily tied to my cellphone and a call at the wrong moment could flood the room with light.

The 80 degree coverage Fujinon lenses were better than the replacements because the replacement lenses no longer covered 8x10!! I was fortunate to get the whole set of lenses for my 8x10 use, back when they were considered 'outdated.'

its probably a taste thing these days.
some people like less clinical / pristine glass
and "old glass 's flaws" are "character"
when i say "flaws" i might mean rendition of an image
which might be less clinical / pristine. its not so much better, but different

Sad to see the speculatively ignorant and incorrect comments regarding modern lens design and the design profession itself in this thread.

David, from a lens designer familiar with optics past and present: I don't view new and old designs as better or worse...the optics very simply met the requirements they were designed to, within the bounds of the tools and techniques available at the time. The "personality" as such for each design type is unique and has their own place in photography. The resurgent popularity of the Petzval is a prime example. Conversely, we don't have to worry about radioactive thorium any more (for example).

For me it often depends on what I am photographing and what format I am working with. In most cases new equals more of what I am looking for in a lens.

With 35mm I find my Planar 50/2 to be very sharp with good contrast and it is consistently this way throughout the aperture range up until f/16. My Voigtlander 50/3.5 ltm lens is probably my sharpest but it is not as consistently good across the negative as my Planar is. My Planar lens out performs every other lens I own except for my Pentax Takumar 50mm f1.4 which is also very consistent across the frame, though not as sharp in my mind.

On the other hand, I love my 12 inch f6.8 Goerz Dagor on my 8x10. I don't believe it is my sharpest large format lens but, like the Planar, it is the most consistently good from corner to corner once it is stopped down to f/16. Since I only contact print my 8x10 negatives, and sometimes even use direct positive paper that provides a print direct from the camera, actual lens sharpness is far less important than good tonal quality. The Dagor provides that in spades. My Schneider Symmars are also very, very good performers.

Though they span a range of at least 60 years, these are all pretty modern lenses. I don't believe I own an older lens that meets this criteria with the possible exception of Max Berek's Elmar 50/3.5. Although I have one example that is over 85 years old I still consider the design and execution of this lens to be pretty modern, though not coated. It is slightly less sharp, and certainly less contrasty, but this lens is also very consistent from aperture to aperture with only a very little bit of softness in the corners in the wider apertures.

Obviously you need to understand that, although I own lots of lenses, I certainly do not own them all. Likewise, I rarely own more than one of any particular kind of lens though I do have several Leica Elmar 50/3.5 lenses as well as several Pentax M 50/2 lenses. I think these lenses breed like rabbits.

The upshot of all this is that my observations are my own and no one elses, and they are subject to the type of photographs I like. Likewise, I am working with samples of one in almost every case. In other words, my findings are unique to me. They probably won't match anyone elses observations.

Not to quarrel with you, Jason, but the OP asked

if there are any situations whereby old lenses were actually better, in some ways, than new lenses of the same brand.

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Here's an example of a pair of lenses in which the older one can be preferable to the newer. 105/4 MicroNikkor and its replacement the 105/2.8 MicroNikkor (manual focus and later AF). The f/4 is unit focusing, gives better working distance close up than the f/2.8ers, which have internal focusing that reduces focal length to focus closer.

If working distance is important, the f/4 is preferable.

If constant focal length, as my flash rigs that give good exposure for the same aperture set over a fairly broad range of magnifications require, is important then the f/4 is preferable but not necessary. After my f/4 was stolen and I replaced it with an f/2.8 I found an easy way to use the f/2.8 close up with flash. And nowadays its all TTL flash anyway so who cares about my old invention?

jnanian said:

its probably a taste thing these days.
some people like less clinical / pristine glass
and "old glass 's flaws" are "character"
when i say "flaws" i might mean rendition of an image
which might be less clinical / pristine. its not so much better, but different

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My preference for the rendition that old glass provides is akin to my preference for film over digicams, and vinyl or cd's, even given the fact that I find film and vinyl to be the superior mediums.

No doubt there is a tendency to use old glass on the new digital bodies and it is not uncommon to hear that the newer sensors outresolve the glass. For that individual it is entirely possible this is true. For instance I tested my Pentax M 50mm f4 macro and got the results below.


Full res version -> http://www.fototime.com/A08A371F28ED137/orig.jpg

Obviously many factors affect ultimate resolution on film - lens, film, conditions, focusing as well as the target itself. Then there is the process of extracting the information that may have been captured on film.

There are many who use flatbed scanners today and they may conclude that the lens is the limiting factor in achieving highest resolution when comparing it to their sensor camera. If they used a low quality film it is possible the detail may not have been captured on it. In this example, I used Kodak Techpan shot at ISO25 and processed using Kodak Techpan. I used a Coolscan to extract the image and clearly there is more detail then was attained on my digital body. However, optically enlarging the area being compared and it is easy to see that there's considerably more detail captured on film then has been resolved.

Since all my lenses came to me used, I am not sure if this is as good as it gets, perhaps even in this case the film is the limiting factor? I've conducted similar tests for quite a few other lenses in my possession and fortunately they are all very good performers.

Like many here, I believe that modern lenses are better in almost every way, sharper, brighter, more resistant to flare, than older lenses. The computational capabilities of modern lens designers would probably be unimaginable to designers in earlier decades.

However, I like older lenses for the visual effects they present. I love that "glow" of older Leica lenses. I love the odd clarity of my New Canonet QL17-L. I love the amazing capability of the Vivitar Series 1 70-210 macro, despite its odd controls, in the way it brings the very tiny into very sharp focus on my dad's Konica. But my newer cameras with newer lenses (two Panasonic Lumix cameras with Leica zoom lenses, and dare I even mention the microscopic perfection of my iPhone cameras?) are amazing, but just don't have the je ne sais quoi of my older lenses.

Scott

Les Sarile said:

perhaps even in this case the film is the limiting factor?

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I believe that it is too easy to overlook the current limitations of scanner technology.

Newer lenses that lack manually adjustable apertures aren't very good at all on cameras that don't have the capability of adjusting aperatures electronically.