Comparison of 90'ish Lenses

In the interest of an actual comparison of the warmth (or coldness) of a variety of lenses, I assembled this grid. All were taken at approximately the same time, at ISO 100, f/5.6, using a Sony A7Riii. The Summicron 90 is a version 2, from the mid 60's. To my eye, the Batis lens has the most saturated color, and the Summicron the least. However the 4 modern lenses are very difficult to distinguish from each other.

 

As you see, I am attracted to 90 mm lenses. I have another, an Elmar 90/4, also from the 60's, which is even colder in rendition than the Summicron. These are full-frame, reduced to preview size, so the relative sharpness cannot be seen. Only the default processing of Lightroom was used. I was intentionally looking for subtle shades of green and brown. Sharpness is for another day (Loxia>Macro>Batis>Summicron>100-400),

 

Ed, a very interesting comparison. This is the first useful comparison of color performance between lenses that I've seen.

Loxia seems less contrasty than Batis. To me, Loxia has the most pleasing color rendering. Summicron is just retro.

What for do you use Loxia 85 ?

Loxia lenses are physically small, although the 85 is somewhat heavier than the Summicron, and manual focus. All the filter rings are 52 mm. For my purpose, they are ideal for landscape photography. Best of all, I can carry all five lenses at once - one on the camera (or tucked sideways in the bag), and four in a small fanny/shoulder bag (ThinkTank Hubba Hubba Hiney). There are sharper lenses than Loxia, at least in the center, but these Zeiss lenses are uniformly sharp across the entire field of view. The diffraction limit is about f/5.6 or t/8 on a Sony A7Riii.

 

There may be difference in rendering between Loxia lenses. The 21 and 25 have a Distagon design, the 35 is a Biogon, the 50 is a Planar and the 85 is a Sonnar. That said, the differences are probably small. It would be interesting to post a comparison, preferably from a more colorful subject, like the Botanic Garden, than a time-worn pine tree. It's something I could do without carting a large roller bag through the park.

 

On closer look, I was wrong in my assignation of sharpness. The Summicron is probably the sharpest of the lenses above, but with low contrast typical of lenses of that era. It is not as convenient to use (focus magnification must be manually enabled), and I don't like its color compared to the others. I have an Elmar 90/4 and Hasselblad 100/3.5 I could add to the 90'ish mix.

Unless you desire a matched set of lenses (for video for example), the color rendition of the lens is pretty irrelevant if you color correct your images in Lightroom or Photoshop. I would consider testing other aspects of the lens performance rather than color as that's very easily corrected.

Sharpness is easily measured, even unscientifically, for comparison. I particularly look for corner sharpness, although that is seldom an issue for 90 mm lenses. Uniformity seems to improve as the focal length increases, but CA tends to increase.

 

Image quality is so close among these lenses, other attributes would be the deciding factor whether to use them. I shoot a lot of video, but seldom with primes. If I did, then uniformity would be a key attribute, along with manual focus, good bokeh and minimal breathing. I find that the Sony A7Riii and A7iii are close enough that little or no grading is needed to match them. The A9 is something else, and doesn't have gamma profiles (e.g., S-Log 2). Matching is a PITA.

 

In this example, I made a 300x200 pixel sample of the original (unsharpened) images from the upper left corner. All are pixel=pixel crops for comparison. I did not resample to compensate for focal length.

 

Unless you desire a matched set of lenses (for video for example), the color rendition of the lens is pretty irrelevant if you color correct your images in Lightroom or Photoshop. I would consider testing other aspects of the lens performance rather than color as that's very easily corrected.

You will never get modern clean digital look and colors from 1960s era lens. And vice versa. You can get it a bit closer by some painstaking work. But can't get the same. Some lenses (Kaleinar) are much paler and vintage than Summicron.

You will never get modern clean digital look and colors from 1960s era lens. And vice versa. You can get it a bit closer by some painstaking work. But can't get the same. Some lenses (Kaleinar) are much paler and vintage than Summicron.

The original poster, Ed, was interested in the color or warm/cool attributes of the lenses. And in that regard, all are easily adjusted in image color correction. The other attributes that you mention Ruslan, are different, and not really a subject of color correction and should be considered. But that's not what Ed was testing.

Thanks a lot for doing and displaying this testing. Now I understand @ruslan's other thread and will happily stick to my copy of that 'cron.

In response to when I use a Loxia 85/2.4, it is a good choice for closeups at a distance, for mild compression of perspective, and selective (and extremely sharp) focus. I like it for landscapes in order to exaggerate rolling hills or mountains with respect to mid-ground objects. The Loxia has excellent bokeh to lend a 3D aspect to images such as below, of the English Garden section of Chicago Botanic Garden.

 

This is a bracketed (0 +/-2) HDR rendering, which exaggerates the color and warmth of this lens. The dynamic range between deep shade and bright sunlight was too great for a single exposure.

 

 

Although not strictly a closeup lens, the Loxia 85 has better rendering than the 90 mm Sony macro, and is half the size. A longer lens includes less potentially distracting background. This is a single-shot image, also at Chicago Botanic Garden.

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Ed_Ingold

For use on modern AF cameras, I usually use my Tamron 90mm.

 

For film cameras, one of my favorites is my Jupiter-9 85mm f/2 in Kiev (Contax) mount.

A good example is quite up to the standard of the German originals.

For film cameras, one of my favorites is my Jupiter-9 85mm f/2 in Kiev (Contax) mount.

 

Good lens on digital cameras too.

Old lenses, Pentax limited and Zeiss (among modern) tend to 3d separation and high micro contrast due to small numbers of elements.

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie, 1977, 3d rendering is well seen too.

Edited August 18, 2019 by ruslan

Coatings today are about 10x as efficient as those in the 60's and 70's. You no longer have to compromise between resolution and contrast. You do have to pay more attention to CA with color. In the B&W era, CA was a minor detraction from resolution. That indifference extended well into the digital era, when DSLRs seldom exceeded 12 MP, and without image stabilization, camera shake reduces the effective resolution to about 6 MP (shutter speed = 1/F). Lens manufacturers competed for speed ratings, down to f/0.95 for Canon, with f/1.4 being the norm. Notwithstanding fast lenses, you seldom opened up wider than f/4 because focusing was imprecise and various aberrations prevailed. ISO 400 was tolerated when the need for speed outpaced the ugly grain.

 

Now I shoot wide open with impunity, selecting the aperture for DOF or subject isolation, rarely shooting beyond f/8, where sharpness falls off due to diffraction.

In 1980 Kubrik's "the Shinig" 3d pop and high micro contrast is well seen also (interior scenes and close-ups). The older good lenses had it. Modern ones especially zooms and macro lenses are flat. Sigma Art is notorious for flat images. Zeiss, Pentax and Leica are not flat.