Comparing Camera Lenses (Part I)

Hello everybody!! Today I have a -hopefully illustrative- post about lenses. Most of my lenses are vintage except one, but you'll see the differences nonetheless. I shooted all the photos with the following fixed elements:

• Most of the photos were taken at the minimal focusing distance of the lens. This is the minimal distance you need to have between the camera and the subject (the doll) so that you can actually get in focus.
• All the photos are taken at maximal aperture, with the lowest f-stop possible for that lens.
• All the photos have the same edit, because we are not comparing colours.
• I did not use lens corrections in Lightroom, so if a photo has a bowling, vignetting or other defects, those are caused by the lens.

The point of this is not compare the quality of the lenses, but to see the differences between them. So, here is a collage of the photos, and below we are going to go one by one. I also have a "behind the scenes" photos for each lens, so you can see how far I had to go on some of the photos. I hope you will like it!

It would be great if before checking this, you watch my video about lenses.

Minolta 50mm, f1.7

This is what is known as the "nifty-fifty", and all-round prime lens. 50mm lenses are very, very useful and the image they get is usually quite nice. The minimal focusing distance here is 40cm, but I took it at 60cm so I could compare it with the next lens. Here is the photo and the behind the scenes:

Minolta 58mm, f1.4

This lens is almost a "nifty-fifty", because it is 58mm. The minimal focusing distance is 60cm. You will probably see no extreme difference between this and the above, except that the photo looks "closer" to Merry than in the others. This is because of the focal length (the mm, the 58mm instead of the 50mm).

The photo of the lenses below are the 50mm at the left, and the 58mm at the right. Besides being similar in size (disregard the hood), the position of the camera is exactly the same. However, as I said, the 50mm could get about 15cm closer to Merry and still focus.

Tamrom 35mm, f2.8 Macro

This is my only automatic lens that is modern and not adapted. It comes in mounts for several cameras and it is very lightweight; so if your camera can use it, I strongly recommend you getting it. It is affordable (cost me about AUD 350).

There are several points to mention. First, this lens can get insanely close to the target (about 12cm from the base of the lens) due to its macro capabilities; thus, I took the photo at the same distance than before for comparison (see the behind the scenes photo ~about 60cm). Second, the lens is f2.8, which means that the background is not as blurred.

A 35mm is what is called a "wide-angle". Can you see how much more of the background you can see here? Compare it to the photos above and you'll see the difference. Even at the same distance, the background is wider... it is a wide-angle! Also, see Merry's head: it looks thinner on the sides, and that is also a side-effect of the wide-angle. Faces tend to be a little bit thinned out and look "skinnier" (for a lack of a better word).

So, you have two effects: 1) you see a lot more of the background, 2) the faces get skinnier.

Minolta 35-70mm, f3.5

Okay, this is another vintage, and is one of the two zoom lenses I'm going to show. If you don't know what prime or zoom lenses are, check this post. Why is it called a zoom? Because it has two numbers in the "focal length" and basically you can "zoom in" without having to actually move closer or away of your subject.

So, this is a vintage lens, and the minimal focusing distance is 1 meter. So I have two photos for you, taken at the same distance: the first one is at 35mm (same as the above), and then 70mm. I took the 70mm by actually zooming the lens. In the behind-the-scenes photo, see how the lens retracts to act as a 70mm ~it looks "shorter". Look for yourself:

Also, this lens is what it is called fixed or constant aperture: the f-stop number can be the same for the small focus (35mm) and the closer focus (70mm).

Pentax 135mm f2.8

Okay, this is very interesting. One of my newest acquisitions circa past xmas. You can see that I am at about 1.2m of distance (that is the minimal focusing distance) but the photo looks very close to Merry. There are several things to look for:

• It is 2.8, exactly like the Tamrom that I showed in third place. However, because the focal length is 135mm, the aperture (f-stops or f-number) actually blurs the background a lot more.
• Because the focal length is 135mm, see that Merry's face looks a bit flatter and wider. Compare it against the 35mm or the 50mm and you'll see a nice difference as well. However, her face is not as round as it can get in other lenses.
• Also, the larger the number in the focal length, the less you see of the background.

Minolta 200mm, f3.5

Now, this lens is another prime. However, the minimal focusing distance is... 2.5 meters!!!. My main problem with this lens is that being a prime of 200mm, it has a lot of elements inside (the internal glasses that make up the lens), it is made full of metal (it is old)... thus, it is heavy. And basically, though the tripod holds the lens, the lens slowly slides down and most of my photos are moved.

I need to solve this by a) using a faster shooting speed, or b) using a tripod to put in the lens, or c) put the camera in a whole surface that can keep it steady. Oh well, need to keep practice. But this one is heavy. I think about 1.3kg for the whole camera+lens.

Anyways, onto the photo. Notice that -regardless of being f3.5- the focal length of 200mm allows the background to be blurry enough, and the frame is quite close to Merry as well. The difference on her face is not as notorious as it is with other lenses. The problem here is the distance: 2.5m from here! Not for the inside of a house/apartment, though. The behind-the-scenes is comparing this lens to the 58mm.

Carl Zeiss Jena 75-300mm, f4.5-5.6

Now, this is my other zoom lens, however, this is not an constant aperture, the number changes. So at 75mm it is f4.5, and at 300mm it is f5.6. Lenses with f4.5-5.6 are generally not considered "fast enough". However, because the focal length is so large, the backgrounds also look very, very blurry. This lens has the same problem of the Minolta 200mm above: it is terribly large (use my hand as reference), thus very heavy, and it also slides slowly down from the tripod.

An advantage of this lens is that the minimal focusing distance is about 1.5m, and when you zoom in it is about 1.8m, so it is quite versatile.

• The first photo below is 75mm at f4.5, which you should compare to the Minolta 35-70mm at max focal length.
• The second photo is at 300mm at f5.6, but in the same exact position of the previous photo. See how much tighter the frame is? And the background is a complete blur even at f5.6! You can compare this one to the Minolta 200mm photo.

I honestly *love* this lens. It is incredibly sharp, and it gets all the details in my dolls very, very sharply. It is from 1962, if you are wondering --the oldest lens I own. The other are guesstimated to be from between 1965 to 1975. This lens does have a drawback: when you go to 300mm, there is nothing stopping the lens from retracting and going back to 75mm. That is fine if you are shooting straight, but if you are pointing up, it slides, and if you point down, it slides again. Newer lenses prevent this, but this is old af, and a very special lens (Carl Zeiss Jena), so I'm not complaining. I'd gladly get my hands on *any* other Jena out there.

Anyways, this is all for today! It took me about... 40 minutes to take the photos for this post, and about an hour and a half to write it. But it was fun! And I hope this was useful for all of you! Also, if you are interested in getting vintage lenses, I can help. They are very cheap and take amazing photos... but you need to practice a lot to master manual focusing, though.