[AdamM]

For some reason, i find lens shootouts downright fascinating.  So please allow me to share the results of an older test, and let you know about a new test i'll be conducting shortly.  I'm a Canon guy, but these tests cover a wide variety of brands - even Nikon! - since i'll use any lens i can find an adapter for.

The motivations for testing is typically:

• Are the $$ manufacturer's lenses (typically Canon in my case) really the best for any given FOV?
• What old and forgotten lenses are there out there?
• Find the cheap-o diamond in the rough!

Ok, on with the show

Test #1:  Can an old ugly Contax 35-70mm actually beat any prime lens within it's zoom range?
An outlandish statement for sure!   Are the legends true? Let's find out.

The Challenger:
70's era, Contax 35-70mm f/3.4-5.6, bought on ebay for $350 USD.  Needs adapter ring to mount on Canon EOS ($20)
Manual focus and stopdown metering technique needs to be used on a DSLR (no biggy once you're use to it)


The Contenders:

• Canon 50mm f/1.8<$100.  A cheap fast 50mm with decent performace
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4 <$600.  A very fast and very sharp 30mm. Some say it's one of the sharpest fast 30mm's ever
• Canon EF-S 60mm macro<$650.  A blisteringly sharp and contrasty lens, with one of the finest MTF graphs on the Canon website.
• Canon 28-135mm IS$450.  A common all rounder lens with a strong following
• Canon 70-200 f/4L$800.  This a Canon 'L' lens which is their boutique line. Very high end, very highly regarded

The Tests:

35mm center crop


35mm lower right crop


50mm center crop


50mm upper right crop


The whole test is here: http://www.robotbreeder.com/photography/v/LensTests/Contax35-70/

Conclusion:
The Contax, for $350, is bloody amazing.  It's essentially as good as its best PRIME rivals, and trounces most anything else within it's range. The legends are true, this is a fantastic find.  Unfortunately i didn't have the Canon 35mm L or the 50mm f1.4 to test it against, but Photodo.com confirms that the Contax beats the 50mm f/1.4 and is about the same as the very expensive 35mm L.


Test #2 Coming Soon:  50mm prime shootout.  There's a lot of old 50mm primes floating around out there, which is the cheapest and best of this lineup?

Nikon Nikkor-HC f/2.0 |  Canon 50mm f/1.4  |   Pentax Takumar f/1.4  |  Pentax SMC f/1.4 (the legend) | Contax Planar T* F/1.7 |

Cheers,
/Adam

[gerchin]

70's era, Contax 35-70mm f/3.4-5.6, bought on ebay for $350 USD.  Needs adapter ring to mount on Canon EOS ($20)
Manual focus and stopdown metering technique needs to be used on a DSLR (no biggy once you're use to it)

Sorry to take this slightly off-topic, but I need only a tiny bit of a push to take the plunge and buy a Canon Digital EOS.  The reason that I bring this up is that I have many $$$$ invested in Contax lenses, and I've been looking very seriously at those adapter rings that you mention -- especially the new crop listed as "AF capable".  Any comments you have regarding your experience with adapter rings would be welcome.

Thanks,
Greg

[AdamM]

I have many $$$$ invested in Contax lenses...

   

I'd love to be in the same boat as you with all those Contax lenses  ! 

So adapters,  Here's my experience so far

Adapters work well. There's stories of not making infinity focus with some of them, but i haven't run into that with Contax, M42 screwmount, Pentax K and Nikon adapters.

I try to get the brass adapters, since they're harder, but the aluminum ones i have work just fine.

You need to manually focus (obviously!), and depending on the lens and FOV, this can be tricky.  You can get split-screen focusing screens for most of the Canon DSLR's, and they help remarkably.  Just splitscreen them together and you're bang on in focus.  The new Canon 40D has removable screens as a feature, however you can do it to the older ones with a bit of effort.  The screens are like $100 or less.

Using wide lenses is easier to focus, obviously, due to the larger DOF.  I find that manually focusing anything larger than 100mm - without a split screen, is a bit of a challenge.  I'm not bad, but it's a bit hit and miss.  I haven't gotten a split screen for my 30D and i'm now crushing 24/7 on the 40D, so we'll see how that goes...

AF confirm chips:  They work!  but they sometimes front or backfocus.  You can get just the chips and add them to existing adapters (with a bit of epoxy and a steady hand) or buy them built in.  Most people seem very happy with them, however i've seen a few reports that they're a tad off, on the near side or the far side.

The AF confirm chips ONLY give you a beep when the image is in focus.  They do nothing more.  I'd argue that a split screen is superior since you can see exactly how far you're out and know when you're perfectly in focus, VS trust a random 'beep' when you think you're close.  I don't have any AF confirm chips, but i'm going to get some shortly and try them out (and report back)

My favorite lens on my Canon is the Contax. I shoot with that most of the time.

Stopdown metering: Some people whine about this, but i don't get what the big deal is.   Open the lens up, focus / compose, click down a few stops - check the shutter speed is acceptable and fire away.  With practice it becomes second nature.  Often the lenses you're using are better than Canon's so you can shoot them wide open with confidence.

Sure, if you're doing fast action sports or nature photography, the manual focus and stopdown metering will be a bit cumbersome.  However, for portraits and basically everything else, it's just fine once you get the hang of it.   

Good luck!
/A

[RoadTripper]

Any ideas as to whether or not my 3 Contax G2 lenses (28,45, 90) can be adapted to our Nikons (D70, D40)?

[AdamM]

Any ideas as to whether or not my 3 Contax G2 lenses (28,45, 90) can be adapted to our Nikons (D70, D40)?

Nope. Unfortunately.    Your G lenses won't work on any SLR, and retain infinity focus.  You can do it if you're hell bent on it, but the adapters alone will be around $500 (three different expensive ones!) and you won't focus on much past a few feet! 

Those G's are fantastic lenses.  The 90 in particular is one of my favorite ever lenses... I too have a Contax rig with those extremely delicious glass wonders.  LOVE that camera.

Rangefinders have the advantage of no mirror, so they can get the lenses even closer to the film plane.  That's why the wide angle rangefinder lenses are often very amazing and very small.  They can be made without much optical compromise.   Remember, the lens MM is a description of the distance between the focal point and the rear element of the lens.  On a wide lens, that might be only 15mm or 20mm.  A mirror in front of the sensor takes up much more room than that, so the SLR's need big heavy expensive complicated wide angle lenses to compensate for that space-hogging mirror.

Cheers,
/A

[gerchin]

Adapters work well.

AdamM, thanks for your input.  I've read many glowing reviews that were actually advertisements, so I didn't trust them.  I've read some independent reviews that were less than glowing, but they were all a few years old so the problems might have been solved by now.  Yours is the only recent first-hand account that I've seen.  As for manual focusing and manual metering; I've always done that anyway.  I shoot landscapes.  I've never missed a shot because the mountain moved too fast for me to focus.

Time for an early Christmas present, I think.

Best,
Greg

[AdamM]

Good luck Greg.

i may have gotten lucky with my adapters, but out of 4 different 'flavors' i haven't had a problem yet.  My M42 screwmount seems to be able to focus a bit past infinity (like just a tiny bit) so i can't take comfort in winding back until it stops and knowing that it's at infinity.  My Canon lenses don't do that either, so i'm not too miffed about it.

Don't buy the cheapest, don't buy the $200 ones, but get the $19-29 brass adapters.  They seem to be the best performance/value (IMHO)

As for the AF-confirmation chip ones, i'm still a newby there, so good luck and let us know how it goes.

/A

[JohnR]

Great test. It's pretty amazing the differences. 

Not that I'm likely to buy a Contax lens or a Canon body anytime soon , but to me your tests indicates that spending more on the lens and less on Megapixels or features is the better approach. What are your thoughts on that?

[AdamM]

spending more on the lens and less on Megapixels or features is the better approach. What are your thoughts on that?

Contentious issue!  the photographic equivalent discussion of cables!

Some photogs say that it's pointless when a lens out-resolves a sensor.  I say bull$hit!   Look at the lenses on a broadcast betacam ($20K) VS the lens on your pocket handicam. Both of them 'outresolve' a measly 512x448 sensor (or even 1280x720 HD).  Sure, the sensor is better in the betacam, but the lens is a large part of it.

It's interesting to see the 'kit lenses' for each of the major brands.  They're not that great, yet the megapixels on the bodies are racing higher and higher.   Better resolution of the lenses shortcomings!

Great lenses are forever.  Bodies are temporary.

You know the bit that most blows me away?    That the crazy engineers at Zeiss, Leica and Contax - in the 50's 60's and 70's, made lenses that TROUNCE the best designs of the rest of the world - !using supercomputers! - to assist design.

The pen and paper designs of those German geniuses hold stronger than anything that technology can throw at them, decades later.   That's impressive.

That said, there's some fantastic old Japanese glass;  Pentax SMC, Olympus Zuiko, Nikon.

/A