This sample and the enlargement of the center rose was shot with the lens at f1.4.
this image and the one just below were shot at f2.0
Interesting...Adobe still has a lens profile in Lightroom for the Canon 50mm f1.4 FD lens. A lens that's fifty years old. I think it's pretty wonderful. And for all the people who've been sending "hate" mail about the usurious prices of those "damn" Leicas... this lens came in a package with a mint, black, Canon FTb camera, also from the early 1970s, for the princely sum of $150. So, if I divide out the package and resell the camera body I'm pegging the price of this lens alone at about $75. The Leica SL body did not refuse to work with the lens. It did not reject it or try to destroy it. They just worked it out. And I think the results are good. Except for the green fringing on the white chairs. Yeah. There's that. I expect that I could have gotten the same overall results with a Panasonic S5 or a Sigma fp. The Leica was just convenient.
So much hate for such good gear....
9 comments:
I don't know how to describe bokeh either, but to me it looks 'agitated.' Nevertheless, your point is well taken about the value of older lenses.
"Agitated"? Hmmm. I thought it was Surly and Diffident. But as I mentioned I don't have a workable vocabulary for Bokeh descriptions...
Dreamy? Ghostly? Bubbly? Cataractly? Greasy? Foggy? Unconvincing? Sketchy?
Slurpy? Gregarious? Torpid? Something will stick sooner or later... 😄
I would say the bokeh looks more harmonious at f2.
I have the FDn 50 f/1.8, and I think it is gorgeous.
But I have both the Zuiko OM 50 f/1.4 "silvernosed' as yours FD (and with a goldish coated front element - it is a beautiful lens) and the regular OM 50 f/1.8 -.and.the latter is sharper.
I guess that despite the greater price of the older version, the newer coatings in the more modern models of these lenses made them a tad better.
My description of the bokeh in your image is "nostalgic" I shot those FD lenses almost exclusively for over 30 years.
Yes, I can now afford and do own lenses of exquisite quality and even more exquisite price. Reviews of those lenses highlight, breathlessly, the exquisite bokeh of those lenses. But to me it is all a mystery. Bokeh, for me, is an out of focus area. Whether it detracts from or enhances an image is more a function of what is out of focus and how much (and how quickly) it rolls off. Whether the bokeh has onion rings/cat's eyes/longitudinal chromatic/lateral chromatic/etc. aberrations matters almost not at all (to me, again).
Heck, Kirk, I would even go as far as to say that those white chairs SHOULD have green fringes for a PHOTOGRAPH to look right. In life everything looks in focus because our eye's CD/PD autofocus sensor automatically brings anything we notice into focus. So, arguably, the only purpose of photograph is to serve as an interpretation of what we see. Having a part of an image out of focus is already a departure from reality. Looking at the entire scene says to me, "Look at me! I am the only worthwhile table in the whole room. You can see how unattractive and unimportant all those other sticks and blobs-of-flesh-on-skeletons are by how little the photographer did to make them look real."
Yes, the bokeh is perfect... for me.
"Harmonius" and "nostalgic", those are very good, thanks.
A thing I have noticed is that the FD 50 1.4s are often praised to the skies by users (I have one and like it, I really liked it in the 80s), but the "current" EF lens is condemned by most EOS and RF users, even though as far as I can tell it is essentially the same lens. It has somewhat sub-par construction, but it performs nicely. Even at f1.4 - like the FD. I think this tells us how much group-think there is in judging equipment. And don't get me started on Zeiss...(there the group-think is perhaps even worse than with Leica).
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