…s, but paired them up with some very interesting vintage glass – the Canon 50mm f/0.95 “Dream Lens” and its sister, the Canon 35mm f/1.5. This famous vintage rangefinder glass – originally built for the Canon 7 – dates back to the 1960s, and has seen a rise in popularity of recent as sellers from Japan have drip-fed the lenses onto eBay. Prices of these lenses have skyrocketed over the course of the last couple of years and the Dream Lens – once a… Continue Reading
…many people know you are talking about the Contax / Zeiss 28mm f2. Canon’s 50mm f0.95 is almost exclusively referred to as “The Dream Lens.” The legendary Zeiss 50mm f0.7 is often referred to as “The Kubrick Lens” because of its use on Barry Lyndon, and the fact that Stanley Kubrick was the only person outside NASA that owned one. One lucky Super-16mm format zoom lens has sort of unofficially been named, “The Hurt Locker Lens.” This came about bec… Continue Reading
…y reminiscent of much more expensive lenses like the Canon K35’s and Canon 50mm F0.95. The hazy character wide open as well”. I know that Nathan owns the legendary 50mm F0.95 and has used the K35s, so I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about! https://youtu.be/CKKj7whSZtU COMPATIBILITY: Using this lens on pretty much any mirroless camera will not be a problem at all, but I usually I warn people about trying to use FD and FL lenses (same mount) on… Continue Reading
…at why I think it’s a great lens. Sharpness: At F2.8 it’s not the fastest 50mm out there, but unlike most vintage 50mm F1.4 & F1.8 lenses out there, this lens is quite sharp wide open. Obviously sharpness improves as lens is stopped down, but some find it to be a bit too sharp even wide open. For example, the video above was shot wide open and my wife (seen in the video) told me that it was too sharp for her liking. Many people often choose vinta… Continue Reading
…n kit lens more or less matches such specs at the wide end (e.g. Sony E 16-50mm F3.5-5.6, Canon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6, Nikon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6) with more flexibility and even optical image stabilisation. What many people forget is that these zooms only cover APS-C/Super35 sensor while Canon FD is a full frame lens. Back in the days of 35mm photo cameras, there was almost no need for anything wider than 17mm because it already was and still is an ultra w… Continue Reading
…ution Cons: Expensive Big and heavy Rare (currently discontinued) Canon FD 50mm F1.4 | REVIEW eBay Links: US | UK | DE | CA | IT | FR | ES | AU | NL Pros: Cheap for a 50mm F1.4 Quite sharp Great character Cons: Poor compatibility with EF mount Flares easily Helios 44-2 | REVIEW eBay Links: US | UK | DE | CA | IT | FR | ES | AU | NL Pros: Super cheap Amazing flares and bokeh Quite sharp Cons: Flares can be overpowering Some copies perform worse tha… Continue Reading
…rfect focal length on Super35 sensor camera. I also tried using a Canon FD 50mm F1.4 (video above) but I had to crop the image a bit to get rid of vignetting, therefore 50mm is not a good choice unless you are planning to crop a little bit anyway to get a more natural aspect ratio. For better overall sharpness and a more even exposure across the frame, something like a Jupiter-9 85mm is a better choice for Super35 camera and pretty much the widest… Continue Reading
…-3 videos on 200mm lenses. Next up though, I will do a quite test of Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and more group test of 28mm and 50mm lenses. If you guys want see any other specific tests, let me know. I try my best to make this website a great resource people interested in vintage lenses for video use, so I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and it will help you save some money on your future lens investments. I’ve joined the ebay partnership program to help me… Continue Reading
…have noticed that I compared Mitakon against the slightly cheaper Canon FD 50mm F1.2 and Mitakon did perform a bit better in terms of sharpens, contrast, chromatic aberration and colours. If you are looking for that cleaner, more accurate image, Mitakon is certainly worth its price. It offers a much better value for money than the 10 times more expensive Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.3 which was just a little bit better in terms of sharpness, but cert… Continue Reading
…st: Wide-Sceen 2000 (left) vs ISCORAMA 42 (right). Both shot with Canon FD 50mm F1.4 So now that I might have confused you with all the positives and negatives, let’s take a look at PROS and CONS to get some clarity! PROS: Compact Well build Easy to setup Pleasant character Single focusing setup Great coverage ( widest taking lens: 50mm on FF, 35mm on S35, 28mm on M4/3) CONS: Lacks some distinctive anamorphic characteristics 3-5m closest focusing… Continue Reading
