Canon FD 50mm F1.4 Sample Pics

[VidThreeNorth]

I posted the pics in the Sony forum because I used my Sony a6400. Apertures were F1.4, F4.0 and F8.0. These were not "artistic" pictures, just "lens test" pictures.

"Lenses for Sony"

 

[VidThreeNorth]

In this situation it is hard to decide where to post "follow-ups", but in this case, I thought this was the more appropriate topic:

First, my overall opinions and expectations regarding the 50mm F1.4 lens came from tests in various camera magazines over the years -- mainly Modern Photography and Popular Photography, but also some others that were around.

Second, I noted that the F1.4 was not generally sharper than the F1.8, and it was pointed out that they appeared to be "different". I should remind people that there are more differences between lenses than just absolute resolution, and that sometimes a lens might give a picture that is "better" in some other way, which might be related to absolute sharpness, and that could be misleading. But that begs the question of exactly "what is important" in a given photo. And then there is plain, simple sample variation between lenses. So you might prefer what you get from a particular 1.4 than a particular 1.8, and yes, the difference _could_ even be that the 1.4 was sharper. It is not impossible. But I stand by my original comment. The Canon 50mm F1.4 FD was not generally "sharper" than the F1.8 FD. This was also found in some other contemporary 50mm F1.4 lenses.

I am linking a recent test of FE lenses. The lens formulae compared might be the same or different than the FDs. I don't remember such changes back then. But the change from FD series to FE series did not necessarily denote changes in lens formulae, though I expect that this happened on some cases.

"Canon 50mm f/1.8 vs Canon 50mm f/1.4 - Sharpness Test no.8",
posted Feb 12, 2023 by "Aperture Atlas", [length 4:00]
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