the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

  • site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge
You are here: Home / The Last Word / A bunch of nearly normal lenses

A bunch of nearly normal lenses

March 16, 2015 By JimK 2 Comments

I had some fun with the medium telephoto shootout last week, and I hope you did, too. I thought I’d do the same with some longish normal lenses. The, ahem, normal, definition of a normal lens is a lens whose focal length is equal to the diagonal of the film format. By that definition, the normal focal length for full frame 35 mm is 43.27 mm. However, for historical reasons 50mm is considered the normal focal length.

So I rounded up a bunch of F-mount lenses:

  • Nikon 60mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor
  • Nikon 58mm f/1.4 AFS-Nikkor G
  • Coastal Optical 60mm f/4 UV-Vis-IR Apo Macro
  • Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG Art (Copy 1)
  • Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG Art (Copy 2)
  • Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus

Quite a lineup, huh? Not a bad lens in the group, except maybe the Micro-Nikkor. I thought it might be instructive to have two copies of the Sigma to see if sample variation was anything like the variation among designs. We shall see.

The camera was a Nikon D810 set at ISO 64. EFCS on. Shutter delay set to 3 seconds. Camera on a good RRS tripod, with an  Arca Swiss D4 head, focused wide open with live view. Developed in Lr with default processing.

The scene, lit by hazy sunlight, with each of the lenses at f/4:

60mm Nikkor
60mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
Coastal Optical
Coastal Optical
Sigma 1
Sigma 1
Sigma 2
Sigma 2
Otus
Otus

I see some color differences, and not a lot else.

Near the center, 3x blowup:

60mm Nikkor
60mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
Coastal Optical
Coastal Optical
Sigma 1
Sigma 1
Sigma 2
Sigma 2
Otus
Otus

The Micro Nikkor is a bit soft. So is the Coastal Optical. It has a disadvantage in the focusing department, since its widest aperture is f/4, and just a tiny touch on the focusing ring makes a big difference. The Sigmas and the Otus are the best.

Upper left:

 

60mm Nikkor
60mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
58mm Nikkor
Coastal Optical
Coastal Optical
Sigma 1
Sigma 1
Sigma 2
Sigma 2
Otus
Otus

Both Nikkors are not tack sharp and show some flare, especially the 60mm Micro. The Coastal Optical is a hair less contrasty than the Sigmas, which are nearly identical. The Otus has somewhat less flare and more contrast than the Sigmas. The Otus wins, but not by much.

More to come.

← Yesterday’s oak tree images Normal lenses on the D810 at f/5.6 →

Comments

  1. Bill Janes says

    March 17, 2015 at 10:29 am

    Jim,

    Nice tests as usual. Which 60 mm Micro-Nikkor did you use? The older model or the newer AF-S?

    Bill

    Reply
    • Jim says

      March 17, 2015 at 10:46 am

      The older one, Bill. Left over from my scuba diving days. I managed to get the Aquatica gear off the focusing ring.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

March 2021
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Feb    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • JimK on Sigma ART 24/1.4 on Fujifilm GFX 50S
  • Christopher on Sigma ART 24/1.4 on Fujifilm GFX 50S
  • JimK on PDAF banding in GFX 100 in-camera JPEGs
  • Antoine on PDAF banding in GFX 100 in-camera JPEGs
  • Rico Pfirstinger on GFX Natural Live View and raw file histograms
  • Maurin on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • JimK on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • Maurin on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • Scott Pilla on GFX Natural Live View and raw file histograms
  • Macro Guy on THoS: a NYT infinite loop

Archives

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.