From Zenit lenswerk to FD Magic

[Mungozan]

It´s been too long since I posted here, not after the beginning of the summer in fact. I guess I have been too busy shooting pictures with GF-1

Anyway, at the beginning of the summer I got M42 -> M34 adapter, because I have access to quite a few russian Zenit lenses..

So I shot the summer with Helios-44 (58mm f/2), Jupiter-22 (135mm f/2.8) and Jupiter-9 (85mm f/2) to mention a few.

Helios lenses were cool because of the fast aperture and pure joy of using manual aperture, manual focus lenses. I was quite happy with the lot of them, as can be seen from the following samples.

Helios-44 (50mm f/2.0 @f/2.0)

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Jupiter 9 (85mm f/2.0 @f/2.5)

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Jupiter 21-M (200mm f/4 @ f/4)

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Jupiter 22 (135mm f/2.8 @ f/8)
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And then, couple of weeks ago I got myself Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 and FD -> M34 adapter from Novoflex.. It sure is a beauty! Compared to Zenit lenses, a world a part and on line with Canon modern lenses. Ok, maybe the 58MM Zenit is not that bad, but Canon is full stop faster! I even would go into such length as to say it is even better than Canon´s current 50mm f/1.4 lens! Just for the heck of it, I made some quick comparisons between Jupiter 9 and FD50.

First of all, here is the test target at full framing:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mungo/5183317591/" title="20101116_180840_1100254_sRGB_800x by mungozan, on Flickr">

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Cropped Jupiter 9 vs FD 50 wide open:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mungo/5183314749/" title="Jupiter-9 vs. FD50 by mungozan, on Flickr">https://farm2.static.flickr.com/1418/5183314749_4761de25ff_o.png" width="1580" height="914" alt="Jupiter-9 vs. FD50" /></a>

Cropped FD50 @f/2 vs f/2.8:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mungo/5183914888/" title="FD50 1.4 vs 2.0 by mungozan, on Flickr">[img]https://farm2.static.flickr.com/1352/5183914888_0be8ef9bb2_o.png" width="1584" height="916" alt="FD50 1.4 vs 2.0" /></a>

Even the Canon does sharpen up a bit when stopped down, but the change is not dramatic, IMO. I will post some real-life samples when I got more time to get down to it..

 

[dixeyk]

I had a Canon FD 50/1.4 and I agree it is very sharp even wide open, but I find that my Helios 44 has a certain quality to the images that FD 50/1.4 (perhaps just my particular copy) could not reproduce.

 

[Mungozan]

I agree, Helios 44 is good

I agree. Helios 44 is good.. It´s only that FD is full stop brigter, which is quite handy sometimes..

I thought I should also take a look on FD 85 f/1.8, if I can stumble upon that..

 

[dixeyk]

I hear you...I live in Pacific Northwest and the extra brightness of my Konica 50/1.4 comes in pretty handy when it's gray and rainy (which is most of the year).