u/PrimordialObserver

I took my MC Helios-77M-4 50mm ƒ/1.8 out last week when our two cats went outside on an unusually sunny day (most days have still been cold here in Canada), but somehow it was exceptionally challenging to capture any nice images. There were plenty of amazing moments, but the cats wouldn’t pose long enough for me to either be there in time or nail the focus.

But I did capture a decent picture of Misha from a few meters away, which gave me two nice crops. If only he had stayed put long enough for me to focus closer! But I’m quite impressed with the sharpness of this lens; it holds up reasonably well even with such a tight crop.

And in the last picture, I thought I might have missed a beautiful shot of Misha sitting on the garden chair. But I shouldn’t have worried—I absolutely nailed it. 😆

—

PS: This is the first time I noticed very significant green fringing around the background highlights—I had no idea this lens is prone to doing that. I mostly fixed it in the first two crops, but you might notice some of it in the uncropped third image.

I always find it frustrating when a lens with such nice rendering is so incredibly ugly—and made of plastic, to add insult to injury.

For me, the top contenders are the MC Zenitar-M2 50mm ƒ/2 and the Fuji Fujinon 55mm ƒ/2.2. I feel the Fujinon may at least look nicer by painting the focus ring or something, but it has the further downside of being made of bakelite, which is so brittle that most of these lenses feature cracks above the focus ring—sometimes even rendering the focus ring dysfunctional.

What are lenses you love the rendering of but are so ugly you have to overcome a feeling of aversion to buy one?

Or is this just me? 🙃

I’m back with another comparison between a 1966 double-zebra Oreston and a 1977 MC Pentacon Electric. Why another? For two reasons:

• First, in my initial comparison I reported significantly lower contrast in the Oreston. I have since discovered this was due to smudging on the rear element—visible under blacklight. After cleaning it, the lens produced markedly higher-contrast images, so a renewed comparison seemed warranted.
• Second, someone suggested I was overinterpreting negligible differences, asserting that the lenses are essentially identical (this isn’t quite true; the optical scheme was slightly revised in 1969). While I readily concede keenness in exploring minute differences with autistic vigor, I have since identified a genuine optical difference between the two designs, beyond what we would expect from the different lens coatings.

Now, about the comparison, it’s again not as controlled as I wish. I started taking photos in the morning when the Sun was diffused by the clouds, and it broke through when I started taking photos with the Pentacon. I then followed up with more Oreston photos, but I didn’t perfectly replicate the angle. So the side-by-side shows photos in slightly different lighting conditions, but I included an Oreston photo in the same lighting conditions as the Pentacon as well.

With that out of the way, here are my observations:

• Sharpness – Some people noted that the Pentacon was sharper. Based on my close-up analysis of the photos, I felt they captured just as much detail, but we’re easily biased to consider high-contrast images sharper. This makes sense, because sharpness in images is established by how clear the boundary is between dark and light tones, and a higher contrast gives a more abrupt boundary. So if that’s how we define sharpness, then indeed my previous comparison showed the Pentacon to be sharper, albeit it had the same resolving power. In this new comparison, I think it’s clearer that they’re equally sharp. Any differences in sharpness you may observe are likely due to slight differences in focus.
• Contrast – As long as light doesn’t directly hit the Oreston, both lenses appear to have the same contrast. In the side-by-side, the Pentacon does have slightly less contrast because unlike the Oreston it’s capturing direct sunlight; yet it’s holding its contrast well. In the fourth image, you can clearly see that with its single coating, the Oreston drops contrast more readily. But unlike what I concluded in my previous comparison, the Oreston isn’t innately lower contrast.
• Temperature – In my previous post, I mentioned that the Oreston seemed slightly warmer, although with some of the colors I couldn’t quite make up my mind about whether the colors were warmer or actually cooler. I now realize where the ambiguity came from. It seems that the Oreston has a slightly magenta tint! The ground shows a slightly redder brown, and the greens are slightly more yellow/brown, which is consistent with warmer colors. However, the blue tunnel on the ground is a bit more indigo in the Oreston photo (which makes it appear cooler), while it’s leaning more cyan in the Pentacon photo. That’s not consistent with a warmer lens, but with a slightly magenta tint.
• Flares – I don’t recall the MC Pentacon ever producing flares. The multi-coating is doing its job, although I’m always disappointed when a lens fails to produce beautiful flares. And so I was delighted to see the Oreston produced an indigo–purple flair (see image 4)! This is the first lens in my collection that produces flares in this color. I’ve seen purple flares in the Helios-44-2 and cyan flares in the TTArtisan 100mm ƒ/2.8, but no indigo ones until now! That’s nice.
• Color aberrations – I think this is the main optical difference between the two lenses that has nothing to do with the coatings, and everything to do with the slight alterations made to the optics of the 1969 Oreston and consequent Pentacon. As you can see in the last image, it looks like the Pentacon has slightly better CA control! Interestingly, the Oreston is fairly well controlled in indirect sunlight, but the color fringing is wider than in the Pentacon. The Oreston shows significant color fringing in direct sunlight, however; there is clearly visible cyan fringing around some of the silhouette of the bird feeder, and interestingly it’s showing some green fringing around the bokeh. Looking back at the previous comparison, both lenses showed some green to cyan fringing around the bokeh, but it’s definitely more pronounced this time, so it clearly depends on the lighting conditions. Last time the Sun was overhead, whereas this time I took all the photos in the morning at 8:25, while the Sun was starting to climb.

Based on this comparison, which lens do you favor?