Negatives (and prints) from my Serenar 50mm 1.8 appear to be sharper than my Rokkor 40mm f2. Is that possible?

-- John Galloway (jgall30125@aol.com), July 27, 2000

Answers

Mike Johnson, a photo mag editor, sees things differently. Click here to go there

I expect that sharpness differences are more a function of hand holding, lens flare, and/or precise focus.

BTW. We're talking both lenses at say, f/4, as opposed to the Serenar at f/6.3 and the Rokkor at f/2. The Serenar, and almost any other decent normal lens, is twice as sharp at f/6.3 as it is wide open.

-- Tom Bryant (tbryant@wizard.net), July 27, 2000.

John, Of course it is possible... it is happening right? Basically, your experience is the manifistation of the reason that lens testing based on small sample sizes is hard to use to determin which lens is better.

There may be several variables in your particular equation. Are you using the Serenar lens on a cannon RF body? If so, there may be a disparity between the accuracy of your rangefinders. Another thing that may give the "illusion" of more clarity and sharpness is the 50mm lens will give a 20% greater magnification over the 40mm, requireing less enlargment to see the same image.

Basically, use the lens that gives you the best results. enjoy them and ignore reports that say you shouldn't be enjoying any particular lens. The only thing that matters is YOUR pictures.

Al

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), July 27, 2000.

Have you shined a flashlight into the Rokkor to check for any fogging or fungus? Mine that came with a CLE is one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used, at least as good as my 50mm Summicron Leica lens. The images just pop off the page, and very fine detail is rendered even in lower contrast lighting situations. Either you got a bad sample of the Rokkor, or the best Canon Serenar ever made.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), July 28, 2000.