The Curious Case Of The 60 Year Old Lens
The ancient 25mm is still drawing me. I guess I want to see if it is worth using, or offers something genuinely different, creatively at least.
The lens holds decent sharpness to the eye, down to pixel level. Focussing was an issue, but the peaking option works on the Pen F so that is to some extent, sorted.
Colour is unique to lenses of it’s time. Not a huge lover of muted tones (or a chaser of ye olde film looks), the option to have them, without doing anything drastic in post is attractive, but not compelling. The images below have had a little processing applied, but they defy too much pushing, which quickly contradicts the core look. They loose their naturalness.
Hazing is definitely present especially at f2.8 and a little at f4. The files clear up nicely showing pleasing sharpness, with the de-haze slider seemingly custom made for this.
Flare is well controlled, although the highlights can be amusing, often showing some form of the five bladed aperture ring. The fix (on the left below) is fine, but in reality the original was not too bad either.
Chromatic aberration The only time I have seen any CA is on the edges of really high contrast areas like below, in the form of very mild red fringing.
The big one is Bokeh.
In the near-ground and non highlighted areas, Bokeh is a bit like I get from the modern 17mm f1.8, that is to say long transition and forgiving of focus errors (ideal on a manual focus lens). Below, the leaves transition interestingly, but the background branches are jittery. This is similar to my 40-150 Pro and some images I have seen from the latest Nikon 70-200 VRII, so not just an old lens thing.
Highlights and outer edge Bokeh on the other hand can get a little funky.
Notice the “cats eye” shaped highlights around the edge? This lens has a mild case of something I first noticed from a Canon 50mm f0.95 rangefinder lens from the same period called “swirly” Bokeh because it looks at odds with the more circular centre.
Is this useful? probably not. The performance of the lens with solid, calm subjects is commendable, but when busy highlights are involved, I doubt I would take the chance.
So, what is the initial impression after some ad-hoc, non scientific testing?
Yes, I will use this lens, mostly for personal stuff, but also some creative work and it will sit on front of the Pen F as a working lens cap as the pair do little other duty.
No I will not be using it for paid work. There is little point unless someone specifically said they would like an '“old school” feel.