I am trying to find an etremely high contrast 24 or 28 mm lens for landscapes in B+W. Does anyone know of any FD lenses, or adaptors for Leitz or Hasselblad lenses, that will fit the bill? I have an AE1 (and my new Leica point and shoot is doing a better job but only to a focal length of 35mm). Any ideas are appreciated...

-- Mark Friedman (MFriedman@webtv.net), February 13, 2001

Answers

I think Canon's design model was generally geared toward color photography and the FD lenses are less contrasty than others for that aesthetic reason, so you might just decide that when using a lens that you don't think is contrasty enough, you'll just give the film N+1 development and expose accordingly for the results you want. I do that sometimes with uncoated lenses as a matter of course on my MF and LF systems. Another option is to selenium tone your negs for a one zone expansion in contrast or just use a film/developer combination that gives you the tonal results you want with the system you want to use.

That said, the two FD L lenses I own seem a bit contrastier (though that might just be a perception resulting from their better correction of aberrations) than some of the others, and since your budget allows for Leitz or Hasselblad, you might look at the FD 24mm/f:1.4 L to see if it produces the results you are after. Also, there's an old 35mm lens (FL or old FD, I forget) that had a concave front element (I believe it's a reverse telephoto design) and used rare earth glass that is supposed to give excellent results with B/W.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), February 13, 2001.

For whatever reason (patents/$$$/laziness) Canon's SSC coating for the breechlock lenses was simpler and just not as effecitve as some competitors such as Nikon & Pentax. Some of the later new FD lenses had better coatings; 50f1.4 & 80-200f4L come to mind. I have these and IMHO they have more snap than their predecessors.

I have the SSC 20f2.8 & 28f2 and so can only comment indirectly on the new FD versions. I understand that the new FD versions have more effective coatings and should have more contrast than their predecessors. From my experience with Canon's other new FD lenses, I'd say there should be very little difference between them and even modern competitors.

Any others with personal experience on the new FD versions?

BTW, many of the cheaper breechlock lenses only had SC coating (28f2.8 & 50f1.8 + others) and the 50f1.8 still had a single coating even in the new FD version.

FWIW, here's some tests - http://members.aol.com/canonfdlenstests/default.htm http://members.aol.com/olympusom/lenstests/default.htm http://www.kjsl.com/canon-fd/lenses/

Good luck and cheers,

Duane

-- Duane K (dkucheran@creo.com), February 14, 2001.