Every photographer probably has one or few focal lengths he likes most. There is also one focal length which may be most unpopular. Do you like 28mm primes? Or do you hate them? Many 28mm legacy lenses are often mentioned as low quality, opticaly poor and not worth buying. They however have one great feature… Low price. It may be one of cheapest wide angle available for your full frame mirrorles and/or film camera. In this and following tests we will take closer look at three legacy lenses and one recent zoom. Lets start with Minolta MD 28mm F2.8.
Sony offers Carl Zeiss standard zoom for full frame E-mount – Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS. There are several reasons why it is chosen by users over 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 “kit” lens. To name most common ones: constant aperture, 24mm at wide end, Zeiss glass/coatings etc. Instead of doing one large test of this lens I’ll be posting separate parts for each standard focal length. For now we will check how it performs at 24mm to see how it compares to recenlty tested 24mm primes.
When I bought my second hand A7 mark II camera it came bundled with Samyang AF 35mm F2.8 FE lens. I was surprised how good it is. I noticed that there is also Samyang AF 24mm F2.8 FE lens available. Since 24mm is one of my favourite focal length and price was low I bought it. Samyang lenses are often way more cheaper than system and/or high end ones and many people say that recent Samyang lenses are very good optically. That makes them an excellent choice when your budget is tight. Is it all true? We will check it on 24mm lens today, but in two or three weeks (I hope) I’ll also test 35mm one.
It is believed that some of the best legacy lenses were produced by Komine and Kino Precision. They were available under various brands and one of them was Panagor. I have Panagor PMC Auto Wide Angle 24mm F2.5 lens and we will check how it is compares to previously tested Tokina and Sigma 24mm. Panagor is quite small and lightweight, only 217 grams without caps. It has slightly better light (F2.5 vs F2.8) and a larger front element with filter size of 55mm vs 52mm in Tokina and Sigma. Will it be better? Let’s see.