(yet another) Takumar 50/1.4, 8 vs 7 Element Showdown
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2021
- In this video I demonstrate the unique qualities and traits that the Takumar 50/1.4 8 element version has in comparison to the 7 element (and indeed many other lenses) and why it might deserve its price tag and legacy status.
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My first time to see such a detailed comparison, backed by actual photos, of the 7- and the 8-element versions of this lens. Very informative indeed! Thanks Eddy.
Great breakdown, Eddy! Loved watching this.
Thanks Joni!
I love a lengthy showdown like this! Great video
Thank you! Hit Like & Subscribe :D (I have a 50/1.2 battle coming out soon!)
Nice review, thanks. Lots of focus on the DoF differenced though, which are 99% likely due to the way the last CLA guy put them together. You will get minute aperture differences by ever so slightly rotating the lens container before tightening all screws. The aperture pin will close the aperture ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ that way. TL;DR: you can negate/tweak the f-stop difference with just a screwdriver. Not an inherent lens property.
Thank you.
I have seen more reviews of this lens (comparing with the 7e) and many failing to notice any discernable differences. I found one other reviewer come to similar conclusions to my own found here, which is at those stopped down apertures the 8e manages to hold onto what looks like a wider open amount of bokeh than you'd expect, it's subtle but it's there.
Whilst I don't have several 7e and 8e's to test this out and come to a concrete conclusion, it strikes me that because there is an optical different recipe to the two lenses that this is likely what accounts for that difference rather than 'tightening screws'. I saw this same effect on some other lenses as well, namely the FA Limited's (31, 43 and 77). Whether that be down to field curvature or whatever, there seemed to be a really nice sweet spot (that for portrait work) you could wrap the subject in focus yet have them still unusually separated from the scene (comparing with some other glass of similar FL and aperture used..).
Thanks for commenting.
Very nice work Eddy. Looks like quite a lot of work too so thanks for taking the time to do this. I'll happily stay with the 7 for now - given the differences. Loved the cat cameos BTW.
Wow, and you watched it sober, I'm impressed! Tbh I was really impressed with the 7 element. At times on other scenes I felt it was not much difference at all with the changes in aperture. Having said that tho, I never once had a test scene where the reverse was happening, either the 8 element continued doing a result like I point out in the video or the 7 element was doing a better job of 'keeping up' (if that's the right term, to others its actually superior to behave sooner rather than later!). One can easily argue that the 7 element could be more favorable for many approaches as it behaves quicker than the 8. It depends mainly on tastes and I personally loved the warm tint that Gary's 7 gives (I would not want to correct it but instead run with it :-)
Glad you liked the video and the moggies :D Hopefully we can catch up in person someday soon :(
@@SummersSnaps Sober? It's after 6am!
@@alandaniel7606 :D
That was a really good illustration of the differences between the two. Thanks! Also excited about you working on a book. Those sample images from it are amazing!
Thank you Snappy!
Please share it on your forum thingy majig (that I keep meaning to join and contribute on!).
@@SummersSnaps I'll do you one better and share on UA-cam (though I don't really know how many people will see it, the way posts get shown on UA-cam seems pretty random).
Speaking of weird UA-cam stuff: I am subscribed to you and I didn't see this video come up. I even went through my subscription feed. The only reason I knew it was here was because you posted about it on Facebook, and I had to directly go to your channel to find it. OooOoooOoooo alllggorithim ooOooOoo.
Hey Eddy, that was a nice and deep comparison of the the two which shows the differences quite well. The most significant point is the apsc vs. FF. I'm 100% with you. The lenses had been designed for ff and you get the magic only using them on ff. Same goes with the fa limited lenses which I absolutely adore - all of them. Thank you for that great video.
Thanks Stephen :-)
Hugely informative video, thanks Eddy! Takes me back to old Camera Club days (or nights!) when similar lens comparisons were done much more tediously: with colour slides and projection.
Haha! Omg... is that what I've done! Having never been in a camera club I can now understand the extreme level of nerdity that might be going on behind closed doors! Argh! I'm one of them! :D
@@SummersSnaps Oil to the machinery of the Universe!
@@johngoodman4369 Haha!
Nice comparison. Thanks
Thanks Lee!
Loved the comparison. Lovely video mate. I have both and love them both. My 8 cost $65. The man had no idea what he was selling.
Haha, that's awesome. I paid $400AUD for mine :S
Great comparison video Eddy, the rendering of that 8 element at higher f stops is super nice on the K1! More temptation to go full frame 😅
Thanks Lee! As you know I love all sensors for different reasons. I've ditched APS-C for Pentax now because I feel most of the glass for it is too slow. Fuji is super for choices, plenty of 1-1.4's. The lens I use for this video for example is a 16/1.4 which basically renders like a FA* 24/2 (but is far superior optically), and it isn't over priced (plus is WR). Fuji really are killing it on APS-C.
But for me tho, these vintage lenses (and FA Ltds), they were designed for FF, putting them on APS-C and yer missing like 50% of the point. You can totally use them, it just seems like a waste tho. It would be like me taking a pic with my K-1 and cropping every shot lol.
Thank you very much, Eddy, for that presentation. Great user of the 8 elements, I noticed that it lends itself much better than the SMC version to post-production lightroom (flare aside, and again). These balanced shades that this lens offers appear well on your photos of the Blue Mountains. I find the focus very delicate on close objects and usually use it on distant scenes. A big difference between 8 and 7 elements is the depth of field: the 8th has a small depth of field beyond the focus and a great depth of field between the focus and the lens, and for me this is invaluable: I’m looking for background blur, but not in the foreground. But this behavior is really noticeable again on distant objects (15m and beyond). The sensations I get from the photos taken with this lens and taken in lightroom are much more intense than those taken with all the other lenses I own and I tend to consider that this lens as old as me, is miraculously marrying the current hardware and software technologies. I live in France but I hope I can get my hands on your book as soon as it comes out of the press, for your photos of course (I follow you on flickr), but also your way of "driving" this particular piece of optics. Our photos appear together on flickriver: www.flickriver.com/groups/1975376@N22/pool/interesting/
Sincerely.
Thanks Claude, yep this is truly a special lens. I'm just a little flabbergasted that it is not even more popular. I hardly know a Pentaxian that has this lens, I guess most are (understandably) just enthralled with the FA Ltds that they stop looking or feel that focal length is covered. But I would sell all my three amigos before the Tak 50(8e) 🙂
I hope to finish the book before the year is out, thanks for the support!
Thanks. It's the most informative comparison I've seen. I've owned the seven element for years and have wondered if I should find an eight.
Thank you! Make sure you hit Like & Subscribe! ahaha.
Well I think they are both lovely lenses, different and have different strengths is all, the 7 is not a bad piece of glass at all! Thanks for commenting :-)
Interesting to see the differences, mono does show them up more, let's see how the responses go regarding testing methods , thanks for the video and explanation Eddy
There will always be lens variance and human error. However, since putting the video out I have had a couple of people reach out to me already saying they found my findings similar to their own experience. On the morning shoot I did of course photograph more scenes than shown, sometimes the differences were very minor or almost not at all, and I wasn't sure how well it would translate to YT so I did pick the scenes that seemed to exhibit the trait strongest or clearest.
What I can honestly say however is that from the entire morning shoot I never had a moment where the 7 element seemed to exhibit the 8 element behavior, I either got results like what I showed here in the video or the images looked pretty similar, but never the reverse. At the end of the day the lenses are physically different so I think that's probably what we're seeing here.
FWIW I do not think this means the 7 element is somehow inferior, it's just different and playing to a characteristic I personally seek out and enjoy, the 7 is still a really lovely lens, the tint in itself is something to cherish :)
Thanks for commenting.
Great comparison video! I have two 8 element lenses and one 7 element lens and can't really see the difference unless pixel peeping like you did in this video. I do prefer the 8 element over the 7, probably for more psychological reasons! LOL It's a legendary lens in several ways in my opinion.
One of my 8 element lenses is ever so slightly sharper than the other 8 element wide open, so there is slight manufacturing variances....
I actually use and prefer my 55mm f/1.8 Zebra lens with it's 10 aperture blades over the 8 element 50mm lenses, likely for artistic reasons with it's crazy bokeh abilities.
Happy shooting ;)
Good call on doing the comparison in mono, as the color differences can all be adjusted in post.
Of course in doing so I'm leaving critical issues out like CA and what not, but for me there are other resources out there that already talk about these lenses from this perspective. My aim was to try and show the differences that I think do exist between the two lenses.
Thanks for commenting :-)
I have the 7 and 8-element 50mm f/1.4 Takumar lenses. I use them on 35mm Pentax cameras. Both are great lenses. However, I prefer the 8-element because it does not have the yellow tint like the radioactive 7-element.
Thanks Eddy. Helpful comparison and great little vid. Personally I see everything you're explaining, and whilst I agree with you, it rather seems like straining gnats.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!. Well yeah... I would be the first to put my hands up and admit a blind test fail :D
The world of optics is a funny thing, when just having the lens on its own, with nothing to compare to, it's a hard thing to evaluate. We kind of evaluate based on properties but also in terms of pitting it against something else. Better and worse are also very subjective, I can totally understand why someone might think the 7e is the better lens, it starts tidying up the corners and edges way sooner than the 8e. But then... the 8e does its thing and I find that trait just a tad rarer (I have plenty of nicely behaving lenses). I'm no lens guru (as I think you can tell), but I do adore the Pentax FA Ltds, and the 31, 43 and 77 all seem to have that similar trait the 8e has (but perhaps milder and a little more restrained). I think of the 8e as a bit of an unofficial FA ltd... or even a FA ltd on steroids :D:D
But at the end of the day so many more things matter in a photo. Content, expression, tone, composition bla bla bla. I think the 8e is worthy of its status, but that's just me, it feels like a weird and wonderful lens, flawed but beautifully so, seems so rare to come across something like that these days...
Thanks for watching, commenting, hopefully liking and subscribing! Next up is a battle of the Pentax K/A 50/1.2 against the 8e! :D
@@SummersSnaps thanks for the reply. That's a very interesting comparison between the FA Ltds and the 8e. I only have experience of the 43 (which I own) and the 31 (which I've used a bit).
Just found this video, only 2 years late..... I have 6 X 50mm f1.4 from the Super Takumar up to SMC but only just got an 8 element loloking forward to taking it out. By the way another gem is Super-Multi-Coated 135mm f 2.5 its remarkably sharp wide open dont know if you have tried this one.
Super. I have not tested the 135/2.5, just the smaller 135/3.5 (which is super wide open also and tiny for a 135) and the 135/2.8. Happy shooting!
Great comparison, amazing photos... was wondering how these lenses stack up with bird photography though... ;)
Fantastic for budgies in cages :D:D
Be honest , would you ever seen the differences between the lenses using an anlog camera and film? These lenses where build for film. We can be happy to use them today on our super accurate digital Pentax K-1. Thank you for you work.
I'll be even more honest, I am sure I'd fail a blind test between a 7 and 8 element! It's only when you have this side by side direct comparison or toggling quickly do the apparent differences really show. On film I have no idea, I'm a film noob. All I really know (and educated recently on) is that using these lenses on film may (or does) eliminate CA and that CA is mainly a digital issue.
Aside from that I would have thought the differences between the two lenses would still be the same regardless to what body they are attached to. They do have physically different characteristics which is probably what I am picking up on in the video.
Thank you for commenting!
Yes you could see the differences even in film.
As the lens coatings were improving the effects were seen more and more and the "dreamy" effect became less noticeable
Even within the 7 element lenses there is a difference between older and newer since the latest are multi-coated which makes images sharper
Do I think there is much difference? No. Does the 8 element have pixie dust? No. I personally think some of this difference is because the focal distance has not been adjusted for the 2 lenses. The 8 is closer to the subject, and will always produce more out of focus blur when it is closer to the subject. Is the 7 sharper? Yes slightly. Does the 7 have less halo effect wide open? Yes. Does the 7 resist flare more because of it's coatings? Yes. Does the 7 element have less CA? Yes Can the yellowing be fixed in the 7, yes, uv radiation.. Am I going to run out and sell my 8 element? No. Is it worth me buy the 7 element in addition to the 8 element I have? No. My 8 element cost me a whopping $200 although it is in better shape than your copy, I could have bought a 7 element, not as good of shape, for $70-100. If I had to do it all over again would I get the 8 element? No. Your video and others on youtube only confirms there is not enough difference to justify $100 more. I would have bought a 7 element for al lesser price. My tamron 35mm 1.4 produces smoother, more out of focus bokeh and less CA than my 8 element and has a 30cm minimum focus distance (compared to 50cm on the 8 element). I wish I could sell my tamron and get a Sigma 40mm 1.4 which I think is even better from what I have seen. But both those lenses are heavier and more expensive than the Takumars. Everything is a trade off and you have to decide what is important to you. What was the real clincher in your video was when you put the 2 images you said had a huge difference side by side and I could not tell the difference tells me you or anyone else would be able to look at my picture and tell if it was taken with a 7 or 8 element. Save your money, get the 7 element. Thanks for yet another video the proves to me there is not enough difference to care or to pay the premium.
My goal here wasn't to say one is better than the other per se. I actually found only ONE other video that successfully visually illustrated differences between the two lenses, period! Most reviewers shrugged and couldn't tell them apart at all. All I wanted was to dive in and see if any differences exist, whether they are subtle or strong and bring light to that. I think I did that successfully.
Where I would just pull you up a little is where you say; "Does the 8 element have pixie dust? No. I personally think some of this difference is because the focal distance has not been adjusted for the 2 lenses. The 8 is closer to the subject, and will always produce more out of focus blur when it is closer to the subject."
Firstly, I hate the term pixie dust because its just made up nonsense and no Pentaxian has ever been able to define actually what it is. I think my video and findings probably do a better job of explaining what the hell Pentaxians mean when they say 'pixie dust', and it is indeed probably this ability that when a lens is stopped down a tad, it will wrap the subject with acceptable to excellent sharpness whilst holding onto what appears to be an unusual amount of defocused background. I illustrate that difference not once but a few times here, and I illustrate it AGAIN in my video where the 8e goes up against the K and A 50mm f1.2 Pentax lenses. This is not something to do with the 50mm focal length lens between the 7e and 8e to being different ever so slightly, and the fact that I am tripodded and not budging the tripod a tiny tad to get the EXACT same framing between each image etc, this would NOT account enough for those differences in out of focus area blur. In my experience it's not something that you will often come by with optics, but it exists. I have done similar tests for example with the Pentax FA31, set to f4, compare with a Pentax zoom set to 31mm at f4, once gain the oof areas are vastly different with the FA31 providing greater smoother transition from in focus to out of focus as well as generally providing greater subject isolation and better background blur. The FA Ltds with their unusual odd number focal lengths making comparing those primes a little more difficult than say a common length like 50mm's, but they do seem to share that same optical party trick.
So I would firmly say that the 8 element (as a 50mm in general) provides very excellent subject isolation, seemingly able to hold onto better defocused backgrounds than what you might expect to find on other 50mm lenses, and it is this trait that likely defines its legendary status, because I do believe it is a fairly rare quality in lenses of this size and weight.
"What was the real clincher in your video was when you put the 2 images you said had a huge difference side by side and I could not tell the difference tells me you or anyone else would be able to look at my picture and tell if it was taken with a 7 or 8 element."
I would go even further, I could take images with a different camera and entirely different lens, claim it was a K-1+Takumar 50mm 8e shot when in fact was taken with a XT4+Zeiss Touit 32, and everyone would buy it, no one would question me.
Heck... I could use a cheap zoom like the Pentax 55-300PLM, set it to a certain focal length and pretend it was some sublime prime that took the shot and still no one would question it. The only time you might get caught is with some lenses having very strong defining characteristics, such as the star bursts of the FA43. I had one forum member upload an image of a night time dock scene, with star bursts, claiming it was a FA43. I told them that was likely wrong, that the image was actually probably a FA31 shot and that the star bursts were a lot different if the lens was FA43. He went away and double checked, amended the post as I was right.
I think ultimately this is about reassurances. If you are on a 'vintage' portrait session, where things like strong defocused backgrounds are important to that genre, if you take a shot with the 8e knowing that it provides a deeper defocused background compared to the 7e, then when you take that shot you are secretly saying to yourself "well... I know I CAN'T get this particular shot and framing to be MORE pronounced background blur than this with a 50mm vintage TAKUMAR lens, I KNOW the 7e will not do quite as well in this regard", so it becomes a security blanket of sorts (but baked in truth). If you used the 7e knowing that the 8e does a better job in this regard you might be having that nagging thought in the back of your mind saying "ya know this shot could look better with the 8e...", and that is basically a summary for the entire photographic industry, constantly trying to upsell you on the next whatever they are bringing out, when in truth the content of the photo infinitely matters more than any of this stuff :)
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Was this a blind test?
No, this was about pointing out the optical differences that exist between the two.
I have both. 7 element is better, so is the Olympus 1.4 and the Canon FDn 1.4. Pancolor shows it up too. My Takumars collects dust. These are all internet hype. I bought into this nonsense. I'm sure guys that want to sell these promote them as being the best thing since sliced bread.
Hey Wayne, thanks for commenting. Did you watch the video? In which way do you suggest the 7 element better than the 8? (srs question).
My aim for this video was really to try and delve in a little deeper and highlight differences between the two optics (differences that I found many other reviews missed).
In summary I found the 7 element to have better edge sharpness at wider apertures, but that comes at a price as the juxtaposition between the center sharpness and soft edges is not as pronounced as it is on the 8. In addition to this the 8 seemed to hold onto better out of focus rendering than the 7. At f5.6 for example it was showing bokeh/out of focus rendering like how the 7 element was displaying at f4, meanwhile the 7 element at the same aperture of f5.6 would look 'more stopped down' than the 8.
All in all I think they are both great lenses, 8 better suited to portraits I think than the 7.
I have them both. I totally bought into the hype and wasted money on these overrated lenses. I am not impressed at all. I prefer a few of my others. The Minolta, Olympus and Canon are all just as good if not better. I'm not convinced and about to watch your video to see if I'm right.
I'm keen to hear what other lenses you have that you rate higher than these two. Thanks for commenting.
I will admit I have not tested too many 50mm lenses in my time. Certainly I felt the Tak50 was infinitely better than the DA 50/1.8 and FA 50/1.4 from Pentax. You have a lot of choice nowadays for very advanced 50mm lenses, like the Pentax DFA50/1.4 (which is an outstanding lens in it's own right). I do enjoy my Tak50, I like the compactness, the feel of the focus ring and all the other reasons listed in the video. Is it the 'best' 50mm out there? I think we have to define 'best' first of all before we can answer that.
Lemme know what you think, keen to hear your thoughts.
@@SummersSnaps Man, I have been using the smc Pentax FA 50mm 2.8 macro lately. The unbelievable sharpness of that lens really surprises me.
@@westyavro Yes, I have heard that is a nice lens. For me I have owned a few macros in my time but I feel they play on best to their intended use, macro. Once outside of that realm (such as portraiture) the bokeh can take on a different look, harsh or aggressive (at times, not always, depends a lot of things).