Originally posted by paperbag846 Oh boy, here we go again.
No, here you go again.
You are the one that thinks that the SMC and Ghostless Coatings on the FA ltd are inferior to the ones on the DA ltd series even though the DA has been produced in parallel with the FA ltd from the beginning. All FA and DA ltd lenses ever designed are still in production.
Originally posted by paperbag846 A) I said to compare them at equivilent apertures. If you don't own both, simply go to photozone.de to see the differences. Since they both score in the very good to excellent category, the statistical difference in sharpness will only matter to some.
Photozone does a good job crunching the numbers etc. However, they don't always do things exactly the same and the botched the comparison of the DA 70 because they did NOT torture test it while the pushed the FA to the extreme. Furthermore, 1 lens is not a statistical test. However, it would be expensive and time consuming to do 8 or 10 copies of a given lens.
Originally posted by paperbag846 B) CA and PF are more prevalent on FA primes used on digital, no matter the aperture. Whether this is a coating issue, or otherwise, is uncertain to me. My hunch is that it is the coatings, at least somewhat. Especially since the lenses render colour so differently, suggesting that the coatings are, in fact, different to a degree.
Most lenses in the 70 to 85 mm range can be forced to PF including the autofocus Zeiss 85/1.4 made in Sony mount specifically for digital. PF is more pronounced in these at f2 and greater.
Originally posted by paperbag846 C) None of this suggests that the FA lenses are bad on digital, period. Many, many, people here use lenses designed before computers were even available to NASA.
What the hell are you talking about? We are discussing FA Ltd lenses which were designed in the 1990s and went into production from 1997 to 2001 which is only 4 years separation from the DA 40 ltd.
Originally posted by paperbag846 I'm not sure what your points here are, but I think I have illuminated the basic differences between the DA and FA lines without stepping on any toes. Lets put it this way:
The point is that 1) the SMC coatings on the lenses would have been the same for a production month and year since they were made at the same time; 2) both received Ghostless Coatings. It is quite possible that the 1997 made FA 43 lenses have a slightly different smc coating than the 2007 FA 43 lenses.
Originally posted by paperbag846 The DA lenses are fantastic on digital, but are pretty slow for film.
With a few exceptions, I wouldn't use the DA lenses on film. Those exceptions being the DA* 200, 300, and DA 35/2.4.
Originally posted by paperbag846 The FA lenses are fantastic on digital, but were designed to be best on film.
Very few were designing 35mm lenses
specifically for digital in the 1990s since digital slr bodies weren't available.