Originally posted by stevebrot I have to chuckle a little. People forget that the bulk of the work in optical design happened well over 50 years ago. The improvements since then have been in manufacturing and materials and coatings.
coatings and materials ARE the bulk of optical design.
Originally posted by tromboads What you mean to say is, old lenses are trash and you should probably all sell them on ebay.
I don't think anyone said that. But I don't think older Takumars were perfect either. Just look what a modern take on the 50mm concept can deliver (Sigma 50 and Pentax 55). The older 50mm design is fine (and I use it with my F50) but let's be honest, the newer designs ARE better optically.
On a theoretical basis, older lenses, especially non-telecentric lenses, are flawed for digital. In real life the difference is marginal obviously, but those differences exist. Optical design has come a long way since the beginning of the 80's with the advent of computers, and even in the last few years design softwares such as Zemax have improved in leagues.
Just look at the Vivitar series 1 70-210. I compared it with the Pentax FA100-300 and the latter was almost as sharp, and had far better control of aberrations. Then I compared it with the 60-250, and even though both lenses were top of the line at launch, there is not the shadow of a contest between the two.