[pschlute]

I mean, I could pick up a Stradivarius violin and it would sound like a cat getting skinned alive. Meanwhile Nicola Benedetti could pick up a tatty old fiddle in a junk shop and play Paganini on it.

Indeed. I have had great meals in many different restaurants, but don't ever remember asking the chef what make of pans he uses

[RICHARD L.]

This lens is bad without a hood and incapable of procuding decend results wide open, even indoors.

Athanassios, you have to understand that even the crappiest of lenses can produce decent pictures in the right hands and the best of lenses can produce junk.

When I was 18, I started reading a lot about cameras, lenses and the optical science. I took a University course in Optical Theory and Design and learned about the properties of glass, light dispersion, laser properties, etc. You cannot go against the Laws of Physics, just try to adjust the materials to suit your purposes. Over the years, Camera companies adopted low-dispersion glasses, developped aspherical elements and made lenses that concentrate light rays in a parallel fashion to suit digital sensors.

Older film-era lenses like the FA 50 mm f/1.4 suffered from a lot of light dispersion that creates chromatic aberrations and softness in the corners when used wide-open. It is a simple symmetric Gauss design, slightly modified with an additional 7th element, and is quite inexpensive to manufacture. All the Camera Companies had similar 50 mm lenses. When you mount such an optic in front of a digital sensor, you see corner softness and glow around out-of-focus areas in the picture. When you close the diaphragm around f/4, you make the light rays reach the sensor in a better "rectified pattern" and a more parallel path, starting to produce sharper pictures. Results stay sharp between f/4 until about f/11 when diffraction starts to degrade sharpness once again. So you have a "range" of apertures where sharpness will be optimal. In 1999, I bought a P67 M* 75 mm f/2.8 lens that cost 1000 US$ at the time (selling for 2000 US$ used now) and it was performing poorly at f/2.8 too. It performs nowadays almost "magically" on my Pentax 645Z medium-format but only between f/5.6 and f/16.

Contrast depends mostly on the suppression of reflexion, from the incoming light and from inner reflexions between the elements. Coatings take care of these inner and outer reflexions and assure complete light transmittance to determine the color palette afforded by a particular lens. Of course, a lens shade will always help eliminating stray light creating unwanted reflexion on the front element and inside the lens.

Pentax has recently issued more modern lenses like the DFA* 50 mm f/1.4. The optical composition is much more complicated than a simple Gauss design, the coatings are state-of-the-art and this lens permits keeping the light rays parallel to each other when they reach the digital sensor, thus obviating to the light dispersion that degrades final images so much. All of this costs 3 or 4 times more than building a simple FA 50 mm f/1.4 but it gives you more opportunities to create a particular style of "shallow depth-of-field" pictures with the diaphragm fairly wide-open.


I hope this helps a little.

[Wheatfield]

The point Richard makes that even a crappy lens is able to produce a good picture is true. One has to identify what the lens doesn't do well and take steps to not put it in a position where it will fail.
The lower quality the lens is, the harder one will work to find out what it excels at (if it actually excels at anything) and limit one's picture taking with that lens to what it's OK for.
The problem is that for one photographer, what the lens does well might happily dovetail nicely with his or her style of photography, while for another, it might not be capable of doing the job at all.
One of the worst lenses I have owned was a Nikkor 50/1.2. It wasn't sharp at any aperture, but at the time I was doing a lot of boudoir photography and I found it to be a very good fit for that style of work where it's "romantic softness" was a desirable trait. I never had to use a Softar with that lens, it was a built in feature.
If I needed a sharper 50, I had a Series E 50/1.8 that was remarkably good considering it's price point.
Fast forward to more recent times and I found the FA50/1.4 to be a decent enough lens in the studio on APS-C, but as time marched on I was doing more and more non portrait photography and it became a focal length I rarely used on that format.
When I moved to the K1 I found it to be a less than adequate standard lens for the same reasons the OP is seeing (soft at wide apertures and veiling flare that a lens shade doesn't cure). Fortunately for me I had several other 50mm lenses that performed far better, albeit all manual focus, and when the DFA*50/1.4 came along I ditched the FA lens once and for all. I didn't like the compromises it forced on me to make it work to the standard I wanted.

Saying any lens in the right hands will make a good picture is a rather sanctimonious and self aggrandizing statement that implies the photographer is at fault for the failings of the equipment. If the equipment isn't capable of doing what the photographer needs it to do because the equipment weaknesses are sitting squarely in the zone of what the photographer needs it to do well, it's the equipment, not the photographer and he or she needs to find something that works for what he or she is doing.

For me, the FA 50 doesn't work, not because I can't make a good picture with it, but because I don't often do the few things it is passably good at. I moved to the DFA* lens because it performs well at what I do and it runs circles around the best the FA lens can give me.

[Artphoto]

The point Richard makes that even a crappy lens is able to produce a good picture is true. One has to identify what the lens doesn't do well and take steps to not put it in a position where it will fail.
The lower quality the lens is, the harder one will work to find out what it excels at (if it actually excels at anything) and limit one's picture taking with that lens to what it's OK for.
The problem is that for one photographer, what the lens does well might happily dovetail nicely with his or her style of photography, while for another, it might not be capable of doing the job at all.
One of the worst lenses I have owned was a Nikkor 50/1.2. It wasn't sharp at any aperture, but at the time I was doing a lot of boudoir photography and I found it to be a very good fit for that style of work where it's "romantic softness" was a desirable trait. I never had to use a Softar with that lens, it was a built in feature.
If I needed a sharper 50, I had a Series E 50/1.8 that was remarkably good considering it's price point.
Fast forward to more recent times and I found the FA50/1.4 to be a decent enough lens in the studio on APS-C, but as time marched on I was doing more and more non portrait photography and it became a focal length I rarely used on that format.
When I moved to the K1 I found it to be a less than adequate standard lens for the same reasons the OP is seeing (soft at wide apertures and veiling flare that a lens shade doesn't cure). Fortunately for me I had several other 50mm lenses that performed far better, albeit all manual focus, and when the DFA*50/1.4 came along I ditched the FA lens once and for all. I didn't like the compromises it forced on me to make it work to the standard I wanted.

Saying any lens in the right hands will make a good picture is a rather sanctimonious and self aggrandizing statement that implies the photographer is at fault for the failings of the equipment. If the equipment isn't capable of doing what the photographer needs it to do because the equipment weaknesses are sitting squarely in the zone of what the photographer needs it to do well, it's the equipment, not the photographer and he or she needs to find something that works for what he or she is doing.

For me, the FA 50 doesn't work, not because I can't make a good picture with it, but because I don't often do the few things it is passably good at. I moved to the DFA* lens because it performs well at what I do and it runs circles around the best the FA lens can give me.

Do you still do some boudoir with your DFA*50/1.4? I shoot models and i am considering this lens BUT it has to be able to AF properly in AF-C on the outer focusing points.I would also ask if the 50* 1.4 SDM focus is good in low light as outdoor at night in a city?(Artificial light but not great light.I have a K-3 III Mono by the way (firmware V2.0).

My recently purchased DA* 16-50 2.8 PLM was a nightmare regarding AF so i returned it and i don't have any desire to buy another one.It was a dud obviously but the QC doesn't seem to be very good for such an expensive lens (DA* 16-50).

What about the "new"? HD FA 50 1.4 with the new coatings?Does anyone tried that lens?Thanks.

[Wheatfield]

Do you still do some boudoir with your DFA*50/1.4? I shoot models and i am considering this lens BUT it has to be able to AF properly in AF-C on the outer focusing points.I would also ask if the 50* 1.4 SDM focus is good in low light as outdoor at night in a city?(Artificial light but not great light.I have a K-3 III Mono by the way (firmware V2.0).

My recently purchased DA* 16-50 2.8 PLM was a nightmare regarding AF so i returned it and i don't have any desire to buy another one.It was a dud obviously but the QC doesn't seem to be very good for such an expensive lens (DA* 16-50).

What about the "new"? HD FA 50 1.4 with the new coatings?Does anyone tried that lens?Thanks.

I haven't shot that style for quite some time, and not at all with the FA50/1.4. I moved to the Pentax 6x7 and 4x5 prior to moving from Nikon to Pentax for 35mm, and I transitioned that photography to either the 6x7 or 4x5 depending on my end goal.
I bought the 50/1.4 as a short portrait lens for APS-C and retired it when the DA*55/1.4 was released. I no longer own either lens.

[Artphoto]

I haven't shot that style for quite some time, and not at all with the FA50/1.4. I moved to the Pentax 6x7 and 4x5 prior to moving from Nikon to Pentax for 35mm, and I transitioned that photography to either the 6x7 or 4x5 depending on my end goal.
I bought the 50/1.4 as a short portrait lens for APS-C and retired it when the DA*55/1.4 was released. I no longer own either lens.

Good to know,thank you!

I might just order the two lenses (D FA* 50 and HD FA 50)and use them in most of my actual style of photography after all.If i do,i will post some observations in a new post.

[Wheatfield]

Good to know,thank you!

I might just order the two lenses (D FA* 50 and HD FA 50)and use them in most of my actual style of photography after all.If i do,i will post some observations in a new post.

Please start a new thread instead. This one is about the old FA50/1.4, not the modernized versions. I would love to see a discussion comparing the DFA*50/1.4 and the modernized FA 50/1.4 lenses. They are lenses I am interested in, as, I am sure, are many others.

[Artphoto]

Please start a new thread instead. This one is about the old FA50/1.4, not the modernized versions. I would love to see a discussion comparing the DFA*50/1.4 and the modernized FA 50/1.4 lenses. They are lenses I am interested in, as, I am sure, are many others.

Yes,this is what i will do.