fifties - FD 1.4 compared to OM 1.8

Fifties are nice lenses on micro 4/3. I have a few (as you may know from reading my blog) , for instance the OM 50 f1.8 Its beautiful not only in image quality but in build. Its compact mechanically elegant and a pleasure to use.

Being curious I spent a few bucks and bought an FD 50mm f1.4 to compare to my OM 50mm f1.8 (which I bought after seeing how lousy the FD 1.8 I have is ..)

Essentially I find the FD 1.4 is equal to the OM 1.8 in terms of quality ... both wide open. However the FD has some advantage in reduced DoF. Firslty here is an overview of the image ...


I guess the leaves in focus are about 10 or 20 feet away. Below is a couple of central image segments to get a feel, these link to 100% pixel samples and are about a central portion of the image.

FD 50mm @ f1.4

OM 50 f1.8

notice the difference on the bark?

I don't know if the 1.4 vs 1.8 makes much difference in portraiture or other uses, if it makes things better or worse but I don't expect it'll be hard to stop it down if 1.4 is too shallow for an application ;-)


I ponder if I'll sell either ... but as they only cost me $50 and $12 its hard to see the point. Besides I use the OM lens on my Canon EOS body when I use film.