I know everyone who has several lenses for their camera does a comparison, but that isn’t going to stop me from having a go too. Here is the same view, seen through every compatible lens in my collection. I decided to use my Canon FD manual focus gear as I have most lenses for that, and they span the widest range. If you want to use digital camera marketing language, this is 70× optical zoom, all the way from super telephoto to ultra wide angle. As this is shot on 35mm film, the same angles of view apply for full-frame DSLRs, but you will need to apply the crop factor if you are using a crop-sensor DSLR.
I wasn’t able to include my nice Canon 135mm prime or the Canon 70-210mm telephoto zoom as they are currently on loan to a friend, so I made do with using a Makinon 80-200mm telephoto zoom.
The view is looking towards St Aidan’s Church from Troopers Hill, Bristol. I think the pictures would have been better in colour but I needed to use up a black & white film 😛 Perhaps when I’ve got my other lenses back I’ll try this again in colour.
I used Program mode on my Canon T90 to take these pictures so I don’t know exactly what settings were used. On most of the sunny pictures, the camera chose an aperture of around f/11 although as you can see from the pictures, the lighting was changing considerably. The exceptions are the pictures using teleconverters, which had to be shot wide open. Even then, the 1200mm picture is a bit underexposed.
Lenses used:
- Tokina RMC 400mm f/5.6
- Makinon MC 80-200mm f/4.5
- Canon New FD 35-70mm f/3.5
- Canon New FD 50mm f/1.4
- Canon New FD 35mm f/2.8
- Canon FD 28mm f/2.8
- Canon New FD 24mm f/2.8
- Cosina 19-35mm f/3.5
- Canon New FD 17mm f/4
Lenses who sadly could not be with us today:
Jonathan Gazeley 