I have both of these lenses, and I’ve read lots of other people’s perspectives about each, but I wanted to test them myself. So, I got my Nikon D3x from storage and attached both lenses to test. I’ve heard that the older 55mm lens is softer and the bokeh has a more classic look. People also say the newer 50mm lens is sharper edge to edge, and the bokeh is more modern looking. It’s hard to know what that means – hard for me because I don’t have a mind that can think abstractly – I have to see and do things to understand. So here are some images side by side – shot at f/1.2, some with the 50mm, some with the 55mm. All natural light (most outdoors, one indoors with room light) taken with my Nikon D3x.
Both lenses are very similar in size, although the 50mm is just a bit more compact. Both were released in the late 1970’s (the 55mm in 1977, the 50mm in 1978). Hard to believe something made within my lifetime can be considered vintage!
I’m particularly interested in the background bokeh, the sharpness, and the general color rendition of images from each lens. I’ve also included a couple images shot directly into the sun to see how the coatings work in bright light. This is not a highly methodical set of tests, just an informal experiment because it’s fun.
Can you tell the difference? If you click on any of the photos, you’ll be able to see the captions describing the lens and settings, and browse through all. I tried to place photos of the same subject next to each other, but not all subjects were shot with both lenses. I appologize ahead of time if some images aren’t as sharp as they could be – my eyes aren’t great, and these were all shot hand-held so that could also cause of the my focus softness at f/1.2 since the depth of field is so shallow.
From what I can see, the results from this experiment show that the lenses are very close. I do notice some differences due to the focal length (50mm vs 55mm) in some of the photos – and I actually think the 55mm version would be helpful under certain conditions. The 55mm lens has a slightly narrower angle of view, so the 50mm will show more background – for example, in the images of the pot on the table, the one shot with the 50mm shows more sky.
I like both lenses, but will probably use the 50mm more just because it is traditionally what I shoot with. The 55mm also has another issue (my lens). It may be a comptibility issue with the D3X, or just something not quite right with the lens. When I shoot close subjects, I always get an ERR message on the camera. When I shoot from about 7 feet and farther, no error. At first I thought that maybe during focusing the barrel of the lens that moves in and out at the mount might be just touching the mirror slightly, thus causing the error when shooting at certain distances. Upon investigating, I found this can’t be the issue since the focusing barrel moves inward, into the lens, at close distances. At the longer distances (past 7 feet), when it works fine, is when the lens is extended toward the mirror and closest to it – and that’s when things work fine. So, it’s a mystery. I have several different ai and ai-s lenses that all work fine, and don’t produce and error. It is possible that it’s a compatibility issue between this particular lens and this camera model, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that from reading online. I am resolved to just power off the camera, and then power it on to clear the error. All else works fine, but this is a bit of a mystery for sure.
I hope you enjoy reading about my experiments, and maybe enjoy conducting these kinds of experiments yourself. Fun with photography!
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