Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

I use all of my old Minolta, and Konica-Minolta auto-focus lenses on my a99ll without any problems. I also use my 50yr old Zeiss lenses on my Sony a6000 with excellent results.

The new Sony lenses allow me to use all the bells and whistles built into the camera such as lens flaw corrections, i.e. Pin cushion or barrow errors.
If I had not already owned several A-mount lenses I would have purchased the a7Rll but I am very happy with my a99ll. I can definitely see the improvement difference between my older a65 and the a99ll. Happy Shooting

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

All but one of the lenses I use are from film cameras. They work just fine. I've even adapted my Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 lens that's 60 some years old and it does wonderfully well. The only difference is in the coatings. They are much better these days, but that's to be expected. Optics are optics. They may have slightly better machines, but the lens formulas are, more than likely, the same. If there are differences, your eyes aren't going to see those differences.
--Bob

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

In my daily work, I do tend to gravitate toward the newer lenses, but I do sometimes use some of my 'film' lenses. My biggest problem, given that my work is mostly sports action, is that many of my remaining 'film' era lenses have no built-in focusing motor, and thus don't focus fast enough for my work. When/if that occurs, they would normally get replaced by the newer version. A case in point for me is with my 105/2.8D Macro. One of my favorite lenses and sharp as a tack. When I use it for volleyball, its focus speed really shows. It will soon be replaced by the newer 105/1.4E. In this case, I will be keeping the older one as I consider it a superior macro lens, so focus speed is not a concern. One other lens in that category for me, which I also have no plans to sell, is my 180/2.8D as I feel this is one of the best lenses Nikon ever made, and in fact is still made and sold today. My answer to this questions, as it is to many, is that it depends. Those older lenses are still as wonderful as they once were, but there may be better choices available for the task at hand. My philosophy about lenses is that I don't buy another one/replace an existing one unless there is some need that isn't being met with what I have, and, with a few exceptions, I only keep lenses that I've actually used in the last 2 years. If I didn't do that, I'd have to build another garage to keep all of them. It was hard for me, but you've gotta learn to let go sometimes. Best of luck.

Davethehiker Loc: South West Pennsylvania

Yep. And if you use a program like DxO Optics Pro, chances are that they will provide a "module" that will automatically apply geometric distortion, vignetting, and purple fringing correction even better than the camera body does, for both your Sony and other older lenses. Even PS allows you to apply some corrections by downloading them. PS also provides a tool to let you make you own correction module for any lens/camera that you want.

One Rude Dawg Loc: Athol, ID

I still use my old Canon L lenses 500, 300 2/8 and the rest, no problems.

Crombie

It's MFT, an Olympus micro 4/3ds camera. I agree using film Nikon lenses on Nikon DX and DF sensors is technically a perfect match made in Nikon heaven. It's the smaller MFT sensor that doesn't work for me.

radiojohn

It used to be said that decent lenses' resolution outperformed the capabilities of even the best film. Since sensors are presently not equivalent to film, that would indicate that film lens resolution is more than adequate. However -as already pointed out- coatings, AF, shake reduction and various mode interactions of digital lenses make a big difference.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Which brings me to the following question. It has been postulated in previous threads that digital sensors have reached the point (in terms of resolution),that the lens is now the limiting factor. My questions are: (a) is that true? And (b) Is the total resolution of a lens/sensor system equal to the lowest resolution of the two, or as in the electrical world, the square root of the sum of the squares of the two contributors? (or something similar?)

Robert Bailey Loc: Canada

Another View wrote:
"Modern zooms have gotten so good that you don't need a whole set of primes to get the job done."

It is interesting that of the over 11,000 lens tests that dxomark has performed
the top 113 are all prime lenses.
The first zoom lens comes in a number 114.

https://www.dxomark.com/lenses/launched-between-1987-and-2017/focal-from-1-to-1500/launch_price-from-0-to-13000-usd#hideAdvancedOptions=false&viewMode=list&yDataType=global

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

I seriously doubt that modern digital sensors have exceeded the resolution of Kodachrome®, which was just about at the level of single silver molecules. Any older lenses should work as well with digital cameras as they did with film ones. (That is not to say that some newer lenses may not be better, though--optics have improved over the years.)

David

dmsM43

I use old Canon and Nikon prime lenses on my Sony A7r. I don't think there will be much difference when you make the jump from 36 mp to 42 mp. Also keep in mind that the comparisons made between 35mm film and digital were made with color film which has lower resolution than b&w film. Good quality low speed b&w film easily exceeds the capabilities of any current digital sensor technology, and the old film camera lenses worked just fine with those films. In fact a recent comparison of digital to film found that medium format low speed b&w film could outresolve an equivalent medium format digital sensor of 200mp. This would be equivalent to about 70 mp for 35mm/full frame cameras. As mentioned by others, the old lenses don't have the newer high contrast lens coatings, and aren't as convenient to use because of the lack of auto-focus. Otherwise, they are fine.

Robert Bailey Loc: Canada

I remember shooting some medium format B&W film that was considered the finest grain film
in the world. Depending on how you were going to process it, it was shot at ISO 12 or 25.
It was made by Kodak but I can't remember any other identification.

dmsM43

Kodak Panatomic X at ISO 25 to 50, Ilford Pan F at ISO 50, and Agfa had a similar product at around ISO 25. Kodak and Agfa also made specialty high resolution b&w films in 35mm for scientific work. The tonality was a little weird, but the old lenses had no problem resolution wise with those films.

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA