I simply set up my tripod in the backyard and shot frames with all of the lenses with some trees at/near infinity and looked at the center and one corner. I used my Nikon D800E. The corner doesn't match between the two different focal lengths obviously. I did a simple edit in Lightroom and applied the same edit to every photo.
I tested the lenses at full aperture (different for each lens), f/2.8, and f/8. I'm throwing out the full aperture test if the lens was faster than f/2.8 because they were all uniformly terrible.
Let's see if I can get these photos to line up okay:
f/2.8 f/8
35mm f/1.4 AI:
35mm f/2 AF:
35mm f/2.8 pre-AI:
28mm f/2 AI:
28mm f/2.8 AI-S
Okay. Still with me? As you can see, most of the shots at f/8 look about the same. Interestingly, looking at the file size, generally speaking it corresponds with the amount of detail in the photo. Anyway - so who wins? Well, the 35mm f/1.4 definitely loses. Even at f/8 it's not that good. The one that stands out (as I expected, actually) is the 28mm f/2 AI lens. The surprise here is that the 35mm f/2.8, though dismal wide-open at f/2.8, at f/8 is quite good, easily beating the modern AF lens. I know from experience that this is a sharp lens, especially on 35mm b&w film. If I would've continued to stop down, it might've stuck out and beaten the 28mm f/2 at f/11 or f/16 (the issues of diffraction here are a topic that I won't broach in this article). The much-vaunted 28mm f/2.8 doesn't really hit the mark (and no surprise as it shines more in close-focus type shooting) and the 35mm f/2 AF-D lens really doesn't perform that well. To its credit though it did take a fall two years ago and may or may not be in 100% condition.
Now the corners are where things get interesting. If you are still interested, click on "Read more" to see the rest of my test!
I will now similarly post the corner results:
f/2.8 f/8
35mm f/1.4 AI:
35mm f/2 AF:
35mm f/2.8 pre-AI:
28mm f/2 AI:
28mm f/2.8 AI-S
Okay. So first thing you might notice is all of the images suck at f/2.8. Well that's why we don't shoot landscapes at f/2.8! But at f/8, things are quite clear. The 28mm f/2 AI again makes quite an impression, and surprisingly, the 35mm f/2 AF-D lens redeems itself a bit by having some nice corners. The obvious dog is the f/1.4 lens but that's not a surprise, being an old design and a fast lens not really optimized for this kind of shooting. The 28mm f/2.8 AI-S is no slouch in the corners either, and while the 35mm f/2.8 pre-AI isn't quite up to snuff with the others, it does an admirable job considering the age of the optics. I might shoot a couple more test frames another day and match it against the 28mm f/2 AI at f/11 and f/16. The frames I've shot with it in that range with TMX have been scary sharp, so I think it'll perform well.
So that settles it for me. If I'm looking for the "best" of these 5, I'll be taking the 28mm f/2 AI. As a curious side-note, I got that lens for just shy of $200, because there's a couple of pinprick marks on the front element. Clearly people make too big a deal out of that kind of thing.
I hope someone gets some use out of this test, and thanks for reading if you made it this far!
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