Any ideas on the XCD 90mm vs the future XCD 80mm?

[braver]

Would the 80mm/f2 obviate the 90mm/f3.2, or will it be like Noctilux 50mm vs Summilux, with a much more expensive and bulkier lens being much faster sitting in its own niche, and the tradeoff being light/heavy, in addition to expensive/really expensive?

[jwillson]

While they can both be used as portrait lenses, I sure wouldn't choose the 80mm unless I really needed the speed or were crazy about narrow depth of field photography.  The new lens is much heavier (almost a pound), is slower to focus (just from looking at online videos), doesn't have internal focus, is slightly longer, and appears to have significant focus breathing (based on the 0.5 f-stops of exposure adjustment required at close focus).  It's also significantly more expensive.

Fast optics come at a price.  For must uses I'd rather have the 90mm so I hope they don't consider the 80mm a replacement.  Oh, and the new 80mm is made in China, so it may not be manufactured by Nittoh.  Not that that is necessarily bad, but I had begun to trust the optics Hasselblad was having made by Nittoh and don't know whether the new manufacturer (or new factory) is as good.

[jwillson]

Please ignore my comment on the lens being made in China.  Steve Huff received notification from H that his prototype lens was stamped wrong.  Seems odd, but OK.  Maybe the prototype barrel was made in China and was stamped that way even though optical elements are made in Japan?  Whatever.  It now seems like the same manufacturer was used so that's a relief.

[sog1927]

It's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison based on the datasheets since the MTFs are at different apertures. The 90mm at f/3.2 is certainly sharper than the 80 at f/1.9, but that's hardly surprising. The 80 is still quite impressive at that aperture. The 80 at f/5.6 looks to be sharper than the 90 at f/8, but they're pretty close. Overall, the 80mm is another remarkably good lens. It looks to be significantly sharper than the highly-regarded Leica 100mm f/2 Summicron-S across the board. It's at least as good as the XCD 90mm at similar apertures, if not better.

The 80 is 12mm longer (at infinity, I presume), 7mm wider, and much heavier than the 90 (I assume the second autofocus motor adds significantly to the weight). Speed comes at a price (and not just in currency, although the 80mm is pretty expensive), but there certainly don't seem to be any optical compromises here.

The 90 is currently my favorite lens, but personally I'd have to give the 80 serious consideration down the road (after I've filled out the lens line-up a bit and saved a *lot* more pennies).

[sog1927]

The 65 fits pretty neatly between the 45 and the 85/90 - after all, it seems every camera needs a "normal" lens and the 45 was a bit wide for that.
The 135+TC brings a real telephoto to the line-up (and one that on paper seems to be superior to any adapted lens in the ~250mm category).

Yeah, the 80 is awfully close to the 90, but if you really, really need that extra speed it's pretty remarkable.

I do wish they'd come out with the zoom first (mainly for travel).