Quick Comparison Question - Vintage Primes vs Fast Zoom

I was wondering how does the sharpness of the Tamron or Tokina 17-50mm compare to vintage primes under $150 wide open?
I am basically looking to pickup a wide angle fast(2.8 or faster) lens for video and wanted to know if those vintage primes are capable of producing better quality images for video than the 17-50mm.

To be honest, I don't believe lens sharpness has any bearing on video recordings when it comes to DSLRs, seeing as still lenses are designed to resolve quite a bit of detail, whereas you'll only be working with 2mp at best. In fact, since DSLRs suffer from moire due to the lack of a strong enough AA filter, you'll actually want to put a softening filter on your lens.

Factors such as CA/LoCA and flare resistance, lens coatings, the character of out-of-focus areas and build quality will have much more impact then anything else; absolute sharpness is something people rarely pay attention to in video.

Buying some vintage primes is a good idea, as they will almost certainly be all-metal and have manual controls, for which works well for video work. I have some Soviet-era lenses that I modified to remove the click-stops from their aperture rings, I don't believe I spent more than $200 on any single one at the local market and they range from f/1.7-f/3.5 in aperture deepening on the focal length. Asahi-Pentax lenses are also great and smooth-focusing, although they tend to have long MFDs. There's an entire world of M42 and M39 lenses that can be adapted to work with Canon cameras with just a conversion ring.

Aren't some of those Soviet lenses radioactive?? Although I am kidding, I was axctually told that by someone. I agree about the pentax lenses. Good bargains to be had on them and I find they focus very smoothly. I have not made the soviet lens plunge but am considering it

They are about as radioactive as Brazilian nuts, and those you actually eat.

Really though, they simply use what are considered "dirty" materials by today's standards such as lead and other heavy materials, which at worst, will cause the lens elements to yellow or discolor over time.

If your vintage lens is showing discoloration, just leave it uncapped under sunlight for a while to recharge it's super radioactive energy powers, just remember not to leave it on a flammable surface.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #13028669
To be honest, I don't believe lens sharpness has any bearing on video recordings when it comes to DSLRs, seeing as still lenses are designed to resolve quite a bit of detail, whereas you'll only be working with 2mp at best. In fact, since DSLRs suffer from moire due to the lack of a strong enough AA filter, you'll actually want to put a softening filter on your lens.

Factors such as CA/LoCA and flare resistance, lens coatings, the character of out-of-focus areas and build quality will have much more impact then anything else; absolute sharpness is something people rarely pay attention to in video.

Buying some vintage primes is a good idea, as they will almost certainly be all-metal and have manual controls, for which works well for video work. I have some Soviet-era lenses that I modified to remove the click-stops from their aperture rings, I don't believe I spent more than $200 on any single one at the local market and they range from f/1.7-f/3.5 in aperture deepening on the focal length. Asahi-Pentax lenses are also great and smooth-focusing, although they tend to have long MFDs. There's an entire world of M42 and M39 lenses that can be adapted to work with Canon cameras with just a conversion ring.

Thanks
Although video only uses 2mp of the sensor, from what I have seen there is still a noticeable difference between quality vs cheap glass. I love the video quality of Zeiss, unfortunately they are not feasible.
I am basically looking to pickup a wide angle fast(2.8 or faster) lens for video and wanted to know if those vintage primes are capable of producing better quality images for video.
BTW, I own a 50mm Yashica and like it a lot.

weareallhypocrites wrote in post #13031401
Aren't some of those Soviet lenses radioactive?? Although I am kidding, I was axctually told that by someone. I agree about the pentax lenses. Good bargains to be had on them and I find they focus very smoothly. I have not made the soviet lens plunge but am considering it

I have been looking at some Pentax lenses, but all of the non 50mm lenses seemed to have gone up in price significantly.

Yes, there is a difference between cheap and expensive glass, but it's not critical sharpness. A nice Zeiss lens will also be very resistant to flare, show little chromatic aberration, pleasing bokeh, it's famous micro-contrast, etc.

I don't see why not, as long as you stick to multi-coated lenses (usually labelled "MC" on older lenses) you should be fine.

At my local market, I can pick up a 135mm SMC takumar f/3.5 for $50, less for the non-MC version. Razor sharp as hell, immune to flare, no CA... but I didn't feel like I needed it. F/3.5 and a minimum focus distance of 1.5m leave something to be desired, but an all-around good lens otherwise. You really have to scrounge for these things.

Here's a video I uploaded of my Mir-24M, which is a 35mm f/2 that I picked up for about $80. http://youtu.be/bzrTTq​EH8dI
Looks just fine at full resolution as well.