Which Lens is Better

[John Carty]

I was just curious to know which lens is better a Fuji F1.8 17.5mm- 105mm or the Meteor 5-1 17-69MM.

And also which would be a overall better camera to use..assuming both lens on each camera were the same. Krasnogorsk K3 or the Beaulieu R16.

 

Thanks

John

 

[Simon Wyss]

You have fundamental differences between the shutters. The Krasnogorsk employs a revolving shutter, Beaulieu has one going up and down. Both introduce uneven exposure across the image area, the angled revolving one due to the shutter edges standing farther away from the aperture on one side, the oscillating one due to the asymmetric motion relative to the aperture. Unevenness, however, is in the 2 to 3 percent range for the Krasnogorsk, therefore neglectible, and about the double for the Beaulieu. The Guillotin shutter compensates in general for the light coming from above and the sky mostly up in the frame.

 

Those zoom lenses I can’t comment on.

[Dom Jaeger]

The better camera will be the one that's working!

 

Honestly a subjective appraisal probably can't be stated without knowing the condition of any of these tools. They're all old and potentially faulty until you test them. The Beaulieu has a shorter exposure time (effectively a smaller shutter angle), which makes it a tiny bit less useful for low light shooting. The K-3 doesn't need batteries, which is an advantage over the Beaulieu with its proprietary battery pack that will almost certainly need recelling if it hasn't been done recently.

 

The Fuji zoom sounds like it might be a TV zoom (?) so could be lower quality than the Meteor which is generally pretty good, but again it really depends on their condition.