Just for Schlitz and Gins a couple of weekends ago I shot two negatives of the same image. One was with a Fujinon 150mm and the other with a 150 Zeiss Tessar. On the ground glass, they didn't look much different. It looked like the Fuji might be ever so slightly wider than the Tessar. But that didn't surprise or bother me. Few lenses are precisely what their advertised focal length state.

It was the printing of the negatives that surprised me. The negatives were developed in the same run in a Jobo 310, using Rodinal 1:50. While I expected a bit of contrast difference, I didn't expect it to require a full grade. The Fuji generated that much more contrast. No matter how hard, tried, using different papers and everything, I could not get a print from the Fuji negative that had as wide of a tonal range as the Tessar. I determined contrast by making test strips for the highlights and dialing in/out filtration on a variable contrast cold light head until the shadow matched. The mid tones were where the prints differed. The Fuji certainly looked nice, for certain types of images would be my preference. But the Tessar had creamier middle values. What aspect of a lens causes that. It was a low-flare situation--a weathered barn under an overcast sky with a compendium lens shade for both lenses--so I don't think it was that.

I tried scanning both prints to post the comparisons, but you really can't see the difference in the digital scans, so I won't waste server bandwith. (The images were just test images of a barn anyway. And who wants to look at another barn?)