a compact SWC digital - Voigtländer 10mm on Leica CL

Godfrey

Godfrey

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The Hasselblad SWC has been my gold standard in what I like in an ultra-wide camera for many years. Nowadays, I appreciate an all digital solution for the ease in use and the post processing options, but it proves difficult to get the kind of imaging that the lovely Biogon 38mm f/4.5 T* provides.

I've also got a thing going where the equipment I want to carry must be light and compact because I spend so much of my time out and about riding a bicycle nowadays. Because of this, the Leica CL (digital) has become my standard camera in so many ways, generally fitted with Leica R or M mount lenses.

Well, the small format requires a very short focal length lens to achieve the SWC's 73x73 degree angle of view when cropped square, and there are few of these around. I decided to give the Voigtländer Hyper-Wide 10mm f/5.6 a try; the 10mm nets approximately 77x77 degree AoV cropped square so it's quite close. The lens arrived two days ago; I had the chance to carry it on my bicycle ride Saturday morning and do some testing.


Leica CL + Voigtländer 10mm f/5.6
ISO 100 @ f/8 @ 1/100​

Some preliminary testing proved to me that:
  • The CL with M Adapter L mount adapter proves to be right on the money with mount registration. This is important because with a 10mm f/5.6 lens, TTL viewing/focusing is mostly silly unless you're working right up at the closest focusing distance provided by the lens mount.
  • Diffraction means that although the lens can stop down to f/22, you're tossing most of its resolution down the tubes once you pass f/11. It looks like the best performing lens opening is between f/8 and f/11, there's little change between f/5.6 and f/8 anyway.
  • A small amount of lateral chromatic aberration is there, but easily eliminated by nearly any image processing tools these days. Longitudinal chromatic aberration is very low, and resolution holds right to the corners and edges of the APS-C format (haven't done any testing on FF yet). Flare resistance also seems very good.


Leica CL + Voigtländer 10mm f/5.6
ISO 100 @ f/8 @ 1/160​

Beyond that, the CL + V10mm proves to be handily sized, light, and ergonomically very nice ... better than the WATE, to me, and certainly a huge lot less to cart about than the CL+Super-Elmar-R 15mm. I haven't done comparisons yet, but I'm curious to see the differences when I get to that.

By and large, I'm cautiously optimistic that this lens will complete my Leica CL kit nicely and provide that "mini-digital SWC" I've been seeking. And yes, I know that the native Leica TL-11-23mm is another very very fine lens that would do nearly the same, but it's three times the cost, much bulkier, difficult to get at present, and... well, I just don't really like zoom lenses all that much. 🙂

enjoy
G
 
Cool results, Godfrey.
The SWC gives a 21mm view, right?
Which coverage does your CL give with a 10mm lens?
I use the SWC with film, of course, and I am experimenting with the Hologon 16mm on the M8 for a 21mm view due to the smaller M8 sensor. Your CV lens is modern and it was designed for digital cameras, I assume. My combo gives interesting looking results. I need to study your results to get a better feel for the attempted SWC replication.
 
sepiareverb said:
Very nice! The CL doesn’t do native squares tho does it? I ask as I have a hard time seeing the square within a rectangle.
Click to expand...

There's no 'in camera' formatting adjustment to show a square. However, if you turn on the grid display, you have frame lines at 33% intervals across the frame, which makes it pretty easy to frame square and just shift sideways to center that square, if you need that. 🙂

G
 
raid said:
Cool results, Godfrey.
The SWC gives a 21mm view, right?
Which coverage does your CL give with a 10mm lens?
I use the SWC with film, of course, and I am experimenting with the Hologon 16mm on the M8 for a 21mm view due to the smaller M8 sensor. Your CV lens is modern and it was designed for digital cameras, I assume. My combo gives interesting looking results. I need to study your results to get a better feel for the attempted SWC replication.
Click to expand...

Hi Raid,

Thanks!

Using Rui Salgueiro's on-line field-of-view calculator shows the Hasselblad SWC with Biogon 38mm f/4.5 T* with these specs:

Width = 56 mm, Length = 56 mm, Diagonal = 79.196 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
38.0 - 72.7687 - 72.7687 - 92.3595​

A 21mm lens on 35mm (FF) format provides the same diagonal, but completely different image proportions.

Width = 24 mm, Length = 36 mm, Diagonal = 43.2666 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
21.0 - 81.2026 - 59.4898 - 91.7021​

So cropped square, 21mm is only going to give you 59x59 degrees, nowhere near the same feel as the SWC. The closest match is about a 16-17mm lens. On the CL's APS-C cropped square, the Voigtländer 10mm is quite close as well:

Width = 16 mm, Length = 16 mm, Diagonal = 22.6274 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
10.0 - 77.3196 - 77.3196 - 97.0541​

Of course, on these small formats you're never going to get the kind of subject isolation via focus zone that you can with a 38/4.5 lens on 56x56 format, but I can work with that. The resulting 16 mPixel image file is large enough for my printing needs. The remaining piece of the puzzle is getting the Biogon's superb edge and corner resolution and rectilinear correction—and that's where I'm the most pleased with the Voigtländer 10mm performance on APS-C. It is really very tight on both specs given the format.

I haven't tried it on FF format yet, I hear it's darn good even there, but the CL is my primary target body for this lens and it looks like it actually outperforms both the WATE and the Super-Elmar-R 15 on FF in some respects ... possibly the result of the CL's outstanding sensor. 🙂

G
 
raid said:
Cool results, Godfrey.
The SWC gives a 21mm view, right?
Which coverage does your CL give with a 10mm lens?
I use the SWC with film, of course, and I am experimenting with the Hologon 16mm on the M8 for a 21mm view due to the smaller M8 sensor. Your CV lens is modern and it was designed for digital cameras, I assume. My combo gives interesting looking results. I need to study your results to get a better feel for the attempted SWC replication.
Click to expand...

When comparing against different aspect ratios I find it easiest to just look at vertical or horizontal FOV. Whichever one you aren't cropping In this case vertical would be best as you are optimizing vertical resolution and cropping horizontal to 1:1. On full frame and cropping to 1:1 you would need around a 16mm lens. A 15mm would be 77 degrees vertical and a 17mm would be about 70 degrees vertically.

If cropping vertically (for wider AR) then look at horizontal FOVs.

https://www.nikonians.org/reviews/fov-tables

Shawn
 
The key is that it's the SWC's very wide H and V angle of views coupled with the square aspect ratio, as well as the stunning performance of the Biogon 38mm, that give its wide angle photographs such a unique look. The 10mm on the CL and the Super-Elmar-R 15mm on the SL both seem to hit that look. Curiously, the WATE @16mm on the SL or M-D 262/M-P 240 technically performs better in some ways than the SER15 but doesn't quite have the same look as the Biogon no matter what I did to try to simulate the SWC.

I can fit the SER15 on the M-D but then it's purely scale focus ... I have to check the registration carefully for how well it hits the infinity mark at the set index. (The M-P 240 or an M10 series camera would be no problem due to the EVF option.)

I'm pretty jazzed that the Voigtländer 10mm hits it right on the CL. The slight additional FoV makes hand-held work a little less demanding because you can correct up to 2° of rotation and still come away with the SWC field of view. And the V10 is such a small, light weight lens too. 🙂

G
 
I used a 16mm (on FF) with an M8, which gives a cropped view of the 16mm lens. Isn't this view wide enough to "resemble" a SWC look? It is not a 21mm FF.


Godfrey said:

A 21mm lens on 35mm (FF) format provides the same diagonal, but completely different image proportions.
Width = 24 mm, Length = 36 mm, Diagonal = 43.2666 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
21.0 - 81.2026 - 59.4898 - 91.7021
So cropped square, 21mm is only going to give you 59x59 degrees, nowhere near the same feel as the SWC. The closest match is about a 16-17mm lens. On the CL's APS-C cropped square, the Voigtländer 10mm is quite close as well:
Width = 16 mm, Length = 16 mm, Diagonal = 22.6274 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
10.0 - 77.3196 - 77.3196 - 97.0541
 
The M8 format is 27x18 mm. Plugging the numbers into the AoV calculator I linked to above:

Width = 18 mm, Length = 27 mm, Diagonal = 32.45 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
16.0 - 80.3120 - 58.7155 - 90.8000
​

So you're making 59x59° squares, about the same as a 21mm lens on FF, not 72x72°+ squares. Whether that's close enough to 'resemble' the SWC look is a judgement call only you can make for yourself. 🙂

Personally, it's not close enough for me to be a Hasselblad SWC emulation. Of course, you can make great photographs with it! That's up to your creativity and vision. I've done wide squares with everything from a 35mm eqFOV down...

You're working with the Hologon 16, right? It's a lovely lens ... how closely its rendering approaches the SWC's Biogon 38 is an interesting question. I had one of them on a Contax G2 in the middle 1990s and found it fun but a bit difficult to work with due to the lens's very very short physical length—too easy to get my fingers into the edges of the frame!

G

raid said:
I used a 16mm (on FF) with an M8, which gives a cropped view of the 16mm lens. Isn't this view wide enough to "resemble" a SWC look? It is not a 21mm FF.

Godfrey said:

A 21mm lens on 35mm (FF) format provides the same diagonal, but completely different image proportions.

Width = 24 mm, Length = 36 mm, Diagonal = 43.2666 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
21.0 - 81.2026 - 59.4898 - 91.7021​

So cropped square, 21mm is only going to give you 59x59 degrees, nowhere near the same feel as the SWC. The closest match is about a 16-17mm lens. On the CL's APS-C cropped square, the Voigtländer 10mm is quite close as well:

Width = 16 mm, Length = 16 mm, Diagonal = 22.6274 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
10.0 - 77.3196 - 77.3196 - 97.0541​
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Love the look, Godfrey. I've always loved the look of SWC images although I've never owned one.

I've considered buying the Laowa 9mm to use on my Fuji bodies just to get something akin to the SWC angle of view. I know the optical quality is probably not as good as the Voigtlander but the cost is considerably less, especially for a specialty lens in my case.
 
As I intimated above, getting the SWC look is more than just the angle of view—but that doesn't stop you working with any lens to get lovely photographs. Getting the angle of view of an SWC is the first step, and if a lens produces pleasing rendering qualities that let you express your vision, go for it! 🙂

I did a bit of further testing of the Voigtländer 10mm yesterday, this time comparing it used on the Leica M-D and Leica CL. My gosh: how wide the field of view is on a Leica M FF camera! I'm pleased to report that its quality continues to shine even in that use: there's virtually no rectilinear distortion (parallel straight lines remain parallel straight lines across the field), there's a very small amount of lateral chromatic aberration (easily corrected with most image processing software, LR does it instantly), an even tinier amount of longitudinal CA (mostly insignificant even with tree leaves against bright sky), and even at corners and edges of that wide-wide view it holds good resolution and contrast; the wide-angle stretching doesn't allow the image to become smeary and indistinct. Very impressive, and so much like the Zeiss Biogon 38 of the SWC!

You do see the action of the lens profile supplied by LR much more strongly with a FF capture, and much of it has to do with the falloff from center to edge rather than anything else ... with the APS-C capture of the CL, most of the correction is outside the FoV. This really makes the V10 an ideal choice for ultra-ultra wide work on the CL, in my opinion.

Yes, it's a keeper. Hits all the numbers I was looking for just right. And saves me at least 4x its cost in buying alternative gear that I would otherwise hope would do as well... 😀

G
 
Answering the question, "What's the first thing I did after opening the Voigtländer 10mm box...?"


Leica CL + Voigtländer Hyper-Wide 10mm f/5.6
ISO 100 @ f/5.6 @ 1/10​

Just saw the Hasselblad announcement. Love the modular system ... updated 50mPixel back, new body, compatibility with XCD and V system lenses ... Yeah! Just what I like out of Hasselblad. Whether I buy one or not remains a mystery.

After all, I'm having too much fun with what I just bought to take much too seriously ... 😀

G
 
nlubis said:
The images looks great. Thanks for sharing, i should look into my own digital SWC.
Click to expand...

I will be trying to same. For anyone with a Sony A7 series the Voigtlander 15mm is just about the right focal length to give you just a little extra width.

Turn on
Grid Line -> Square Grid

and then use the inner 4x4 grid for 1x1 framing works well. On the A7RII the resulting crops are 28 megapixels.

The other version of that trick is to use the inner two rows of squares for a 3:1 AR. The 15mm works out to be a little wider than the 30mm on the XPAN in panoramic mode. (24 megapixel crops)

Shawn
 
Yes, Shawn: I used the Super-Elmar-R 15mm on FF cameras to achieve similar results. I used to have a user profile in my SL all set up for it, named simply "SWC Mode". 🙂

The challenge has been to obtain the same result with the Leica CL, due to its smaller format sensor. I'm pretty darn pleased with this Voigtländer 10mm!


Leica CL + Voigtländer 10mm f/5.6
ISO 3200 @ f/8 @ 1/80​

enjoy! G
 
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