Performance CV lenses

M

Magnus

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Where on the web can I find test results on the various CV lenses ?

From what I have read here on the forum they must be pretty good, but I would like to see/read comparisons to CZ G-series lenses and Leica Cron's for these are lenses I know. .... is there such an info-base ?
 
Great site Sockeyed, nice report too.... looking at 35mm the Leica comes out nicest to my taste, but then considering the price difference the CV's look pretty good.
 
Magnus you can also find test results forsome of the CV lenses here: www.imx.nl/

Popular Photography tested the 35/2.5, 35/1.7, 50/1.5, & 75/2.5 back in July, 2000. They also tested the 12 & 15, ; you can find the dates at www.popphoto.com . . . Test reports can be ordered from Pop Photo or you can see if your library has back issues.
 
Being an ex-English professor I have a brain fart when it comes to numbers. Can someone just give me some qualitative stuff about, say, the 35/2.5 and the 75/2.5? If they're no good, that's one thing. If they're almost as good as CZ, that's another thing. I suspect that latter will be good enough.

Ted
 
Numbers are numbers and really are meaningless if you don't know the limits of the test or like the images taken with a lens. I think the best quantification of the quality of a lens it to go into the galleries, look for images that you like, and see what equipment was used to make them. Hopefully you will notice a couple stand outs quickly. Look at the case of the J8. I bet on MTF testing it would come out as a dog by modern standards, but it will get a positive vote by most on this forum for the impressive quality of the images it produces.
 
lens testing is much like lens bokeh to me, not really all that important.

only a gear head would care about these things.
the viewer of a photograph will either be impacted by the photograph or left feeling empty.

i have yet to show a print to a non shooter and have them say, "nice shot but the corners look a bit soft" or "how can you stand those harsh out of focus areas?"

and i'm not knocking gear heads btw as i consider myself a semi gear head.

joe
 
It's all so terribly subjective as well. I have a thing for the old classic Tessar design. Lenses designed that way have a certain look that can't be quantified by any test I'm aware of. The only thing to do is what photographers have been doing since the 1840's - burn film, more film, and still more film with as many different lenses as you can (rent them if you have that option) and see what works for you.

I never could understand the attraction of wide angles, as an example, until I bought my CV SC mount Skopar 35/2.5. That lens made me begin to understand what could be. I'll still be learning what it is capable of until the day before my son inherits it... 😀

Hope this helps.

William
 
Thanks, both of you. You've reinforced my notion that the final image is what matters, and whether or not it evokes some sort of emotional response from the viewer.

A month or so I had a loaner Kiev 4A with a Helios 103 (53/1.8?). Despite fumbling about with a very strange camera (coming from Maxxum 7's, Spotmatics, etc.) I got a couple of very nice photos with that lens. The next day I picked up my Yashica GSN and it felt like cutting edge technology.
 
William: I've got the same 35/2.5 only in M39 mount. I had to go to Gandy's site to figure out what SC meant. So I assume it is on your Keiv 4A?

I had to stop for a moment when you said you couldn't understand the attraction of wide angles until you got the 35/2.5. Having used 28, 24, and 20 focal length lenses for so many years I didn't perceive the 35 as a wide angle. However, when I look through the viewfinder on my Bessa R and then through the viewfinder on my Yashica GSN....oh, yes, it is indeed a wide-angle, and probably a good one at that. Apparently your SC lens and my M39 lenses are optically the same (7 elements in 5 groups).

I have found the wide angles indispensible for architectural work (inside and outside) and for other situations where the 50mm doesn't cover the field you want to cover.

They can also become addictive. In my ex-Maxxum system I actually gave away the 50mm to my daughter when I realized I hadn't used it in 3 or 4 years. And of course, a week later regretted it when I needed it and discovered I had nothing between 24mm and 135mm.
 
tedwhite said:
William: I've got the same 35/2.5 only in M39 mount. I had to go to Gandy's site to figure out what SC meant. So I assume it is on your Keiv 4A?
Click to expand...
Yep, first on it and now even more so on my Kiev 5 where the VF is the FOV of a 35mm.
I had to stop for a moment when you said you couldn't understand the attraction of wide angles until you got the 35/2.5.
Click to expand...
For me it is a huge wide angle. My first rangefinder was a Yashica GSN and I had a bitch of a time framing with it at first. When I switched to Kievs I did like I did with SLRs and stuck to 50 to 135mm focal lengths overall. I still dearly love my Sonnar 50/2. Jupiter 9 and Jupiter 11 but the simple reality is that I can look at a scene and actually see it in 35mm now that I have experiance with a good lens.
They can also become addictive.
Click to expand...

This is serious truth. I expect that once I get everything paid down, I'll start looking for an SC 21/4 to add to the mix.

William
 
I'm going to buy the Bessa L and the 21/4 and just leave it on the L body. The fact that it's rangefinder coupled means I could also use it on the Bessa R, but a lens like that hardly needs RF focusing.
 
Yeah, it does have an awe inspiring DOF, doesn't it? I look at it from the perspective that there is a 21, 25, 28 and a 35 in the series for SC mount and since I already have a 35, I'd probably have the most fun by going as wide as I can at that point. Not a whole lot of dif between 35 and 28 or even 25 really. But by the time you hit 21? It will take me for-bleeping-ever to learn it, but at least I'll have some fun in the process. To me that's more important than a lot of things.

William
 
Buying a 21mm takes a leap of faith, which can be mitigated somewhat by looking at a lot of 21mm photos! A standard of excellence well worth looking over is Alan Soon's shots of Istanbul, all with the Voigtlander 21/4. It's been posted here before, but here 'tis again... http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=322503

I was just thinking about this myself, and even having experience with the medium format equivalent, I thought long and hard about it before finally buying a used 21mm yesterday. There's just something fascinating in a 90° angle of view; it's been a popular super-wide for decades...
 
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