Voigtländer 2/50 APO-M mount! PREORDER $999

[james.liam]

I do believe that the APO-Summicron is best matched to the CCD based M Monochrom. Peter Karbe said so.

It makes no business sense to build out a pricey lens for 1 single camera knowing that its replacement was less than 24 months away.
Having said that, a direct comparison to the VM will be very fascinating and perhaps troublesome for Leica.

I prefer CV over the "Made in China" lenses as I know the address of contact number of CV if there are QC issues, say. The $999 is solid. We will not find the same lenses for sale in some other country for $2000 suddenly. The Summicron V1 replica is a wonderful lens, but a CV lens for same cost would be more reliable.

1+ ^^^

 

[raid]

The Pentax lens is from 50 years ago. It still gets a high price- one on Ebay sold for $4800 about 2 years ago. It uses Calcium Fluorite.


I think it was around $1400 when new- 50 years ago.

Another reason why it is just amazing that Cosina can bring this new lens out at $999. Maybe I should run reflective tape down my fencepost to do the CA test.

A few RFF members had the experience of having Peter Karbe give us a 75 minute talk on the history of Leice lenses (in Wetzlar). He told us that Leica lenses are designed to be used wide open whenever possible. I wish that I had asked him about the APO lenses by Leica then.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It makes no business sense to build out a pricey lens for 1 single camera knowing that its replacement was less than 24 months away.
Having said that, a direct comparison to the VM will be very fascinating and perhaps troublesome for Leica.




1+ ^^^

The APO Summicron came out at the same time as the M240. Peter Karbe stated that it was best on the M9 Monochrome.

Business Sense: sometimes you let the optical engineers make something to show off talent and the company's capabilities. I read that there are 30 known copies of the Pentax 85/4.5 Ultra-Achromat. 20+ years ago I had some fine optical engineers that worked for me. I loved to watch them work. Sometimes you gave the go-ahead for making something to keep them happy.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Got my curiosity going. Picking up a strand of white Christmas LED lights to run down a tape measure. I've done Bokeh Ball shots before. Now it will be Dispersion Balls. It's going to be a cold and "stuck at home" Winter, good time for some lens tests.

 

[james.liam]

The APO Summicron came out at the same time as the M240. Peter Karbe stated that it was best on the M9 Monochrome.

Business Sense: sometimes you let the optical engineers make something to show off talent and the company's capabilities. I read that there are 30 known copies of the Pentax 85/4.5 Ultra-Achromat. 20+ years ago I had some fine optical engineers that worked for me. I loved to watch them work. Sometimes you gave the go-ahead for making something to keep them happy.

can

Interesting. I guess the geniuses must have their play. One thing to turn out a $2000 lens few can use or buy, it’s another to indulge the engineers for an $8300 optic with the same in mind. At the time of the M240 release the M9M was the highest resolving sensor Leica had and best able to reveal the true resolving power. If you have some evidence that the CMOS sensor and its micro-lens array degrades the Leica 50 APO images, I would love to see it.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Someone would have to send me that combination to test.

At this point, I have the M Monochrom and M9. When they can no longer be repaired, I'll pick up an M10M or whatever else is around. Leica pushed off bringing out a Monochrome camera for years. The Kodak engineers wanted to make an M8 Monochrome. Leica sold far more M Monochrom cameras than they thought, followed by the M246 and M10M.

What would be interesting for anyone with CCD and CMOS based Leica cameras: use the lens with the lens coding turned off and compare with the M9 and M Monochrom with the lens coding turned off. That precludes the firmware from applying corrections, and gives a much better "picture" of what is occurring optically.

 

[raid]

I am using the M9 first, and then I give its buffer time to recover as I use the M10. The M8 is not used often anymore.

 

[WJJ3]

The M9 I bought from Helen (Eric’s old camera) is still doing great. I just sent it up to Tokyo for sensor cleaning and checkup, both of which are performed free by Leica in Ginza.

 

[pedaes]

I do believe that the APO-Summicron is best matched to the CCD based M Monochrom. Peter Karbe said so

When the APO-Summicron came out the M9 Monochrom was the highest resolution M sensor (because of lack of Bayer filter) Leica had at the time. This is the only reason it was suggested this camera would show benefits best. We know Leica never discusses future production plans so wrong to think move to CMOS sensors was not known within company.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It would be interesting to see a test of the APO-Summicron on the M10M and M246 with lens coding turned off, and on the CCD based M Monochrom with the Coding turned off. The new APO-Lanthar was designed for newer CMOS based cameras. I've read comments that the new lens is much bigger than the APO-Summicron. This was most likely done to improve performance with CMOS based sensors.

With the 7Artisans 50/1.1 on a Sony A7R-II (BSI CMOS), Philip Reeves reviews states vignetting is a "whopping 4.1 F-Stops" wide-open. On the M Monochrom, it is 2.5 F-Stops wide-open. That is a factor of 3 difference in gathering light at the corners. Optimizing a lens for a CMOS sensor versus film or CCD requires change to the formula, this is one reason why lenses have grown in size over the last decade.

 

[raid]

How will the CV 50/2 APO-Lanthar perform on a CCD camera? If it is optimized for a CMOS sensor, will it be better or worse than on a CCD sensor?

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The CCD based camera does a better job of picking up light coming in at steep angles than a CMOS based sensor. It is efficient with light coming in at shallow angles, will do well with this lens. This lens will also do well with film.

 

[raid]

So a CCD sensor will work better with a wide angle lens where light comes in at a steep angle than a CMOS sensor. It should not differ much with a 50mm lens. Right?

 

[james.liam]

The CCD based camera does a better job of picking up light coming in at steep angles than a CMOS based sensor. It is efficient with light coming in at shallow angles, will do well with this lens. This lens will also do well with film.

Is that a proven attribute? Reading through Lloyd Chambers’ reviews, the UWA ZM lenses all showed “Italian flag” color shifts and smearing in the corners. He could not recommend the 15, 18 or 21C for the M9.

 

[raid]

Could it be that such UWA lenses perform even worse with the M240?

 

[shawn]

The CCD based camera does a better job of picking up light coming in at steep angles than a CMOS based sensor. It is efficient with light coming in at shallow angles, will do well with this lens. This lens will also do well with film.

Do you have a source for that? I see more color shift on CCD than on CMOS. And that isn't including the poor uniformity on the CCD cameras.

Shawn

 

[shawn]

Could it be that such UWA lenses perform even worse with the M240?

The issue with the angle of light rays has at least as much to do with the sensor filter stack than with sensor technology. That is why you can see obvious differences on two different CMOS cameras with wide angle lenses.

Shawn

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Do you have a source for that? I see more color shift on CCD than on CMOS. And that isn't including the poor uniformity on the CCD cameras.

Shawn

I have the data sheets from the Kodak KAF-18500 and KAF-10500. I also downloaded the Dalsa data sheets when available.

The Philip Reeve review of the 50/1.1 7Art lens shows 4.1 F-Stop drop with the Sony A7-RII, a BSI CMOS sensor. The drop is 2.5 F-stops on the CCD based M Monochrom. The Philip Reeve website shows a 3 F-Stop drop on the 35/1.2 Nokton V3. I have the V1- nothing like this on the M9 and M Monochrom.

Data Sheet for the 12MPixel CMOSIS Sensor- is this the one used in the new Pixii RF camera?

Average QE for incoming angle in it:

https://ams.com/documents/20143/360...3-00.pdf/d27f4643-e11b-86f9-4e09-ec055cb4c8e1

Worst case is given:

https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/1053507/ONSemiconductor/KAF-18500/1

 

[shawn]

I have the data sheets from the Kodak KAF-18500 and KAF-10500. I also downloaded the Dalsa data sheets when available.

The Philip Reeve review of the 50/1.1 7Art lens shows 4.1 F-Stop drop with the Sony A7-RII, a BSI CMOS sensor. The drop is 2.5 F-stops on the CCD based M Monochrom. The Philip Reeve website shows a 3 F-Stop drop on the 35/1.2 Nokton V3. I have the V1- nothing like this on the M9 and M Monochrom.

The Sony's issue is the filter stack, not the sensor type. I've done side by side with the same lens on the Sony vs the M240 and the differences in some wide angles are obvious. And they are both CMOS. This is well known.

Not exactly a same comparison looking at CFA vs non-CFA when the IR filter is also likely thinner on the Monochrom because it doesn't have to worry about IR color ****s.

Try shooting the Nokon on the M9 wide open on a white wall or better yet a white poster board outside focused at infinity. Very likely you will see vignetting there as well as the lack of uniformity on the CCD.

Shawn

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I expect the performance of the M9 to follow the data sheet, see the link.

The CMOSIS data sheets include sensor response versus angle: they are not as efficient as the M9.

CMOSIS never published the data sheet for the sensor used in the M240.