Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Aspherical Photos

I love using 50mm lenses. I compared many years ago over 25 50mm lenses that many RFF members mailed me to include in the lens comparisons. Each lens had its own characteristic. I have been favoring Sonnar design lenses, and sharpness was not my main concern. This time, I was very curious about trying an APO lens. The Leica made APO Summicron costs around $9000, so the CV APO lens is a great bargain for what we are getting. I will use this fine lens for a while to figure out how to best use it.
 
Thus far, the B&W images look the most compelling. Nice tonality and resolution.
As for color, perhaps the wrong profiles were chosen here (or none at all) and picking an incompatible non-APO setting may, as Bill Blackwell suggested, introduce pre-set corrections that negate the apochromatic correction the lens itself applies. The colors OOC don't seem as striking as those from the Leica. Also, there's an interesting phenomenon with the Leica where peak contrast is at the plane of focus and lower in the OOF fore and backgrounds, isolating the subject even more dramatically.

Perhaps manually coding the lens as a 50 APO will help?
 
Well tongue in cheek... I think most of You are nuts ...though it is an amusing read. :D

The B&W are Astounding in this thread
Except Chris' last set of two photos post 102, 'picking up mirror and crossing)
Did not seem focus was spot on, kind of dull the B&W range


The color was fine in most photos...
all subjective to the Eye and one's tweaking
Glad I do not shoot lots of color because it's extremely difficult to please 'other eyes'

Well don't mind Me... but it looks like a fantastic lens for the $, for the Creative spirit to explore. ;)

Cheers~ H
 
Helen- completely agree. This is the sharpest and most highly corrected lens that I own, maybe with one exception. And that is a $40,000 lens made 35 years ago used in an optical computer, dedicated to doing Fourier Transforms. The optical engineer that designed that one worked for me, and explained how it was done.
 
I certainly appreciate seeing useful tips on camera settings that I could make . The M10 has no 50mm APO lens setting.
 
If we had a Leica Summicron APO, would it be used with an M body with Automatic lens selection? Could it be that we need new firmware that has in it a lens setting for this CV lens or similar?
 
Having the wrong Lens Profile can introduce errors if the applied corrections for distortion does not match the lens. After the first outing with this lens, I turned the profile off for the M9.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
Having the wrong Lens Profile can introduce errors if the applied corrections for distortion does not match the lens. After the first outing with this lens, I turned the profile off for the M9.
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I will try this next on the M10, and then I will use the lens on the M9 for comparison purposes.
 
nzeeman said:
do i hallucinate or i see pincushion distortion on that fireplace from raid and brick wall later?
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Not aiming at a target straight on can give you such an impression. I was sitting to the far left of the fireplace then, and I focused on the red throw and not the fireplace. Similar situation with the wall shot. I was testing the colors.
 
raid said:
If we had a Leica Summicron APO, would it be used with an M body with Automatic lens selection? Could it be that we need new firmware that has in it a lens setting for this CV lens or similar?
Click to expand...

I don’t think you can manually select a lens that was released after the advent of 6bit coding. Because all examples of that lens will be coded and not need manual selection (from Leica’s POV). So I doubt the 50 APO will ever be in the menu.

The way to get around it is to code the lens yourself. A paint marker (Posca works well) will let you code it with a bit of trial and error as to placement. I will probably code mine as a 50 APO when I get around to it, but as my only digital is a Monochrom, I really only code for exif as I don’t think the Monochrom applies any profiles - certainly not for color shading.
 
Brian, as someone who owns both this new APO and the recent Nokton II, how do you think they compare (or is it a bit apples & oranges)? Do you think a head-to-head comparison is in the cards at some point?
 
Tim Gray said:
I don’t think you can manually select a lens that was released after the advent of 6bit coding. Because all examples of that lens will be coded and not need manual selection (from Leica’s POV). So I doubt the 50 APO will ever be in the menu.

The way to get around it is to code the lens yourself. A paint marker (Posca works well) will let you code it with a bit of trial and error as to placement. I will probably code mine as a 50 APO when I get around to it, but as my only digital is a Monochrom, I really only code for exif as I don’t think the Monochrom applies any profiles - certainly not for color shading.
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Thanks, Tim.
I will try things out, and I will keep my eyes open here and also at other websites to see if any users of this new lens have tried out some settings or some modifications of any sort.
 
I thought the lens profiles only correct vignetting and color shading (color vignetting or Italian flag as it’s sometimes called). I did not think any other large color corrections occurred but I could be wrong, so I’m not sure if finding the right profile sill change much other than at the edges/corners.
 
astrobuoy said:
Brian, as someone who owns both this new APO and the recent Nokton II, how do you think they compare (or is it a bit apples & oranges)? Do you think a head-to-head comparison is in the cards at some point?
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When the weather cooperates- I will do this. Both lenses are in the bag.
Both are exceptional lenses, very different design goals. The APO-Lanthar is as close to optical perfection as I will ever need. The Nokton V2- fast, small, sharp.

As far as the APO-Lanthar working best with some sensors- remains to be seen. The sensor geometry and sensor stack are in the optical path. Newer camera apply more corrections. With lens detection turned off on the M9, I'm fairly sure the only corrections being applied is bad-pixel mapping.

But for now- back to "working on a piece of code", a very aggressive schedule. Sung to the tune of "Working on an Episode",

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01vU88ZBGpQ

Just substitute "Piece of Code" for "Episode".
 
Sonnar Brian said:
Both are exceptional lenses, very different design goals. The APO-Lanthar is as close to optical perfection as I will ever need. The Nokton V2- fast, small, sharp.
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The distinction you make is a part of the reason I'm curious! I love Sonnar lenses, which at least partly derive their character from their imperfections. To me the high resolution, smooth bokeh, and faithful color of the APO lens is apparent, but I think I may have an internal bias that equates perfect lenses with boring lenses. I'd be curious to test this, to get a sense of how this new lens renders subjects compared with the new Nokton, the C-Sonnar, or even the Summilux ASPH (it's a big ask, and I don't anticipate any such large head-to-head will be forthcoming soon, but it would be interesting to see even one of these compared!)
 
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