Why no more "standard" lens from Cosina?

[stupid leica]

a CV 50 Lux pre-asph would be great to go with my 35 Nokton Classic.

 

[ampguy]

Really

Really

That's not what Puts says, nor what my eyes see. None of my '70s and '80s glass has light leaks during long exposures or wobbly front ends.

Do CV even publish specs for the 50/3.5? The LTM Hexanon 50/2.4 mopped the floor with the 50/3.5 when I compared them.

The ZM 25 equal to a 28 Elmarit or M-Hex 28/2.8 from what I've seen, no better at all.

Show me some photos that prove otherwise.

To claim that the ZM lenses (or, for that matter, some of the C-V lenses) are not up to the optical standards of '70s and '80s Japanese lenses is just silly. The C-V 50/3.5 is by all accounts one of the best, if not the best, 50 ever made. Ditto the ZM 25's and the 50 Planar, and both of the 35 Biogons. For sheer optical performance, any of these lenses equals or betters Leica lenses of any generation.

For example: at f/2 the 35/2 Biogon is just a hair softer than the Summicron ASPH. But by f/4 that gap is done, and across the board the ZM has less field curvature, less geometric distortion, and less astigmatism than any of the current Leicas. In fact, it probably has less geometric distortion than any 35 mm focal length full-frame lens ever manufactured.

 

[Tom A]

Following this thread - and also shooting with only Nikon RF cameras this month - I have come to the conclusion that most. if not all, lenses does credible job.
In 50+ years of photography I can probably count on two hands, shots that were rejected due to inferior lens quality, but garbage cans filled with negatives and prints due to my screw-ups - bad focus, messed up development, overly optimistic light metering etc - and lets nog forget electronic flashes throwing fits ( a garbage cans of it's own and a big one too)
Modern lenses are astounding in their quality, be it Leica,Zeiss, Cosina, Konica etc. It all depends what you want out of it - and, how good you are at getting it!!!!!
July as Nikon Rf Month has involved lenses from 1931 to 2007, lenses made in Germany, Russia, Japan etc ( about 40-43 all in all). Some shots have had a low contrast (1931 Zeiss Tessar 50f3.5), some had focussing coupling problem (135/3.5 Nikkor) - but they all did what I expected them to do - within the parameters I assigned to them.
As for build quality - every manufacturer builds to the highest standard the sale price can bear - if they didn't - they are in the wrong business and deserve to fail!
Leica has 90 years of experience in building lenses - and should by now be perfect! Check their track record on some of the latest ones, sticky "floating elements" on 50f1.4 Asph, complete flare-outs with 35f1.4 Asph etc.
Zeiss have a minor problem with too thin retaining rings on some lenses - you need to check and re-tighten them occasionally - but the same thing goes for Leica Super Angulons, Summicron 35f2 IV and Summicron 50f2's ( with the added feature of having aperture blade drives dis-integrating!!
Cosina had a problem with de-centering on some of their lenses - this was a problem that become visible with the M8/M9 primarily. The later lenses are better in this respect - but not perfect ( and none of the current manufacturers are).
Yes. I expect much better quality control from a 21f1.4 Summilux @ $7000 than from a Zeiss 21/2.8 @ $1300 or a VC 21/4 @ $500 - and if I spent $7K - I would be truly pissed to find a decentered element!!!!!
I probably have 70-80 lenses in my "arsenal" - about 1/2 are M or LTM lenses and the other 1/2 Nikon Rf mount. There are 1 or 2 that I am sceptical about the performance, n early Summar 50f2 and a Nikkor 35f2.5 - both have a tendency to flare a bit. I know which ones they are and if I use them I take this into account.
As for which is the sharpest lens of them all. Using fine grain film like Tech Pan/Fuji Minicopy II I did some tests a couple of years ago. Highest resolution, Heliar 50f3.5, sharpest "appearance" Summilux 50f1.4 Asph ( more due to the high contrast than "absolutes" in l/mm.
Best medium tele - 75f2 Summicron, followed by the Apo Lanthar 85/90 f3.5.
Best medium wide angle: Zeiss Biogon 35f2.8 ZM, followed by Leica Summicron 35f2 Asph and the Nikon 35f1.8 in its 2005 version!
Best wide angle: Zeiss ZM Biogon 21f4.5.

Do I only use these lenses - No. I use them all, some with warts and all - and some without. If I am shooting trix @400 - there is no practical way of differentiate between the "Leaders" and the "runner ups".

Erwin Puts is a friend of ours - and yes we do discuss lenses, cameras etc when we meet - but he knows my interest in "micro contrast" and MTF curves - so the conversation usually runs along these lines "Hmm, yeah that is a good lens - what are we having for dinner and what should we drink with it!!!"

As for Hexanon 50f2.4 being better than Heliar 50f3.5. Had both, kept the Heliar's. Only thing I remember about the Hexanon was that it was better than the 50f2.8 Elmarit II at close focus!!

I think the principle of testing is valid - as it will tell you how good a lens is in a test!
The trick is to try them in "real life" - and throw away all the stuff that can be attributed to your own mistakes and screw-ups before judging the camera/lens - and this goes for any brand camera and lens.

 

[semilog]

^---- can't argue with any of that, though I never personally had serious flare problems with my own copy of the 35 Summilux ASPH...

 

[semilog]

That's not what Puts says, nor what my eyes see. None of my '70s and '80s glass has light leaks during long exposures or wobbly front ends.

I've seen plenty of Nikkors with sloppy mechanics. My beloved 35/2 AIS was one of them. It was a fine lens for practical photography, though, and it served me well for 15 years.

The ZM light leak issue is not an optical problem, but a mechanical one: the placement of a screw hole. It is trivial to fix with a drop of black silicone, and it has not been noticed by most ZM users, many of whom are extremely critical. It is of course a real problem for some lenses used on some bodies. I assume that Zeiss and Cosina are looking into it.

Do CV even publish specs for the 50/3.5?

Not that I've seen.

Puts said it was better than the current Elmar, and Popular Photography said it was as good or better than any lens they had ever tested. In the post above, Tom A. says it's rather good, too. Say what else you will about them, but the Pop Photo lens tests were generally done to a very high standard, they still are, and Pop Photo tells you what parameters they are measuring. Importantly, Pop Photo still tests lenses directly on an optical bench, not lens-sensor combinations. Almost no one else does that, these days.

The LTM Hexanon 50/2.4 mopped the floor with the 50/3.5 when I compared them. The ZM 25 equal to a 28 Elmarit or M-Hex 28/2.8 from what I've seen, no better at all.

That's fine, but are you telling us something about the lenses, or about your own technique? I'm not just being cantankerous. If a given lens is not better for your work than another, you may value different properties than other people do.

What optical properties are important to you? Flare? Contrast? Microcontrast? Geometric distortion? Lack of astigmatism? Spectral transmission efficiency? Absence of coma? Speed? Compactness? Durability? Abence of color fringing? Performance at the corners on a solid-state sensor? Lack of focus shift? Sharpmess on center? In the corners? Absence of vignetting? Bokeh at wide apertures? At middle apertures? I am not sure which, if any, of these parameters go into calculating your "floor-mopping" score.

In any case, this has little to do with what I was getting at above, which is that the ZM lenses are not necessarily more expensive simply due to the presence of a blue label. There are good reasons to think that, on average, they're a bit more expensive to manufacture than the lower-priced C-V lenses, and their optical properties support this interpretation.

Whether those specific optical properties make any difference to your photography, or whether you personally should buy those lenses, are different questions entirely.

 

[semilog]

One other point: in the '80s and much of the '90s, there was no internet, yet. Plenty of defective lenses were sold, but you mostly didn't hear about them, because there were only magazines and friends, and maybe local camera clubs, but no internet forums. Even on the usenet NG's, the number of people was small.

Back then, bad news just didn't travel as fast. These days? A few bad samples out of a few thousand, and we've all heard about it within a day or a week or a month.

 

[flip]

I think Mr. Kobayashi LOVES wide angle lenses. 😉

I think he knows his market. Japanese use a lot of RFs and much of the shooting environment in Japan is in close quarters.

 

[rxmd]

Lately, in my experience with several dozen CV and Zelss lenses, CV and Zeiss Japan lenses are not up to the qualtiy, feel build, and optical excellence of either '70s and '80s Japanese optics, nor Leica optics of any generation.

It's fine for you to have your opinion; it would be nice to know your methodology, though.

There are a lot of people who walk around for a while who have been collecting lots of gear and spend part of their spare time shooting back yards, cats, kids, living rooms and dogs. Sometimes they put on one lens, then another. And quite naturally they liked some cat picture better than another dog picture. And for some reason they then call it a comparison or a lens test. That's basically fine, everybody has their own ways to spend their time and money and is entitled to their opinion, even when that opinion is the photographic equivalent of "Wiener dogs are better than Maine Coons".

It's just that when I'm interested in informed opinions to make a buying decision, or when it comes to sweeping comparative statements about lens makers as a whole, I do begin to look for the base behind those opinions. And then I'd hope to find either a few years or decades of intensive day-to-day experience behind those statements, the kind a professional would have, or at least, when it's amateurs and collectors doing tests of their gear, some kind of comparative methodology.

 

[amateriat]

Picasso never had a red period, and Yves Klein never patented a shade of red.

Thus, blue is a better color than red and the Planar is a better lens than the Summicron*.

Ahem...Konica went with red for all its M-Hexanons, with relatively little fanfare.

Speaking of Brand K, I think their 50 is marvy. Yes, I bought mine (in the Hexar Kit, along with body & flash) after buying my first body and 28 M-Hex, but it gets lots of love. Used prices, of course, are rising. And don't even talk about NOS prices.


- Barrett

 

[semilog]

Ahem...Konica went with red for all its M-Hexanons, with relatively little fanfare.

Speaking of Brand K, I think their 50 is marvy. Yes, I bought mine (in the Hexar Kit, along with body & flash) after buying my first body and 28 M-Hex, but it gets lots of love. Used prices, of course, are rising. And don't even talk about NOS prices.


- Barrett

I have no opinion on the Konica stuff, though the 1.2 lenses look pretty darned snazzy. Send me your 50, and I'll be willing to post an opinion about it.

😀