Why no more "standard" lens from Cosina?

[Juan Valdenebro]

For M mount cameras use, Voigtländer has made:

40 1.4
50 3.5
50 2.5
50 2
50 1.5
50 1.1

That includes small and big lenses, slow and fast ones, aspherical and collapsible ones, even the sharpest 50...

What else are we waiting for?

Cheers,

Juan

 

[stupid leica]

Juan, i would love a copy of the original, black 50/2 Heliar- but they are pretty hard to come by! I've seen a ton of great shots from it.

semilog, i shoot wider than 3.5 a majority of the time, becuase i like to shoot hand-held in bad light.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Juan, i would love a copy of the original, black 50/2 Heliar- but they are pretty hard to come by! I've seen a ton of great shots from it.

semilog, i shoot wider than 3.5 a majority of the time, becuase i like to shoot hand-held in bad light.

Yes, those from the first kit are not easy to find... When I was looking for my black 28 3.5, jonmanjiro recommended me to write that I wanted to buy one in my signature (every post...)... He was right, and one day a forum member sent me a PM and told me he could sell me his lens...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[35mmdelux]

"The 50 Summilux ASPH might be even better (and it's certainly faster), but it's comparatively huge, heavy, and expensive"

IMO its neither huge nor heavy, but it is expensive ...and worth ever rupee.

 

[semilog]

Actually, there is another sharp, fast standard lens. The Leica-Panasonic 25 Summilux (50mm eq.) for 4/3 format is very, very good on center, wide open.

 

[stupid leica]

too bad that is a M4/3 lens, which is not the format real men shoot.



(j/k)

 

[aizan]

does the 40/1.4 nokton count?

50mm is now thought of as a "long normal", though not quite as old-fashioned as 55-58mm lenses. 50mm lenses also imply greater formality than what people typically look for in a normal lens, so the size and weight of the f/1.1 nokton is less disagreeable, and the extra speed helps it compete with fast wide normals in low light.

i don't expect to see a 50/1.4 soon, but it's still my favorite.

 

[stupid leica]

i love 50mm, but prefer SLR's for 50. On my RF i like 35 as a normal- but 50 is nice to have also

 

[semilog]

too bad that is a M4/3 lens, which is not the format real men shoot.

True. The format shot by real men would be "the biggest you can carry." (And if the biggest you can carry is an M9, you're no photographic Doc Savage....)

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

does the 40/1.4 nokton count?

50mm is now thought of as a "long normal", though not quite as old-fashioned as 55-58mm lenses. the nokton's extra speed helps it compete with fast wide normals in low light. 50mm lenses imply greater formality than what most people think of when they want a "normal" lens, so the size and weight is less disagreeable.

i don't expect to see a 50/1.4 soon, but it's still my favorite.

Not only it counts: it is more normal than 35's and 50's...

Nokton's focal length is a bit above 40 (around 43mm), and matches 24x36mm frame's diagonal... It is the normal lens... Sharp wide open, fast and small...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[shyoon]

The Nikkor S.C 50mm 1.4 is another option as well. Vintage, but from all reports it can still hold it's own against the other fast 50's. Optimised for up close and wide open so it's not an all-rounder, but in it's element, it is magic.

 

[rxmd]

Never liked the idea of paying twice as much for a "Zeiss" lens from the same factory the Voigtlanders are built but maybe thats just me...

It's just you. Other people don't mind what other products are made in a factory on other days and other assembly lines, as long as the product itself is fine.

There's like 100 different options for 50mm lenses out there. If used Leica lenses are fine with you, in all probability used CV lenses will be fine, too, so the complaint about the present Cosina lineup is misleading. Among other places, there are several in the classifieds here right now, including two Summicrons. All in all, if all you want is a 50mm lens, post a WTB ad somewhere and you can have one within two weeks.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

I own all of the CV 50's... I think... no I do not have the Collapsible Heliar 50/2... all are very good and some are superb, like the Nokton 50/1.5. I would like to see a very useable 50/2, not a Heliar, but a nice functional 50/2 with its own formula, could be tabbed like the 28/2 or be untabbed like the 50/1.5.

What I really wish Cosina would make was a very fast 75... preferable a f1.4. But that is off-topic.

 

[myM8yogi]

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

You cannot patent a colour. Amongst other things, patentability is dependent on a demonstrable scientific technical effect - a colour is aesthetic, or at best a simply display of information, both of which are specifically excluded from patent protection.

Were you thinking of a Trade Mark?

 

[semilog]

You cannot patent a colour... Were you thinking of a Trade Mark?

He patented the process by which a specific ultramarine pigment is suspended in a synthetic resin. If you see the results Klein obtained with this paint in person, it really is a remarkable, beautiful, and unusual color. Web photos cannot show the apparent color depth of the paint, and indeed they cannot show the color itself -- true IKB is outside the sRGB gamut.

 

[semilog]

Never liked the idea of paying twice as much for a "Zeiss" lens from the same factory the Voigtlanders are built but maybe thats just me...

Can you imagine paying more for a Canon L lens than one from their equivalent non-L line? Would you consider paying more for a Lexus than a Honda? For a BMW vs. a Mini?

We're talking about products with different designs that require different materials and processes to manufacture, and that are subjected to different quality control procedures. The more expensive products are not always better but very often, they are. Some non-L lenses are better for some applications than the comparable L lenses. A Lexus is definitely different in some respects from a Honda (I'd get a Honda, but I wouldn't dismiss the Lexus). You get to decide whether the differences matter to you.

The Planar is one of the better 50mm lenses ever produced, probably comparable to the current Summicron, and a new Planar is a hell of a lot less money than a new Summicron. In this comparison the Zeiss lens doesn't look bad at all. I currently shoot a Summicron (purchased used a dozen years ago), but if I were buying a new 50 today, it would be the Planar. Without question.

 

[Fujitsu]

Can you imagine paying more for a Canon L lens than one from their equivalent non-L line?

I dont think the assumption "L vs non L = Zeiss vs Cosina" is valid.

Is there a difference in build quality between a C-Sonnar and Nokton 50/1.5? Is the C-Sonnar a better performer? I dont think so.

 

[robbeiflex]

Is there a difference in build quality between a C-Sonnar and Nokton 50/1.5? Is the C-Sonnar a better performer? I dont think so.

There is certainly a build quality difference between the Nokton 50/1.5 and the Planar 50/2 that I'm sure applies across the CV and Zeiss ranges. The Planar is much more solid (must be the blue dot 😛). However, the Nokton 50/1.5 that I had was a great lens and I'm very happy with my current Nokton 35/1.4 too. Somewhere between budget constraints, image quality, and personal (subjective) preferences there is something for everyone. Re the OP: we certainly can't complain for lack of choice these days. 😀

Rob

 

[back alley]

cosina and zeiss have different design/marketing philosophies.

cosina designs a great lens and then backs it off a bit for cost savings while zeiss designs a great lens and stays with the materials, etc that make it more expensive.

 

[semilog]

I dont think the assumption "L vs non L = Zeiss vs Cosina" is valid.

Is there a difference in build quality between a C-Sonnar and Nokton 50/1.5? Is the C-Sonnar a better performer? I dont think so.

Some non-L lenses are optically as good or better than the L equivalents, just as the ZM lenses vary in performance. Go figure. The point is that different lenses are different. They use different glasses, the elements require different grinding procedures that vary in difficulty and time consumed, they must be assembled to different tolerances to be within spec., the elements are subjected to different coating or multicoating procedures, etc.

Both Cosina and Zeiss have made it clear that Cosina had to learn an entirely new set of QC procedures to manufacture the Zeiss lenses to Zeiss's specifications. For example, Erwin Puts has reported that many C-V lenses exhibit some decentering (in fact, only one C-V lens sample he's tested, the 50/3.5, showed no decentering), while with the ZM lenses little or no decentering was observed.

The point is that the ZM lenses and the C-V lenses are not the same. Different lenses don't cost the same amount to design and manufacture. You therefore should not expect different lenses to sell for the same price, even if they came out of the same factory.