Wide angles on R-D1....

R

RML

Guest
I love the 25mm on my Bessa R and now I want a similar VOF on my R-D1. S I'm glaning secretly at the 15mm Voigtlander, and even at the 12mm.

I think the 15 would be sufficient for me, and would have the added benefit that I can use my 25mm auxiliary VF.

But I hear the vingetting of the 12mm is less pronounced, so now I'm in doubt whether to get the 12 or the 15.

Can someone provide examples of shots taken with the 12 and the 15 so I can see which would suffice for my needs?
And how pronounced is the vignetting of the 12 and the 15 anyway?
 
Thanks Sevres,

I was going to mention the same. There are examples of vignetting for all of the lenses tested there.

Cheers,

Sean
 
OK, the vignetting is sorted. I'm still not convinced about using the 12, though it does show less vignetting.
But how about some real life shots, preferably comparing the 12 and the 15? I'm very interested in seeing the difference between the two.
 
I remember there was a Japanese website with loads of examples of many different lenses. I can't find it anymore. Anyone knows the URL? And other websites would be welcome too. :)
 
If you scroll down further in that article, you'll see center and corner crops from each from a train station picture.

Sean
 
Leica M 21 mm Elmarit

Leica M 21 mm Elmarit

I like the angle of this lense. I use it with one of the D series viewfinders from Cameraquest.

Ken
 
Hi Ken, nice shot. Very Winogrand. Was it the non ASPH 21mm and did you shoot it without the hood?

I have the non-ASPH 21mm Elmarit and also have the corrected finder, but I find myself using the 15mm Heliar more. Smaller and wider.

Regards, Charlie
 
I cannot find the CV 15mm shots I took, but I remember that I finally gave up using the 15mm, because I had to over-exposure by 1/3 or 2/3 f-stops in order to get enough light into the image corners.
Without doing so, I ended up having very much noise, thin contrast and poor colour saturation in the corners. :(
Correct, the result of this were burnt-out highlights in the image centre... :bang:

My choice of a wide angle lens for the RD-1 was a painfull and expensive way:

At first, I had a CV 21mm. Very sharp, but extreme vignetting, not only in the corners, but along the left and right image bounds as well. Impossible to correct. :bang:

Then the CV 15mm, quite sharp but still heavy vignetting, with the problem mentioned above. :bang:

Panicking, I bought an M 21mm non-asph. Very painfull experience, the lens showed very little vignetting, but resolution was extremly poor compared to the CV 21mm, even in the image centre :bang: :bang: :bang:

Finally, I ended up having a M 24mm asph and the CV 12mm.

The 24mm asph is much sharper thatn the M 21mm non-asph, but shows some yellow-blue aberration towards the corners at f2.8. At f4 this is gone, and resolution gains as well, especially in the corners.

The CV 12mm resolution and contrast could be better, but the FOV is spectacular. I love the pictures I took with my Nikon F2AS & 20mm/2.8 Nikon AIS, and I very much missed the spectacular perspectives of a true wide angle after I switched to the RD-1. The CV 12mm is a good remedy for this.

(By the way, I tried the Nikon 20mm on a Kodak DSLR/n recently, the lens is crap, believe me... the RD-1 &CV 12mm 6Mpix easily outperform the Kodak 14 Mpix 20mm, I was shocked how bad the 20mm was)

Treated the right way (though only possible in CS2 Adobe RAW), most of the flaws of the CV 12mm can be corrected.

Here's an example of how vignetting and aberration of the CV 12mm can be corrected.

added: (sorry, I couldn't upload the corrected photo :bang: , please see next post)
 
Last edited:
ok, here's the corrected version (with adobe raw).

of course, shooting jpegs with the CV 12mm won't be a good idea (even if your rd-1 has less hot-pixels than mine...)
 
It's really the 12 or the 15 I'm opting for.

I already have a 25 and on the R-D1 its FoV isn't nearly wide enough for what I want. So, keep it coming, guys an' gals! Show me them pics!
 
Dmihajlo, your "review" is the user experience I need. Sorry to hear you had to learn the hard and expensive way.

But your tale goes a bit against the story I get from Sean's lens review, so I'm looking for more 12mm/15mm lens users' experiences.
 
-> But your tale goes a bit against the story I get from Sean's lens review <-

RML, I don't think so. As I said, the CV 15mm shows more contrast & details than the CV 12mm, even at the image centre, but the 12mm shows less vignetting (Sean's review says the same).

Vignetting of the 15mm won't be a problem when you use the lense only for low contrast scenes (like the snowy field in the review) and/or can live with some vignetting (wich I couldn't). Shooting a scene with high contrast in bright daylight with the CV 15mm will require the mentioned +1/3 - +2/3 EV correction to conserve image details in shadowy parts of the scene, in the image corners. If some highlights happen to fall into the image centre, then this will be a good-bye to over-exposuring, and maybe to the 15mm for that scene...

The CV 21mm didn't work for me. I was able to correct vignetting in the image corner, but got very poor contrast and colour saturation in areas along the left and right image bounds (approx. 300-400 pixels broad) . If you can live with this (which I couldn't), the 21 mm is excellent.

Please note that the photos of all three CV wide angle lenses (12, 15, 21mm) will show much better details in the image corners when you correct the for red-green aberration (though only possible with Adobe RAW. The photos in Sean's review are not corrected for this, (as Epson RAW does not offer this feature). At least, it does wonders for the CV 12mm photos....

After all, the CV 12mm FoV is really great fun...

Best

Dragan
 
I think you sold me on the CV 12 ;) i havent even figured out how to use the epson plug-in anyways i just use the CS raw plug-in, which works juuuuusssst fine. sooo pending i can find a good price on one, i may be in the neighborhood.

because, i dont think i want to sell my 35 summicron ASPH. im rather fond of the abscence of vignetting ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom