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Archive 2014 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r

  
 
lostinjapan
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


Hi All,

I know this has been beaten to death, but I have been thinking about jumping to Leica for the past couple of years but never got around to it, but managed to get a couple of M-mount lenses. Since getting my A7r back last year my Canon 5D3 has essentially sat unused except for a couple of events or I am beginning to debate what to do, but I digress.

I really have been wanting to see just how bad or good the m-mount lenses feel apart on the A7r, actually I was surprised at how well they actually did. I thought I would share the results of my testing might be of interest to some.

The lenses that I tested on the A7r, are the Leica 21mm ASPH 2.8 Elmarit and the Carl Voightlander 50mm 1.5 Nokton with a Metabones Adapter vs the Carl Zeiss 21mm ZE Distagon and the 50mm Makro Planar with the Metabones III Adapter.

The test scene, being completely unscientific in nature was an abandoned factory down the road from my house. The camera was tripod mounted with a Arca Swiss Z1 bullhead and battery grip was used to help dampen any vibration. Not particularly photogenic location, but enough for my test. The camera was set on Aperture priority. Post processing was only matching the white balance and applying sharpening in Photoshop via Nik sharpener. I shot at every full f-stop from wide open to f/16, though I am only posting wide open and f/11 here


First up were the 50mms the scene below. The focus point was the window frame. Focused zoomed in to max.

Af F/2 the 50MP was the clear winner, the Zeiss MP. Sharper in the both the centre and the edge as you can see below. But what surprised me was starting somewhere around f6.3 the results started to reverse the CZ was sharper and showed more details. Below the F/11 crops show the difference. I was surprised at the sharpness of the Nokton as well as the fine details where the zeiss falls apart. Since I shoot landscapes usually at f/8 and f/11 the voightlander wins here for me. Which was a surprise, I had expected the zeiss to wash the floor with the voightlander.

Below is the test scene and a couple of crops.






Full scene shot on the CV50 Nokton







CV 50 at f2 center







CV50 at f2 corner.







Zeiss 50 MP at f/2 center







Zeiss 50 MP at f/2 corner




Jun 29, 2014 at 10:47 AM
lostinjapan
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


Continued at f/11





CV50 at f/11 center







CV 50 at f/11 cornor







50 MP at f/11 center







50 MP at f/11 corner




Jun 29, 2014 at 10:50 AM
lostinjapan
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


Continued below.

The other test I tried Leica 21mm ASPH 2.8 Elmarit vs CZ 21mm 2.8 Distagon ZE. This test proved to be a little harder. I was convinced going into this that the Leica was going to loose by a large margin, surprisingly it didn’t. At all apertures the Leica vignettes, I didn't use corner fix, etc just the radial tool in LR , though I am sure corner fix or the flat field plug in would do a better job of removing that and the slight colour cast. Also, the Leica is just a bit wider than the CZ. Even with the same white balance settings the the Leica renders a bit cooler than the Zeiss. The zeiss suffers that strange moustache distortion whereas the Leica has almost none. The Distagon also exhibited flare in several shots where no exists with the Elmarit.

At F/2.8 at the centre of the frame, the Leica is sharper by quite a bit. At the edges, as I suspected the Zeiss wins here. But not as much as I had thought, but the Distagon did win.


At f/11 it gets harder. The centre of the frame the Elmarit still wins but the CZ wins at the edges but I am not sure how much that would matter except at the largest print sizes I make, which are 16x20.





Whole scene on take on the Zeiss 21mm Distagon







CZ21 af f/2.8 center







CZ 21 at f/2.8 corner







Leica 21mm af f/2.8 Center







Leica 21mm af f/2.8 Corner




Jun 29, 2014 at 11:00 AM
lostinjapan
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


Final one!







21 Distagon f/11 center







21mm Distagon f/11 corner







Leica 21mm f/11 center







Leica 21mm f/11 corner




Jun 29, 2014 at 11:03 AM
lostinjapan
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r



As much as I love the ziess lenses, I am feeling pretty decent about selling them the 5d3 and moving toward a Leica, though I would keep my Canon Tilt Shifts while also keeping the A7r for when long exposure and for use with the tilt shifts, it would do a pretty good job of backing up the M. Though I am going to sit on that for a little longer.

Any thoughts or comments would be great. I do plan on redoing the 21mm test using the Flat Field Plugin at some point before I make a final decisionw.

Rgrds and sorry for the long winded topic, thought it might be of interest to some.

Ryan



Jun 29, 2014 at 11:04 AM
Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


The only thought/ comment I have is that after testing many alt lenses on the A7r, the best ones seem to peak at around F4. By F8, per pixel sharpness and detail has softened noticeably (pretty noticeable also when using peaking and noting the drop in contrast). If I can't get what I want out of a lens by F8 on the A7r for traditional landscape type subject matter(across the frame sharpness/ corner to corner at distance), I feel I'm giving up any actual resolution advantage from the 36MP's. Generally, F8 will cover most dof needs for landscape with a moderate wide or wider anyway. My favorite alt lenses thus far have been those that are tack sharp in the center at 2.8 and give good sharpness over 2/3rds of the frame by F4 (making the lens versatile for just about anything).

Surprisingly, many of the lenses that can do that are F2.8 primes that are not really expensive at all. My favorite right now (just because 35mm is my favorite focal length) is the Minolta MD 35/2.8 with 49mm filter thread. It is available in at least three cosmetic versions. The last version labeled just MD 35mm, the earlier MD W.Rokkor X in orange (available with 49mm and 55mm filter thread but the 49mm is the one to get) and the MD W.Rokkor in white lettering. All three are the same optical design. I have one example ea. of the first two purchased recently for $89 and $59!



Jun 29, 2014 at 12:11 PM
lostinjapan
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Testing Leica & Zeiss lenses on the A7r


Hi Tariq,

I generally uses lens for landscapes at f/8 but when testing I test to use the extreme edges of the range I use this time f/2(or 2.8) to f/11.

I have found that some RF lenses dont really get acceptable until f/5.6 or f/8. For the most part, with a little post processing I am find that at least with the A7 the results are much better than I was expecting. I will have to give those minoltas a try.

Thanks.

Ryan



Jun 30, 2014 at 01:03 AM





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