lucas lumiere wrote:
Is there a general consensus on which 28mm RF lenses are useable on either the a7 or the a7r?
I must admit that I have not read all 140 pages of this thread. But I have scanned through some of it.
Is the voigtlander 28mm 1.9 ultron or 2.0 ultron any good?
Thanks!
I have the ultron 28/2, Its not bad - depending on what you want to do with it. Sharp on center, smears in corners pretty badly at longer focusing distances. Needs to be stopped down to about f/11 to be sharp across the frame. Would likely be a decent reportage style (ie environmental portraits, general people shooting) lens.
For what its worth, I'm keeping mine, and enjoy using it. I can't say the same about some of the other RF glass I own. I think its a nice focal length, speed, size, price, and I like the handling.
carstenw wrote:
You are planning to try the 50 Lux ASPH on an A7 before giving up on it, right? I will be *very* interested in those results, as I own the A7, and the 50 Lux ASPH is one of my favorite lenses of all time.
You know, the 50 Lux-R E60 is similar...
they're not that similar.
i'm leaning more and more towards the m-lux when i finally do get an a7.
here's one of ron's shots at f/5.6 with the lux on the a7 downsized to m9 file size and processed a bit to look more like an m9 file.
i think that is probably good enough for me. if i really want to shoot landscape i'll take the g45 with me. the lux asph looks sick for portraits and general short range shooting though.
So, for landscape to get sharp across the frame f11 is required. How is it wide open? Is there major color shift? Vignetting I'm not so worried about.
Perhaps it would be better to use my FD 28mm 2.8. I was hoping to be able to get away with just a novoflex m adapter, but perhaps I'd need the fd adapter as well.
Is there any chance this color shift and detail smearing could be sorted out via a future firmware update? Perhaps eventually there will be presets / profiles for specific lenses that could do a good job of dealing with it?
carstenw wrote:
I can't think of another lens with more similar rendering to the 50 Lux-M ASPH. What do you find dissimilar?
i actually think the cv 50/1.5 has a closer rendering. the R lux e60 has no floating element, much more hard lined bokeh, and a steady fall off of sharpness at large apertures rather than the midzone dip.
philber wrote:
lambers, soft edges are one thing, smeared corners are quite another. Soft edges wide open are totaly acceptable to me, badly smeared corners are not.
Hi Philippe, I am sorry to hear about your frustrations with the 50 Lux Asph. I am yet to fully test it on my A7r, and my 50 Lux has only been recently CLA'd in Melbourne. I would suggest to try a 50 Cron, maybe the Rigid, as they are very affordable, light and work amazingly well on the A7r. I do have a spare copy, which you are more than welcome to borrow and try, and see if you notice a difference. So far, on the A7r, with the M mount lenses, the 50 Cron Rigid DR, 50 Nocti f/1.0, 75 Lux and 24 Lux work amazingly well, almost better than the M240. I feel there will be a select number of M lenses that will work flawlessly, but there will be those on the cusp of workability, and I will not bother to waste my time on these
philber wrote:
Are you talking width, and, if yes, inner or outer diameter, or thickness?
As to there being fewer problems are you shoot closer up, this is normal. Shooting at infinity is when your lens sits closest to the sensor.
Thickness. Right, and if: 1) floating element lenses are sensitive to correct distance, and 2) when focused at infinity, they're at their closes -- then (I might guess) a non-optimal thickness might be most pronounced with distant subjects.
philber wrote:
lambers, soft edges are one thing, smeared corners are quite another. Soft edges wide open are totaly acceptable to me, badly smeared corners are not.
Ron had another set of photos, with the same Lux on his M camera -- and I think the sides were quite clearly sharper at wide apertures.
So, there were presumably two differences between the sets: the camera body, and the adapter. (Lighting conditions also changed, but if you compare, the difference doesn't look like just a matter of light.)
p.141 #10 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
philber wrote:
lambers, soft edges are one thing, smeared corners are quite another. Soft edges wide open are totaly acceptable to me, badly smeared corners are not.
Philber, that's a fair point. However, when I'm shooting landscapes I want sharp detail across the frame and the soft edges are still unacceptable. Therefore, even on my M9P, I was required to stop down to f8.
The 50 LUX ASPH has many wonderful attributes but, unfortunately, sharpness at wider apertures across a planar scene is not one of them.
p.141 #11 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
turnstyle wrote:
Ron had another set of photos, with the same Lux on his M camera -- and I think the sides were quite clearly sharper at wide apertures.
So, there were presumably two differences between the sets: the camera body, and the adapter. (Lighting conditions also changed, but if you compare, the difference doesn't look like just a matter of light.)
If you look at the 50 Lux ASPH f/1.4 shot on A7 vs. M9, I think you'll agree that there's a noteworthy difference -- and there is still a chance that some of the difference is attributable to short adapters.
p.141 #12 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
lucas lumiere wrote:
So, for landscape to get sharp across the frame f11 is required. How is it wide open? Is there major color shift? Vignetting I'm not so worried about.
Its remarkably sharp for the central 2/3 of the frame at any aperture.
lucas lumiere wrote:
Perhaps it would be better to use my FD 28mm 2.8. I was hoping to be able to get away with just a novoflex m adapter, but perhaps I'd need the fd adapter as well.
From my experience using slr lenses on adapters, for travel (which for me means ease of use, no tripods, etc) the ultron will be a much nicer experience.
lucas lumiere wrote:
I was thinking a good travel kit would be:
And here I will float an idea to save you all sorts of money and lens swapping. My travel kit I'll be trying next week is:
28 ultron
50 summarit-m
Set the custom function 2 button to swap back and forth to crop mode. You then have (yes, nobody jump on me, I know, equivalents, and loss of resolution... for me that's a fine sacrifice in traveling light) 28, a 35, a 50, and an 80mm.
Edit - Although I planned on doing this myself, I seem to not be able to set a custom button to aps-c capture, though I can set it to all sorts of useless other things. Arrgh.
p.141 #13 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
I'm willing to try my Lux more seriously, but not sure where I can find a location for a flat infinity test.
The favelas in Rio would be good... Here, there is nothing like that. Anyone in LA has an idea?
I guess I will try lower corners first and then put the camera upside down
shots were taken by ron on a tripod at 400 iso. i processed them in LR 5.3 RC using the "camera neutral" color setting, default sharpening, mild curve adjustment, custom white balance, and a -4 black value.
p.141 #16 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
turnstyle wrote:
fwiw, here's what has me most concerned about the 50 Lux on Sony's new FF cameras -- both are crops from near top-left from Ron's test shots. One is the 50 Lux on the Sony, the other is on the M9. Let's see if you can guess...
p.141 #17 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
I am wondering if folks are asking more of the 50 lux than it is designed to deliver. The MTF charts show softness in the corners wide open and sharpness in the center--the makings of a wonderful portrait lens in low light. Seems like the MTF graph requires stopping down to at least 5.6 before corners become acceptable for landscapes, if not F8. Fast lenses are usually optimized this way and not as well corrected across the frame as those with smaller maximum apertures. Just because it is an expensive lens does not mean that it will do all things well. I know the Zeiss Otus does, but then it does not magically shrink when you put it in your camera bag or on the camera, so it does not do ALL things well. The question about adapters is well taken. I am testing a new 50 lux currently and just got a second adapter so I will see if I find differences from the cheap adapter I have been using. Unfortunately, Atlanta has seen steady rain for days so no infinity tests for me so far, but in my BRIEF time with the lens, it does not seem flawed--just not "perfect" from wide open. It is incredibly sharp in the center (sharper than a 50 ZE makro planar at wide apertures), but does not appear good at edges and corners at large apertures. Look at the "blur index" here and see what the corners look like at large apertures (not pretty), and this is on a Leica body.
p.141 #18 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
snowboarder wrote:
I'm willing to try my Lux more seriously, but not sure where I can find a location for a flat infinity test.
The favelas in Rio would be good... Here, there is nothing like that. Anyone in LA has an idea?
I guess I will try lower corners first and then put the camera upside down
Andrew, you don't need a flat subject at infinity to replicate my test. Just find a very distant (100m.+) and sizeable subject with whatever is in the corners useable (meaning, lines, light, etc.). Make sure it is in focus. Shoot it at f:1.4, f:2.0, f:2.8, f:4.0, f:5.6, f:8.0. Total testing time, maybe 5mn.
In my case, once I got the methodology and spot right (meaning, I knew what to look for and how to achieve it), I could see right when focusing that there was massive corner smear. Chimping only confirmed that.
But if you think of a better way, and report results, I am all ears.
I will try to find a really meaningful scene to capture the pictures today when I try the A7. Yesterday's pics were 95% sky, as I captured a lone tower in the very bottom corners, so I need to do better than that.
p.141 #19 · A7/A7r - performance with WA RF lenses
philber wrote:
Andrew, you don't need a flat subject at infinity to replicate my test. Just find a very distant (100m.+) and sizeable subject with whatever is in the corners useable (meaning, lines, light, etc.). Make sure it is in focus. Shoot it at f:1.4, f:2.0, f:2.8, f:4.0, f:5.6, f:8.0. Total testing time, maybe 5mn.
In my case, once I got the methodology and spot right (meaning, I knew what to look for and how to achieve it), I could see right when focusing that there was massive corner smear. Chimping only confirmed that.
But if you think of a better way, and report results, I am all ears.
I will try to find a really meaningful scene to capture the pictures today when I try the A7. Yesterday's pics were 95% sky, as I captured a lone tower in the very bottom corners, so I need to do better than that. ...Show more →
Hi Philippe, I just quickly tested the 50 Lux Asph @ f/1.4 and 5.6 on the A7r and M240, and you are correct there is a difference at both f stops. In initial reviewing on the screens the image towards to edges did have distortion, rather than just blurring. I will process them this evening and post some of the shots. Also I have both the Metabones and Novaflex adapters, and both focus marginally beyond infinity. So again the focusing at infinity on the A7r has to done via the magnified focus. I will not be using the 50 Lux Asph on the A7r. I do realize, for some where shots are close to mid distance and nearly wide open this will not be an issue for some
I now had the chance to PP the images. I had to run to the car, and swap lenses, so there is a slight difference in the FOV. All the shots were focused at infinity, and no PP;ing other than raise of the exposures for the A7r, by +0.4. At 100%, the difference mid distances in the trees the M240 combined with the 50 Lux is definitely sharper.
What a monster.
