Here are three more with the new Ultron 35 F/1.7, which I've also become very fond of, both for its portability and for its sharpness, oof, and lack of colour fringing. The first two were taken at F/2 from memory, and the last at F/8. As Phillip points out, field curvature is something of an issue, but much less so once you become aware of how it plays out.
puckman wrote:
I'm very intrigued by this ultron as well. I tried the Nokton Classic 40/1.4 and enjoyed it, but not enough to keep it around. I did not really like the way it shot wide open.
Does the 35/1.7 play nice wide open? And is there any of that "smearing" that a lot of these VC lenses seem to exhibit on the A7 series?
Interested to hear more details from you or anyone else with the lens. I'm still looking to consolidate my lens lineup and comitting to one 35mm prime.
As to your 20mmm point, the FD 20 seems to do pretty well (I don't own a copy myself, but have seen it in action)....Show more →
I was very disappointed with the FD 20 - ok for close subjects, but I found it very soft around the edges for landscape. I replaced it with an Ultron 21, which also has an issue with magenta shading on the A7R, but this is much easier to correct than blurriness . And once stopped down to F/5.6 is sharp across pretty well the entire frame - far corners sharpen up well at F/8.
Thanks for the replies on the CV 35 and the FD 20 (Phillip and others who replied).
I really want to narrow things down to just one 35mm prime for my kit.
I'm almost tempted to go the easy way out and get the FE 35/2.8 on account of good small size, modern coatings, very sharp by all accounts and AF abilities.
I keep toying with the idea of a CV (as mentioned earlier, I've already owned both the CV 15/4.5 and the CV 40/1.4 Nokton Classic) but every time I ask about them, I get turn off by the various drawbracks that keep coming up (smearing, fringing, field curvature).
There are some bigger 35s that would do well for me (The FE 35/1.4 or the Sigma 35 ART) but those are not going to give me something portable.
Now normally, I don't mind size (I'm still lugging around a couple of EF lenses for my landscape kit, namely the EF 16-35/4 and the EF 70-200/4), but I would have liked my 35 to be something I can take out as a walkaround lens and not just in "landscape" situations.
Going through old A7 photos, trying to decide if I want to switch back from m43, and I found these two that I never processed (at least, I don't think I did...but maybe so)
Phillip Reeve wrote:
The Ultron is certainly a nice lens. I think if I could keep only one lens it would be this 1.7/35.
Wow
Interesting thread about the Sonnetar which is handmade and designed by a retired telescope designer in Japan. It's the smallest lightest 50/1.1 I've ever seen, and has a slick german aperture that always makes perfect circles
. And once stopped down to F/5.6 is sharp across pretty well the entire frame - far corners sharpen up well at F/8.
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