DSC05293 by Thom Koster, on Flickr
Hi Everybody
First posts, following this thread since the beginning and really enjoying it.
Now from Flickr I just figured out how to upload.
Cheers, Thom
Finally catched up, I was 200+ pages behind in December and took two months to read all the pages. Thanks everyone for inspiring images!
Few special thanks:
HelenaN & xwing15 for showing images CV 50/1.5 - nice lens but rendering style is very much incompatible with my rendering preferences - I had hard time adjusting to Helena's new images with lack of depth her C/Y 1.7/50 shots had. I was about to buy this lens, and realized after seeing these images that I don't need the lens and saved the ~700EUR.
Greggf Summilux-M 50 ASPH, at one day I like to get this lens. Seems that with modified sensor also boke rendering improves.
uhoh7 ZM4/18, ZM2/35 and Leica M APO 135 images, all really nice lenses, will get first two mentioned lenses, and 135APO is tempting for travel.
ebookman Tamron SP 35/1.8 - interesting rendering on focus plane, but boke is mostly horrible.
freaklime for Rodenstock APO-Rodagon-N 50mm f/2.8 - Got one of these (and similar El-Nikkor) right after seeing the samples. Really marvellous lens but limited only for close-up shooting. This far only had one possibility to shoot outdoors and can't wait spring to come to shoot nature close-ups with this lens.
I also gave up the Otus dreams and I'm sending few A7 cameras for Kolari thin filter upgrade. My back and legs likes this decisions as well...
In Finland we have less fancy ice fishing than what Bob has shown how it happens in Minnesota. Actually this is first time I see someone even putting tent on ice.
Carl Zeiss APO-Sonnar T* 2/135 ZE @ f/4.0, 1/640s, ILCE-7 @ ISO 400
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Finally catched up, I was 200+ pages behind in December and took two months to read all the pages. Thanks everyone for inspiring images!
Few special thanks:
HelenaN & xwing15 for showing images CV 50/1.5 - nice lens but rendering style is very much incompatible with my rendering preferences - I had hard time adjusting to Helena's new images with lack of depth her C/Y 1.7/50 shots had. I was about to but this lens, and realized after seeing these images that I don't need the lens and saved the ~700EUR.
Samuli
Thank you for the feedback and welcome back! Someone sent me similar thoughts via PM a while back, and after doing a straight comparison between the CV and CY 50 and showing it to him we came to the conclusion that it's mostly about the light. If anything that CV looked a bit better (sharper, more contrast, more details, less color cast etc.). Is it possible that what you see is simply that I happened to buy the CV just when the soft low contrast winter light arrived?
That said; I still have a soft spot for the C/Y 50/1.7 and haven't gotten around to selling it yet... I'll do a new comparison when we get more contrasty light and we'll see.
HelenaN wrote:
Thank you for the feedback and welcome back! Someone sent me similar thoughts via PM a while back, and after doing a straight comparison between the CV and CY 50 and showing it to him we came to the conclusion that it's mostly about the light. If anything that CV looked a bit better (sharper, more contrast, more details, less color cast etc.). Is it possible that what you see is simply that I happened to buy the CV just when the soft low contrast winter light arrived?
Possible, but not likely. Rene has had more contrasty light than you, and rendering style appears similar. We'll see it on summer or if you go to south for spring holiday. At same light Distagon 28 shows "normal Helena rendering" I'm used to over the years, so I have doubts it's just light [did not go through last 300 pages, this 28mm is based on my (crappy) memory from some winter lanscape post].
Your photos have always stood out; if I just browse pages, I immediately see "that is Helena's image". Now with Voigtländer I just pass the image unless context is interesting (which usually is). Also your FE28 has fooled me many times, on all front to back sharp landscapes it appear to me similar tasteless and smell-less rendering as Voigtländer lacking the overall "punch" in images.
Rendering styles are pretty subjective topic; there is nothing wrong in Voigtländer CV 50mm f/1.5 rendering style if one happens to like that sharp but flat look in images. I could imagine rendering style like this works well when looking photos larger (=much larger than these web thumbnails we share here). Maybe local contrast enhancement would give them stronger look on web thumbnail size we are watching here? In any case don't change anything based on someone else's opinions.
This kind of rendering style is just not my thing. On "compensation" I like a lots of things which majority of people don't like, for example Zeiss ZM series Biogon 2/35 boke really works for me *, but based on text between lines and direct comments Biogon 2/35 boke seems to be pretty well universally hated except Makten likes it in his Loxia 35
Samuli
* If user has been idiot and tried to shoot wide open close-ups, then also I hate it - referring to proper usage of the lens when it seems to produce lovely low contrast but well structured boke.
Thanks again Samuli! I appreciate your thorough analyze and compliment. To be honest I have had some doubts about the CV 50/1.5 ever since I got it, which is why I found your comments so interesting. Partly because I too have seen the flat look sometimes (but had convinced myself that it's only the light), but mostly because the sharpness for landscapes is very inconsistent. That's why I have used it for almost everything lately, to try and figure out if it's user error or some problem with it. It does have nice sunstars though and is incredibly flare resistant, which the C/Y is not. That is in fact the only reason to why I decided to try the CV, because other than that I'm pretty happy with the C/Y.
Anyway, now I have decided to take the C/Y the next time I go out.
Because of the bad internet connection in a fairly isolated part of Italy, I was out of "circulation" for a few days. I just arrived in Venice today. I know I missed a lot of great images. I will go through the last several pages a little later although the internet connection here in Venice is better but still not quite there..
I met Manuel Lamantia here in Venice for a multi-day session during the famous mask carnival. Too bad the weather is not cooperating with us... . Anyway, here is the first image captured indoor of our good friend, Anne-Sophie.
HelenaN wrote:
Thanks again Samuli! I appreciate your thorough analyze (and compliment). To be honest I have had some doubts about the CV 50/1.5 ever since I got it, which is why I found your comments so interesting. Partly because I too have seen the flat look sometimes (but had convinced myself that it's only the light), but mostly because the sharpness for landscapes is so inconsistent. That's why I have used it for almost everything lately, to try and figure out if it's user error or some problem with it. It does have nice sunstars though and is incredibly flare resistant, which the C/Y is not. That is in fact the only reason to why I decided to try the CV, because other than that I'm pretty happy with the C/Y.
Anyway, now I have decided to take the C/Y the next time I go out. ...Show more →
You'll see it when you have "normal" light. The gloomy winter weather may fool us. If sharpness is inconsistent then it might be good to check field curvature and focus shift behaviour (I have no idea does it suffer from either, but definitely some compromise has been made if one get's f/1.5 lens for ~700EUR and lens is so tiny).
I could imagine that the billion aperture blades and round aperture would be factor as well for Voigtländer. The 6 blade hexacon aperture is the worst feature of old Contax lenses. If Contax G Planar 2/45 and Contax C/Y Planar 1.4/50 would have 9 or 11 blade circular apertures I would never consider other normal lenses. Now I shoot often with Loxia 2/50 even it's lack on rendering style department compared to G45, but round aperture and saving EXIF to images is pretty nice as well, hard compromises.... and same with ZE1.4/50 vs C/Y1.4/50.
Carl Zeiss APO-Sonnar T* 2/135 ZE @ f/2.0, 1/1000s, ILCE-7 @ ISO 400
AGeoJO wrote:
Because of the bad internet connection in a fairly isolated part of Italy, I was out of "circulation" for a few days. I just arrived in Venice today. I know I missed a lot of great images. I will go through the last several pages a little later although the internet connection here in Venice is better but still not quite there..
I met Manuel Lamantia here in Venice for a multi-day session during the famous mask carnival. Too bad the weather is not cooperating with us... . Anyway, here is the first image captured indoor of our good friend, Anne-Sophie.
These were taken a few weeks ago when we had the snowstorm dumped 2'~60cm snow... I had the ring glow with the Contax g 35/45mm shots and got worse with the editing, maybe internal, maybe glass reflections... In comparison Loxia 50mm did not show it.
Just a Bald Eagle hunting at the dog park....
a7II, Minolta 100-300 APO D @210mm (what happened here? Why wasn't I at 300mm?), ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/1000.
Nearly a 1:1 crop
except Makten likes it in his Loxia 35 
