Samuli Vahonen
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Peire wrote:
It was a chilly,dull day yesterday,but I decided to visit a little village,hidden in the ravine,with old ruined palace surrounded by moat and abandoned cemetery chapel.The Lieca Vario-Elmar R 35-70/4.0 was taken out for the first time,coupled with the A7R.That zoom is really outstanding - the best 35-70 I have tested so far.Better than the Vario-Sonnar 35-70/3.5 C/Y and Minolta MD Macro 35-70/3.5.Sharp across the frame wide open at any focal lenght and very sharp/contrasty stopped down by 1f stop.Only a trace of softness in the farthest corners wo at 35mm and some distortion there,but the overall IQ is prime-like.Negligible amount of CA.Very good macro....Show more →
Wow, that looks really good, thanks for posting. These look really good; the focus plane stands out from picture, almost like with Zeiss, but they still look like a Leica photos.
I love the 80-200/4 Leica-R, but was hesitant to get 35-70 because I had seen ONLY bad samples of boke, but your samples look pretty good. From your samples the only thing I didn't like was the 2nd last image (35mm, f/4, vertical, subject was rusty water pump), in which corners indicate either radically larger DOF in corners or forward field curvature (either one is not good for boke shooter) - forward field curvature would explain also your note "Only a trace of softness in the farthest corners wo at 35mm".
Did you get any random really ugly boke shots or was boke generally this good?
Jochenb wrote:
Interesting Samuli. It would be weird if your ZE version behaves differently. Here is the fullsize tree example:
EXAMPLE
This is shot at F5.6. Look how the focus goes from the close foreground to the center of the tree and back again. The top of the tree is completely out of focus. Also look at how fast it goes from in focus to completely out of focus there. An indication of strong field curvature.
I agree with the analysis. This is as bad or worse than Contax G-series 28mm Biogon, and considering ray angles with 1.4/50 @ f/5.6 there is no way how this could be caused by the sensor cover glass. I can't believe your lens shoots well with 5DmkII either, there must be some alignment issue (lens distances to each another or lens group distances to each another). I see from EXIF that you did shoot this with same camera (A7 without any extra letter or numbers = in EXIF:Camera field "ILCE-7") as my f/2.8 and f/5.6 samples shown here.
Jochenb wrote:
My 2 copies both did this exactly the same.
That looks EXACTLY like the faulty one my friend had (and he did shoot it with 5DmkII). Here is f/5.6 from mine (I did focus with f/2.8 as at this distance focus shift vanishes ~f/2.2): link to f/5.6 fullsize 8M jpg. As you see only very small part of extreme corner is having "A7 issues" @ f/5.6, but otherwise it's just suffering normal field curvature of ZE1.4/50, which is really hard to see @ f/5.6.
No wonder, if this alignment issue (or whatever causes the gigantic field curvature) is so common, that ZE/ZF1.4/50 has so bad reputation. Or maybe I got the only weird copy without gigantic field curvature  , and about the same field curvature as we have in it's predessor from C/Y series (and Rollei). I don't believe this to be the case, as I have shoot multiple copies with 5DmkII and they behaved about the same, and the sample I kept and have used with A7&A7r was no different of the other samples in 5DmkII.
Generally planar 1.4/50 is known for it's field curvature, smooth constantly bending curve, no wavyness etc. As it's very smooth curve just barely big enough to mitigate longer DOF in corners due to vignetting, I have actually considered it as a good attribute of lens, because it makes >90% shots of real life 3D subjects better. Of course better would be no vignetting and no field curvature, but vignetting doesn't seem to be important criteria for lens manufacturers outside movie industry. Lenses with no field curvature, very high draw in corners and with a lot of vignetting can cause unnatural looking images e.g. Otus & Milvus 55 sometimes you see images where it really bothers technically educated viewer how the DOF can be so long in corners, bringing unvanted things to better focus=contrast (which can also bother non-technically educated viewers).
Samuli
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