p.7 #1 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
A few wide open head shots, etc. The first couple are at near minimum RF coupling distance of 70cm. Images have been adjusted to taste. These are also in the Google Photos gallery linked earlier.
p.7 #2 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
Thanks Ron for the samples and tests. To my untrained eyes the lens seems a bit "mellow" compared to the ZM and Leica offerings, but I have very little experience with rangefinder lenses and only judge based on what I've seen on FM, flickr and other image databases and hence could also be PP influenced. I think you've mentioned it's quite faithful to CV glass, which I'm least familiar with. I'm not sure how to describe what "mellow" means to me..by no means am I saying it lacks character though. It looks like a fantastic performer, especially for the money. Coding helps, and the flare is nice to my taste.
p.7 #3 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
Thanks Chas. Some of it might be processing in the set above, where I pulled back a lot on contrast and clarity in the backlit shots. IMO it works better for this subject.
But I've typically found Voigtlander lenses to be more moderate in contrast and saturation compared to the typical punch of Zeiss and richness of Leica.
The 35/1.7 is a very sharp lens and the first 'normal lens' from Voigtlander I've used that is quite modern in this respect. The 21/1.8 is also a really great performer. I guess the 35/1.2 is up there too... Anyway, already from wide open, most of the frame is very good for critical subject focus/placement. There's a touch of SA wide open that takes a bit of the edge off. By 2.8 it's very sharp and seems to peak around 4-5.6 across the frame. If f/2ish performance is relatively critical, then I would opt for this over the ZM35/2 which is quite glowy wide open. And I suspect it will continue to compete with the ZM across the aperture range. I have no experience with the 35 Cron ASPH, so can only guess the CV might have a bit better mid zone performance.
One factor may be getting a correctly centered copy... which in the past was kind of one of the knocks against Voigtlander...
p.7 #9 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
I ordered one
I am surprised about the lack of exposure for the lens, the price is very fair ( at least here in Europe: 649€), performance is very good judging by Ron's samples and it is quite small.
Lets hope that there is no corner smearing and not too much color shift. This is the first M-mount lens I will use on the Alpha 7.
p.7 #10 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
theophilus wrote:
Ryan - nice shots. Would you say the ultron has naturally muted colors? Are you adding vignetting in post?
ryankarr wrote:
It was a fairly dull and overcast day, so can't comment on muted colors. No vignetting added in post or corner/edge colour correction.
Not sure about the Sony cameras, but at least on the Leica M240 this lens does seem to have persistent vignetting even when stopped down, when shot without a lens profile. Lately I've shot with the 35 Cron ASPH profile and it seems to resolve the vignetting problem for the most part, though introduces its own slight color shift (though IMO more acceptable than the slight color shift, if uncoded).
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Phillip Reeve wrote:
I ordered one
I am surprised about the lack of exposure for the lens, the price is very fair ( at least here in Europe: 649€), performance is very good judging by Ron's samples and it is quite small.
Lets hope that there is no corner smearing and not too much color shift. This is the first M-mount lens I will use on the Alpha 7.
I agree about the great price in the EU. Best price I've found for it.
I've seen very limited numbers of images shot on a7 series posted on Flickr, but was not overly impressed with those. Definitely signs of edge smearing, whereas Leica digital M sample images showed no such problems, and which I can vouch for with my results.
Here are a bunch from a wedding over the weekend, shot on the Leica M240 and I think all were wide open. Just web-rez samples of these... Cross posted from the Leica M images thread:
Some thoughts:
- at medium distances background rendering gets a bit harsher/busier, particularly into the corners with harder edges on blur circles and double line effects.
- the lens is quite sharp already wide open and holds this across a significant amount of the frame. Stopping down to 2.8 generates a bit more pop and micro contrast, cleaning up some residual SA when wide open.
- backlit performance is still to be pinned down. Sometimes it flares gracefully, other times not quite so nicely. The farther towards the edges of the frame the light source is placed, the funkier it seems to become, with the worst being when just outside the frame.
- it might just be a matter of getting used to a new lens, but I find I'm struggling a bit with its color rendering compared to my usual Leica M lens kit (21 Lux & SEM, 28 Cron, 50 Lux ASPH, 90AA). The Leica glass seems to generate the colors I expect without much hue tweaking, though some of those lenses have subtle WB tint shifts compared to the others.
p.7 #11 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
rscheffler wrote:
I agree about the great price in the EU. Best price I've found for it.
I've seen very limited numbers of images shot on a7 series posted on Flickr, but was not overly impressed with those. Definitely signs of edge smearing, whereas Leica digital M sample images showed no such problems, and which I can vouch for with my results.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear but now I just have to wait until tomorrow to find out myself . Usually some smearing/ softness at wider apertures in the corners doesn't bother me, many of my legacy lenses are quite soft outside of the center at f/1.7. What drove my decision to buy it was the very nice bokeh and small size.
p.7 #12 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
Ron - thanks for those samples, some nice 3D there in the full body shots. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it but there seems to be a nice amount of in-focus area and then a quick falloff. I think I like the bokeh generally and I tend to add vignetting often so that doesn't bother me.
p.7 #13 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
rscheffler wrote:
I find I'm struggling a bit with its color rendering compared to my usual Leica M lens kit (21 Lux & SEM, 28 Cron, 50 Lux ASPH, 90AA). The Leica glass seems to generate the colors I expect without much hue tweaking, though some of those lenses have subtle WB tint shifts compared to the others.
I'm in the same boat Ron, I spent a lot of time trying to get WB to look right with my presets. Still not entirely happy with what I've come up with.
p.7 #14 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
ryankarr wrote:
I'm in the same boat Ron, I spent a lot of time trying to get WB to look right with my presets. Still not entirely happy with what I've come up with.
I found the CV glass is all over the place in this regard. The 35/1.2 makes it's own colors, unlike any other lens I have. But Ron's shots remind me of the 1.2 a bit. I call it "greenish"
But you guys are making this one look real good on the 240. It seems sharper than the 1.2 to me, on the edges. Ryan those little pigs are awesome
I bet it would really sing on a Kolari Sony. But on the stock Sonys, the FE 35/2.8 seems like the top of the heap so far. Now Huff raves about the 1.4, which must be good.......but what a monster.
p.7 #15 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
Phillip Reeve wrote:
Not exactly what I wanted to hear but now I just have to wait until tomorrow to find out myself . Usually some smearing/ softness at wider apertures in the corners doesn't bother me, many of my legacy lenses are quite soft outside of the center at f/1.7. What drove my decision to buy it was the very nice bokeh and small size.
I'll let you know when I know more.
I'll be interested to hear how you get on with it on your A7, Phillip - I found one last week in Melbourne and have taken a range of subjects on my A7R. The central sharpness is excellent even wide open, with none of the glow that I get with FD 35 at F/2. I was generally happy with results stopped down too, although it might not sharpen up in the corners at F5/6 as well the FD, and one side shows slightly less corner sharpness than the other. My biggest disappointment was that it still shows a slight magenta cast around the periphery, although I've found it very easy to set up a preset in LR that corrects it very cleanly. The big gains for me over the FD are the greatly reduced colour fringing, the much smaller size, and the much better performance wide open..
p.7 #16 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
uhoh7 wrote:
I found the CV glass is all over the place in this regard. The 35/1.2 makes it's own colors, unlike any other lens I have. But Ron's shots remind me of the 1.2 a bit. I call it "greenish"
But you guys are making this one look real good on the 240. It seems sharper than the 1.2 to me, on the edges. Ryan those little pigs are awesome
I bet it would really sing on a Kolari Sony. But on the stock Sonys, the FE 35/2.8 seems like the top of the heap so far. Now Huff raves about the 1.4, which must be good.......but what a monster....Show more →
Well, with the wedding shots one of the challenges is they're almost always surrounded by greenery - leaves, grass - reflecting green/yellow light. Could also be I need to calibrate my monitor again.
I still haven't yet done a side by side comparison against the 35/1.2 II. But my impression is the 35/1.7 is sharper with a much larger central sweet spot when wide open. In fact I would rate it as sharp wide open and not overly 'glowy' like some other fast lenses. One of the frustrations I've always had with the 35/1.2 was what appeared to be field curvature making it difficult to hold focus into the mid zone areas.
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navmannz wrote:
I'll be interested to hear how you get on with it on your A7, Phillip - I found one last week in Melbourne and have taken a range of subjects on my A7R. The central sharpness is excellent even wide open, with none of the glow that I get with FD 35 at F/2. I was generally happy with results stopped down too, although it might not sharpen up in the corners at F5/6 as well the FD, and one side shows slightly less corner sharpness than the other. My biggest disappointment was that it still shows a slight magenta cast around the periphery, although I've found it very easy to set up a preset in LR that corrects it very cleanly. The big gains for me over the FD are the greatly reduced colour fringing, the much smaller size, and the much better performance wide open..
Uneven corner sharpness could also be adapter related, but as I wrote earlier, my copy also seems to be weak in one corner (bottom right), if not the right edge in general.
p.7 #17 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
I continue to be really happy with mine. Really miss having a focus tab and I wish it's MFD was 0.7 instead of 0.5 or at least had a hard stop where I can tell my RF stops working.
p.7 #18 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
Nice, Ryan! Did you buy the hood from JE, or do you have a $5 Chinese source? I may switch to a spare no-name 46mm vented hood, but so far have been getting by with the supplied one. Only problem with screw in hoods is possible vignetting if using a filter.
p.7 #19 · Official: Voigtlander 35 F1.7 Ultron M mount
I bought 2 of them years ago from Japan via Amazon. I've been using one on my 50 Lux and the other one was just sitting in a drawer. Haven't tried it with a filter behind the hood yet, I'll thrown one on this weekend and check.
