p.2 #6 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
Taylor Sherman wrote:
Very interesting! No longer such a tiny thing. I've got the L39-mount version and it's wonderfully small. But, it's hard to get color images with it on the A7 that don't have cast.
I was contemplating switching it for the 12mm, which actually works better. But, this new one might be the way to go.
Yes, I also like having a real focusing ring better than the tab on the current one.
I've posted many times if you download the lens compensation app in the sony store it helps reduce the color casts and its $10. You can still shoot RAW files which require a lot less post work than SOCC RAW files. Depending on your scene you don't have to do any post work using the app.
p.2 #7 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
the pancake looks neat. must be for mirrorless because no focus scale. interesting that they released a 35 1.7... wonder if they're discontinuing the 1.4? nice to see they updated the 15, but in all cases it's too bad there are no focus tabs. focus tabs are one of my favorite things about rangefinder lenses.
p.2 #8 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
goosemang wrote:
the pancake looks neat. must be for mirrorless because no focus scale. interesting that they released a 35 1.7... wonder if they're discontinuing the 1.4? nice to see they updated the 15, but in all cases it's too bad there are no focus tabs. focus tabs are one of my favorite things about rangefinder lenses.
it seems like these are designed more for mirrorless than for rangefinders.
the pancake isn't just lacking a focus scale, it's lacking a focus helicoid. the only way to focus it is on a mirrorless camera with a helicoid adapter.
the 35/1.7 is an update of the previous 35/1.7 voigtlander made in ltm mount (just like the 50/1.5). i doubt it's meant as a replacement for the 35/1.4, which i believe was also produced concurrently with the old 35/1.7.
p.2 #10 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
weird. I'm completely out of the loop with this stuff. too bad for us rf shooters, but neat alternative for the mirrorles crowd.
sebboh wrote:
it seems like these are designed more for mirrorless than for rangefinders.
the pancake isn't just lacking a focus scale, it's lacking a focus helicoid. the only way to focus it is on a mirrorless camera with a helicoid adapter.
the 35/1.7 is an update of the previous 35/1.7 voigtlander made in ltm mount (just like the 50/1.5). i doubt it's meant as a replacement for the 35/1.4, which i believe was also produced concurrently with the old 35/1.7.
p.2 #11 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
goosemang wrote:
weird. I'm completely out of the loop with this stuff. too bad for us rf shooters, but neat alternative for the mirrorles crowd.
the 35/1.7 and 15/4.5 should probably perform better on the digital m cameras than the previous versions did (they were designed for film) though they don't have focus tabs (the old 35/1.7 didn't have one either). personally i prefer rings for focusing through the viewfinder and tabs for prefocusing where there is no time to focus through the viewfinder.
I could see no or maybe a REALLY small amount of color cast in the corners ! (maybe it was only a tiny bit of vignette?) I could see no or maybe a REALLY tiny bit of vignette ! The sharpness is nice and NOT much mush in the corners !
Voigtländer They had all three new VM lenses to test. I also tested the close-focus adapter with some of my M-lenses and this thing is a gem! It works great. And so are all three of the new lenses. According to the lady on the booth, Voigtländer has designed / re-designed the lenses with the A7 in mind and that really shows. The 15mm shows no visible color fringing and no corner smearing at all (sharp edge to edge). Some distortion is visible as is to be expected with such a wide lens. I also had a little bit of CA, which was corrected in Lightroom with minimal turning of the correction slider. The 35mm f1.7 is great, too. It really is sharp even in the corners. Definitely a different world from the Biogon and (more of a gut feel than scientific proof) also sharper than the Summarit (definitely not worse by 1000+ Euro...). It is quite fast and still a very small size. Looks like an almost perfect 35mm for the A7R to me. The build quality of both lenses felt quite solid as well (metal bodies, nice focussing and aperture rings). What was the real surprise for me was that the 40mm Heliar Pancake is actually exlusively designed for E-Mount. Even though it is a VM lens it only works with the Voigtländer close-focus VME adapter. Why? Because it does not have a focussing ring itself. It only can be focussed with the focussing ring of the adapter. Therefore you cannot use it on an M-Mount camera, but only on E-Mount. The image quality was also very nice, although you would not need a 40mm, if you have a 35mm. But the size of this one is really tiny. A true high-quality pancake and that might make it attractive to many people. They did not give prices for the lenses, but did expect the prices to be between 500 and 600 Euro for each. I really wish Voigtländer would do a 90mm or 100mm in this quality......Show more →
Zeiss Loxia is both a positive experience and a disappointment. Starting with the positive: Loxia Planar 50mm is a beauty in use and has perfect picture quality in the few pictures I took. Sharp, nice bokeh, everything. I have also made comparing shots with the Planar 50mm ZM. I could not find any visible difference in my shots (again, just a few crap shots on the booth). Given that the ZM is significantly smaller than the Loxia I would probably opt for that one, even though the Loxia is really good and definitely not worse than ZM. I then tested the Loxia Biogon 35mm. The good news is that Zeiss fixed the color fringe and the heavy smearing of the ZM Biogon on the A7R. The bad news is that the edges / corners are really soft (I mean really! The softness on the Summarit in comparison is razor sharp!). It seems that Biogon does not go well with A7R. There are much better 35mm lenses for the A7R than this one....Show more →
p.2 #13 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
I'd take those comments with a grain of salt. ( a big one)
(about the Loxia 35 )
"The good news is that Zeiss fixed the color fringe and the heavy smearing of the ZM Biogon on the A7R. The bad news is that the edges / corners are really soft (I mean really! The softness on the Summarit in comparison is razor sharp!). It seems that Biogon does not go well with A7R".
The above lines give me the impression that the person who wrote them is absolutely clueless. No smearing at all, the awfully soft corners are the fault of the lens. At the same time he/she says that Biogon (meaning the Biogon-based Loxia 35 design? ) doesn't goes well with the A7r, implying that the softness is due to sensor smearing. Does that makes sense ?. I mean, really !
p.2 #14 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
SAR and 4/3 rumors posted the newly released cost of the 15mm Heliar III. 750 Euro. Not sure what that will translate to in SS or sterling. This is the version that is designed to work better with A7 bodies, it will be interesting to see if the A7m improves it even more.
p.2 #19 · voigtlander 15 super wide heliar 2014 plus the other lenses.
Regarding the 35/1.7 I am pretty sure it will interesting as the m39 version was already capable of delivering good results on the A7. But the MFD of 0.9m was to long for my purposes and 0.6m sounds way better.
Suggested retail price on the Japanese site 95000 Yen = ~800 USD, ~1000 CAD.
Not quite the 'don't have to think much about the price' kind of lens, any more, assuming selling price will be in that range.
