p.54 #3 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
I saw them in stock at Adorama last week and ordered one. Got in last night. Took a few quick images. Not as bad as my first one but still not Choppy good.
Seems slightly decentered and the distant right edge actually looks OK at f/11. So I want to do some real world shots and see if it will work.
I also ordered another one to compare it.
I really want a decent copy of this lens. I could handle soft extreme corners wide open for reasonable sharpness at f/8.
p.54 #6 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
Choppy was Guy's copy of this lens. Sharp in the corners wide open. See back in the thread for images to see how good it is. And lots of other samples of smeared corners from most of the rest.
Copy #2 is smeared and I have copy #3 on the way.
Neurad1 wrote:
For those of us not in the know, what is "Choppy good"?
p.54 #7 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
WestTexas Sky wrote:
Choppy was Guy's copy of this lens. Sharp in the corners wide open. See back in the thread for images to see how good it is. And lots of other samples of smeared corners from most of the rest.
p.54 #8 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
WestTexas Sky wrote:
Choppy was Guy's copy of this lens. Sharp in the corners wide open. See back in the thread for images to see how good it is. And lots of other samples of smeared corners from most of the rest.
Copy #2 is smeared and I have copy #3 on the way.
So, copy No. 1 is OK, showing only slight decentering but No. 2 was bad or worse than No. 1? Wow, if they are from the new batch, which we assume that they are, then apparently Voigtlander still struggles to get this right.
Logic tells me that the design and manufacturing/assembly of the CV 10mm would be harder to accomplish than that of the 15mm, correct? And the price seems to indicate that to be the case, too. But from what we could gather there is only minimal issue related to the 10mm, if any. A lot of folks reported their 10mm to be well centered, including myself. But CV seems to at a loss to straighten out this issue with their 15mm. Again, if they are from the second/new batch here.
p.54 #9 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
Neurad1 wrote:
For those of us not in the know, what is "Choppy good"?
As pointed out above, Guy's copy of the lens in VM -mount, and an E-mount that Fred got, were used to demonstrate by them that a small subset of Voigtländer 15/4.5 III lenses produces sharp corners wide open. Guy cut off the petals of both lenses, so they are referred to as Choppy or Choppy 1 for the VM-mount, and Choppy 2 for the E-mount version. I now own Choppy 1 and Guy now owns Choppy 2. Way back in this thread are shown numerous images taken with these two lenses.
I use Choppy 1 with the TechArt Pro adapter in AF mode that also enters the focal length into the Exif. One remaining difference on the A7r2 camera is that the E-mount lens benefits from 5-axis IBIS whereas the VM-mount only benefits from 3-axis IBIS as the all mechanical lens cannot transmit focus distance to subject to the camera. But that is required for X- and Y-image stabilization.
At this point the Voigtländer 10/5.6 lenses don't seem to be affected by similar copy variation issues. I also own a good E-mount copy of the 10/5.6 lens. So, in light of the apparently continuing copy variation problems of the 15/4.5 III lenses it seems far easier to acquire a good copy of the 10/5.6 lens.
p.54 #10 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
Copy 1 was back in May. Smeared corners. Sent back.
Then we had a long wait until back in stock.
Copy 2 got here yesterday. At f/8 the left corner is smeared but the right corner is OK. Let's call it mildly soft. Not sharp but not smeared. So that's why I said it looks to be decentered.
Ordered Copy 3 this morning.....
As of right now I still think it's a lottery on getting a good one. Will know more next week.
BTW, I did a screen shot of what Guy and Fred showed as good samples to reference and not let myself be fooled by wanting it to be good and not really be.
AGeoJO wrote:
So, copy No. 1 is OK, showing only slight decentering but No. 2 was bad or worse than No. 1? Wow, if they are from the new batch, which we assume that they are, then apparently Voigtlander still struggles to get this right.
Logic tells me that the design and manufacturing/assembly of the CV 10mm would be harder to accomplish than that of the 15mm, correct? And the price seems to indicate that to be the case, too. But from what we could gather there is only minimal issue related to the 10mm, if any. A lot of folks reported their 10mm to be well centered, including myself. But CV seems to at a loss to straighten out this issue with their 15mm. Again, if they are from the second/new batch here. ...Show more →
p.54 #13 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
Once I got the CV10, I was thinking of letting my CV15 go. It's a good copy . . . "cousin of choppy" but I decided to keep it. Glad I did. I hope CV straightens this out. With a good copy it;s a beautiful lens.
p.54 #14 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
AGeoJO wrote:
So, copy No. 1 is OK, showing only slight decentering but No. 2 was bad or worse than No. 1? Wow, if they are from the new batch, which we assume that they are, then apparently Voigtlander still struggles to get this right.
Logic tells me that the design and manufacturing/assembly of the CV 10mm would be harder to accomplish than that of the 15mm, correct? And the price seems to indicate that to be the case, too. But from what we could gather there is only minimal issue related to the 10mm, if any. A lot of folks reported their 10mm to be well centered, including myself. But CV seems to at a loss to straighten out this issue with their 15mm. Again, if they are from the second/new batch here. ...Show more →
Roger Circala rom lens rentals is of the view that most variance in lenses is down not to batch by batch variation, but the basic design of the lens and the manufacturing method and how they interact. So once a lens is designed and a procedure for making them established, you shouldn't expect new batches to be better or worse in variance. Indeed that's what he finds. So maybe the 10, though harder to design, was designed with less variance in mind.
p.54 #15 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
DavidBM wrote:
Roger Circala rom lens rentals is of the view that most variance in lenses is down not to batch by batch variation, but the basic design of the lens and the manufacturing method and how they interact. So once a lens is designed and a procedure for making them established, you shouldn't expect new batches to be better or worse in variance. Indeed that's what he finds. So maybe the 10, though harder to design, was designed with less variance in mind.
You lost me there but we are speculating anyway. Only Voigtlander knows or maybe they don't even know what's going on
p.54 #16 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
DavidBM wrote:
Roger Circala rom lens rentals is of the view that most variance in lenses is down not to batch by batch variation, but the basic design of the lens and the manufacturing method and how they interact. So once a lens is designed and a procedure for making them established, you shouldn't expect new batches to be better or worse in variance. Indeed that's what he finds. So maybe the 10, though harder to design, was designed with less variance in mind.
I don't think that models hold's up with Sony/Zeiss lenses. It is based on the manufacturing methods being firmly established and the "basic design" not changing. Zony were stung enough by the user performance of some lenses that changes were made to the manufacturing methods, and even small design changes could have been made. The latest batch of some Zony lenses seem to be a lot better (in terms of less variance and better overall performance) than the earlier models. Zony lenses in general still seem to be in a state of flux. Roger himself has said as much in his review of a Zony lens or two. No reason to believe Voigtlander would not attempt to do the same.
p.54 #17 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
pdmphoto wrote:
I don't think that models hold's up with Sony/Zeiss lenses. It is based on the manufacturing methods being firmly established and the "basic design" not changing. Zony were stung enough by the user performance of some lenses that changes were made to the manufacturing methods, and even small design changes could have been made. The latest batch of some Zony lenses seem to be a lot better (in terms of less variance and better overall performance) than the earlier models. Zony lenses in general still seem to be in a state of flux. Roger himself has said as much in his review of a Zony lens or two. No reason to believe Voigtlander would not attempt to do the same....Show more →
According to Lenstentals there is no evidence of later batches of the older Zony having better variance. It is true that the newer designs lenses seem to have much better variance - thank goodness - as good as their best rivals. But that's down to the design, not the batch.
p.54 #20 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount
DavidBM wrote:
According to Lenstentals there is no evidence of later batches of the older Zony having better variance. It is true that the newer designs lenses seem to have much better variance - thank goodness - as good as their best rivals. But that's down to the design, not the batch.
Being on the outside, it's hard for us to say. Each lens has its own production line; improvements in quality variance could also have been derived from changes in manufacturing or in post-assembly QA, changes which might not be easy (or cost effective) to port to the production of the older lenses.
