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Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Fred Miranda
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p.8 #1 · p.8 #1 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

MJKoski wrote:
What I miss now that I do not have one is 1) the shifting 2) the tilting 3) tilting and shifting 4) unshifted goodness. In that order. The capabilities are enormous and cannot be touched in software due to the fact you compose your image after taking it.

And, it was shown that shimming MB-adapter makes the edge crappiness go away with movements.

Perhaps it will work better with the new Sigma MC-11 adapter without any mods. Don't tempt me to get this lens again!

However, before I sold it, I checked many of my images with shifting/tilting and the corners did deteriorate even with the 5D3 22MP sensor. (no adapter)

I mainly miss "shifting" with an ultra wide.

Unshifted/untilted, it's amazing throughout the image field although the Zeiss 15/2.8 has more micro-contrast and is sharper in the center. Vignetting and distortion control is the TS-E best feature. Nothing can touch that.

The new Batis 18 may match or even surpass it in terms of resolution but it's going have high vignetting and distortion.

Here are some examples:

Below I used a lot of shift (perhaps 9mm). It could not be done with my 15/2.8. The trees would not look straight and I would not get the composition I wanted:

And here is one using shifting and tilting at f/8 or f/9:
(Foreground corners look good for the web but deteriorated significantly at 1:1. They are a little mushy)

Apr 26, 2016 at 11:35 AM

Bobu
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p.8 #2 · p.8 #2 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

My E-mount Voigtländer 15mm should be here tomorrow. I will do some tests on the weekend and report my findings here in this thread.

Since I was not able to decide between the Voigtländer 15mm and the Batis 18mm I ordered both.

So far no confirmed delivery date for the Batis.

Boris

Apr 26, 2016 at 12:09 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #3 · p.8 #3 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Fred has Choppy in hand and testing. He likes my Modification to it. Lol

Apr 26, 2016 at 02:07 PM

rji2goleez
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p.8 #4 · p.8 #4 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

GMPhotography wrote:
Fred has Choppy in hand and testing. He likes my Modification to it. Lol

Maybe I should send you mine and you can create 'brother of choppy'! 😜

Apr 26, 2016 at 02:11 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #5 · p.8 #5 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

I can cut those petals off easy. Now I know how to even do a better job of it.

Apr 26, 2016 at 02:28 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.8 #6 · p.8 #6 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

First of all, Choppy (Guy's CV 15/4.5III M-mount) has been through a lot. I can see the scars even though it's masked by a nice step up filter acting as a hood. Guy tried to hide what he did to this poor soul. It's been a rough life with Guy.
The end result is very nice I have to say. (I will post a picture of it later)

I just finished testing Choppy for decentering and it passed with flying colors. It's well centered just like my copies.

Now, prepare yourselves for a surprise.
I tested at infinity bracketing focus from 3 meters until the infinity hard stop in very small increments (6 images total). On the viewfinder it looked best close to the hard stop but I just wanted to make sure. The same was done for the crops I posted on the first page of this thread for the E-mount.

Choppy's true infinity was a tad before the hard stop (precisely between the 3m and infinity mark) as I suspected and so were my other copies.

After seeing how well this lens can perform, I know for sure I have 3 lemons. They are well-centered but something is not right with them. Perhaps it's a tilted element causing severe diffraction at the extreme edges. Not sure. Perhaps there is a special test for this type of issue. (Roger?)

The good news is that Guy's CV 15/4.5 III M-mount is indeed as good as he says. Extreme corners are very similar to the mighty Distagon's. (15/2.8)
I will post some crops and a comparison to the Distagon crops from earlier as well. (It's different lighting and framing but it will be easy to see they are both excellent)

Keep in mind that there is some noise on the CV-15/4.5 crops. That is because I fixed it for vignetting and more than 2 stops were added to the corners which increased noise. Lighting was not ideal for the test.

I feel like this thread just took a turn. The good news is that the CV 15/4.5 III is indeed excellent as long as you get a good copy.

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:21 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #7 · p.8 #7 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Also Fred tried different adapters and no changes. I have a Cheap Fotosy adapter on Choppy so that is not the issue as Fred has been emailing me back and forth on what's been going on in his tests. Not sure what to think here and more importantly how many Choppies are out there versus what Fred's three copies are. Not good really. Sure happy to have a great copy but more important they all should be great copies.

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:28 PM

Dan Bellyk
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p.8 #8 · p.8 #8 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Guys CHOP service

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:29 PM

MJKoski
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p.8 #9 · p.8 #9 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Hmm, very interesting. The ratio of getting a good sample is not that high it seems. So far it is 1:4 :/ Maybe the Choppy got a hammer to the head (ehrm, lens) and started to behave correctly?

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:37 PM

DavidBM
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p.8 #10 · p.8 #10 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Wow. I'm amazed! 4 samples, all well centered, three symmetrically bad at the extreme corners?

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:53 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #11 · p.8 #11 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

And it's a pretty big difference too. It's actually sad and I really feel bad for Fred . He has put a lot of work in this and not going home with what he is after.

Of course Choppy is now being held hostage. Lol

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:57 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.8 #12 · p.8 #12 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Here are two set at 1:1 (extreme corners):
Choppy vs E-mount and Choppy vs Distagon (The Distagon image was shot in a different day so lighting is different)

It's a huge difference in copy variance. Choppy is on the left when compared to the E-mount and top against the Distagon 15/2.8.

** Ignore the noise increase for the CV crops. This was vignetting correction which increased noise and crashed with my regular sharpening.

Choppy was set to f/5.6 and Distagon at f/8. It's incredible that a good copy of the CV 15/4.5III looks great even at f/4.5 towards the very corners. Sweet stop is f/5.6 with very minimum changes at f/8. I'm loving this lens!!

Choppy is mine now!

Apr 26, 2016 at 03:58 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #13 · p.8 #13 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

I'll take your RXrII or whatever the hell its called in trade. Lol

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:00 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #14 · p.8 #14 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Where did I say the Vc15III was as good as the Zeiss. Everyone blew me off. Lol

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:02 PM

DavidBM
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p.8 #15 · p.8 #15 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Fred Miranda wrote:
What's interesting is that my 4k monitor just died!

I am heading out to get a new monitor while I send this one for repair.

Here are 2 crop sets: Choppy vs E-mount at extreme edges and Choppy vs Distagon at the same area. (but different lighting and framing)

It's a huge difference in copy variance. Choppy is on the left when compared to the E-mount and top against the Distagon 15/2.8.

** Ignore the noise increase for the CV crops. This was vignetting correction which increased noise and crashed with my regular sharpening.

Choppy was set to f/5.6 and Distagon...Show more →

Startling!

Here's a hypothesis: maybe there's a bit of backwards field curvature in the extreme corners, and the lenses focus is calibrated slightly differently. If that was the case you would need to focus a little behind infinity in the centre to get infinity in the corners. And maybe you can't go that far back on most of these copies. Easy to test of course: if this is so, then on Choppy when he's best in the corners, the centre should be not quite as good as on a frame focussed a tiny bit closer...

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:04 PM

MJKoski
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p.8 #16 · p.8 #16 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

What the...that is a real mystery. What is wrong with the 3 others

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:05 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.8 #17 · p.8 #17 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

I will get a replacement for my E-mount version and now I know how it should perform. I have Choppy as my reference.

I will try to post crops with better lightning tonight. (If the weather cooperates)

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:05 PM

GMPhotography
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p.8 #18 · p.8 #18 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Choppy is just as good on center though even wide open. It's possible but I doubt it if his three copies are not hitting true infinity, which you can change by lossening a couple screws under the focusing ring and adjust further out. I have done this with tech lenses but the fall off he is getting from normal corner to extreme edges says something different . To me it has to do with elements out of whack. This is rare for 3 lenses in one persons hands. Extremely rare

DavidBM wrote:
Startling!

Here's a hypothesis: maybe there's a bit of backwards field curvature in the extreme corners, and the lenses focus is calibrated slightly differently. If that was the case you would need to focus a little behind infinity in the centre to get infinity in the corners. And maybe you can't go that far back on most of these copies. Easy to test of course: if this is so, then on Choppy when he's best in the corners, the centre should be not quite as good as on a frame focussed a tiny bit closer...

Edited on Apr 26, 2016 at 04:15 PM · View previous versions

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:13 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.8 #19 · p.8 #19 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

DavidBM wrote:
Startling!

Here's a hypothesis: maybe there's a bit of backwards field curvature in the extreme corners, and the lenses focus is calibrated slightly differently. If that was the case you would need to focus a little behind infinity in the centre to get infinity in the corners. And maybe you can't go that far back on most of these copies. Easy to test of course: if this is so, then on Choppy when he's best in the corners, the centre should be not quite as good as on a frame focussed a tiny bit closer...

My versions never get good corners. No matter what. Trust me.

Choppy looks this good even at the 2 meters mark. My copies are definitely defective.

Here is a section from a LensRentals article:
"Severe astigmatism may occur when an element in a lens is decentered or not parallel to the other elements in a lens. Sometimes the lens will appear to function properly during routine tests and only a specific test for increased astigmatism will show that the lens is actually defective." - full article.

I need to consult with Roger but I think this is the case here. It's odd that it happened three times with me, leading me to conclude this lens had bad corners. There must be a test for this to make sure we get good copies of this lens. (my usual decentering tests were not able to spot this issue)

I actually have two at hand (e-mount and m-mount) + choppy. My earlier M-mount was returned a while back but I have the crops to compare. It looks just as bad as my copies now.

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:14 PM

DavidBM
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p.8 #20 · p.8 #20 · Official: Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 III E-mount

Fred Miranda wrote:
My versions never get good corners. No matter what. Trust me. Choppy looks this good even at the 2 meters mark. My copies are definitely defective.

Here is a section from a LensRentals article:
"Severe astigmatism may occur when an element in a lens is decentered or not parallel to the other elements in a lens. Sometimes the lens will appear to function properly during routine tests and only a specific test for increased astigmatism will show that the lens is actually defective." - full article.

I need to consult with Roger but I think this is the case here. It's...Show more →

I do trust you!
My thought was that maybe the bad three couldn't get good corners because they were physically unable to focus far enough back -- which because of backwards field curvature was needed for the corners, even though the setting was fine for the centre. Easy to test. If true it would just involve recalibrating the focussing ring, which is a fun little task involving lots of tiny tools I always seem to have to do with Samyang lenses...

Apr 26, 2016 at 04:18 PM

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