@maratus
Fine, if at 1.300 Euro they cannot even guarantee that a lens can stay fully open, guess it is a reason more to avoid this lens at all costs..
And if they released some test shots with a defective exemplary, they are double dumb then..
Sep 28, 2018 at 06:00 AM
Steve Spencer Online • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
DavidBM wrote:
Yes it's very good. But the Lox 25 is better; which is maybe a touch surprising for 25 v 40. I'm sure it's plenty good enough but part of me was hoping for a resolution monster which has MTF40 wandering about 80%....but maythat's unrealistic for an only slightly chubby AF lens. I'd rather this MTF than a SigMonster.
But can't we have something compact with the MTF of the Leica APO Summicron 2/50 (really the only Leica lens I have GAS for)
David, I wonder whether it's some sort of special and extremely expensive glass that Leica puts into the APO Cron, which is difficult to procure/offer at more reasonable prices? That lens isn't exactly full of aspherical glass, but seems to be one of those rare bread of lenses that manages to pair outstanding, highly corrected performance with a nice, not too harsh rendition, and all that in a very small package. Of course, it helps that it doesn't have AF and is "only" f2, but the performance still seems to be pretty breathtaking (as it should be given the price tag).
Enri wrote:
Fred, at first sight, do you think it could be better than the CV 40 1.2 generally speaking... if it does make any sense. Or, even better, for what kind of applications could it be better than the CV? I know I am asking almost for a prophecy
They are completely different lenses. The Zeiss will be sharper and more clear of aberrations, the Voigtlander will be brighter and a bit smaller. I personally always thought that the color fringing and CA on the Voigt was unacceptable, so the better correction on this intrigues me. However, being only f2 at this large size is not something that I get excited about. Maybe if it were going for around 1000 and about the size of the 25 instead of the 85.
Sep 28, 2018 at 06:36 AM
Steve Spencer Online • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
norwegiandude wrote:
That may well be, but how likely is it that a company like Zeiss would use a lens with obvious defects like this for sample images of what is possibly their most important Batis-lens to date? Priced at 1300 euros, no less.
I am really, really hoping that these sample images that show this horrible nonagonal-bokeh are non-typical, because this was certainly a "must have" lens for me - before I saw those images. If you can't get even close to rounded bokeh-balls at F2 though, I'm sticking with the CV40 and my Zony 50/1.4.
I love the CV 40, but at f/2 (where I like to use it most) it definitely does not have round bokeh balls. Neither does the Sony 50 f/1.4 in all situations at f/2.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Rendering is good but not great at mid-distance to my eyes. As someone mentioned, it seems match the contrast and color signature of the other Batis lenses, especially the 85/1.8.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Looks like copy variance. Some lenses don't have a fully circular aperture wide open. The aperture blades do not fully contract.
I've seen some RX1RII cameras, a Loxia 25 and Loxia lenses behaving like that.
I wonder if, perhaps, the max aperture of the lens is greater than f/2 but they've somehow programmed it to only open up to f/2 when mounted? Seems easy enough to test for once there's one in someone's hands.
Chris_88 wrote:
David, I wonder whether it's some sort of special and extremely expensive glass that Leica puts into the APO Cron, which is difficult to procure/offer at more reasonable prices? That lens isn't exactly full of aspherical glass, but seems to be one of those rare bread of lenses that manages to pair outstanding, highly corrected performance with a nice, not too harsh rendition, and all that in a very small package. Of course, it helps that it doesn't have AF and is "only" f2, but the performance still seems to be pretty breathtaking (as it should be given the price tag). ...Show more →
Who knows. Their own claim was that the design depends on really incredibly individualised assembly of a kind that is not very cost effective rather than especially fancy glass. If that’s true it potentially raises a question about durability....if it depends on unusually tight manufacturing tolerance, it may also be more likely to get visib'y worse with a small knock. I’ll never afford one; I’m just hoping something as good and small without the red dot tax will come along.
It's basically a 50 Cron front with a 35 asph rear. Given the tremendous cost there is probably plenty of special glass like fpl53 floating about in there, perhaps the whole lens.
Chris_88 wrote:
David, I wonder whether it's some sort of special and extremely expensive glass that Leica puts into the APO Cron, which is difficult to procure/offer at more reasonable prices? That lens isn't exactly full of aspherical glass, but seems to be one of those rare bread of lenses that manages to pair outstanding, highly corrected performance with a nice, not too harsh rendition, and all that in a very small package. Of course, it helps that it doesn't have AF and is "only" f2, but the performance still seems to be pretty breathtaking (as it should be given the price tag). ...Show more →
Tirpitz666 wrote:
@maratus@@@
Fine, if at 1.300 Euro they cannot even guarantee that a lens can stay fully open, guess it is a reason more to avoid this lens at all costs..
And if they released some test shots with a defective exemplary, they are double dumb then..
Sigh.... This is not specifically about this lens. The only case which we shouldn't tolerate I think is ZE 35/1.4 that suffers from serious optical misalignment despite 1.6k price tag. But aside from that, the first and only 100-400 GM I tried has soft right side at 400mm, early 300 PF universally suffered from VR problems, I also had to go through several ZE 55/1.8 and ZE 35/2.8 to find ones that aren't noticeably asymmetric for landscapes due to focus plane tilt, and pretty much every lens on the market even in very premium segment will have quality variation. If you aren't aware of that, there are excellent educational materials on lensretnals blog.
Thanks, I'm well aware of that, but that doesn't mean that I should swallow it and shut up if I pay good money for those lenses (as for every other high tech product). And believe me that buying and returning here in Europe is usually not so easy as it is in the US, so it's not that is so easy to play the "lens lottery" hoping for the best..
Returning to this Batis 40, there are at least twenty shots on Flickr and all the ones that have bokeh balls show a poligonal shape, do you really think that Zeiss would post so many first official shots taken with the lens using a defective one with the blades stuck not at wide open position? It just seems a bit difficult to believe to me, but of course will be the first to be happy if turns out that it is actually the case and the lens has actually perfectly rounded balls in reality (but not holding my breath about that..).
Tirpitz666 wrote:
Returning to this Batis 40, there are at least twenty shots on Flickr and all the ones that have bokeh balls show a poligonal shape, do you really think that Zeiss would post so many first official shots taken with the lens using a defective one with the blades stuck not at wide open position? It just seems a bit difficult to believe to me, but of course will be the first to be happy if turns out that it is actually the case and the lens has actually perfectly rounded balls in reality (but not holding my breath about that..)....Show more →
Amen. Hope it renders prettier oof-areas then the sample pictures so far have shown. If not, I’ll just use the 24/1.4 in asp-c instead. 18mpix is enough, and next generation that number may rise significantly.
maratus wrote:
I'm a bit surprised that so much attention is given to subtle shapes of bokeh balls from point light sources. It's quickly going from photography to obsessive measurbating. And what do you do with cat-eyes that present in almost all lenses? Or onion rings? Or cut-off circles from mirror box like on 85/1.2L? But to each his own I guess...
uuuuuhhhhh, OOF rendering is actually a rather significant criteria when evaluating a lens.
not sure why you're so dismissive on this topic.
i think it's far more valid and affects the final quality of an image more than pixel peeping for sharpness in the corners, etc.
there are some lenses that were otherwise perfect for my use case, but particularly onion rings are a non-starter.
cats eyes, depending on how much and where in the frame are less of a nuisance.
but what they're showing above with angular bokeh, not very pleasing and depending on how much it occurs, a valid reason to pass on a lens (or if it is copy variation, return and try a new copy).
