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Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA
  
 
Samuli Vahonen
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p.2 #1 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Fred, thanks for tests. Quite interesting how such a simple lens can perform so well. On another hand; not so surprising as these simple designs were used before lens coatings were invented to produce "good" contrast and now same design with modern lens coating can produce superb results. Would be interesting to see would it peak it's performance already @ f/5.6 if it's design would compensate Sony's thick sensor cover glass.



expwmbat wrote:
Can you all seriously see a difference between the 26-27mm focal length of the 25 and a 28mm focal length?!
Yes of course, on my normal forest shooting about >75% of Loxia 25 images require 16:9 crop and <25% of 28mm images require 16:9 crop. Cropping needed to hide blown out sky showing between trees, which get thinner the upper you go. At midsummer 25mm is somewhat usable, but at spring, late fall or winter it's quite useless in my use. If I shoot other subjects, like landscapes then 25mm and 28mm don't have much difference. My ideal wide angle lens would be somewhere between 29mm and 30mm, but 28mm will have to do as I never can afford Zeiss Supreme 29mm


Samuli
Feb 07, 2019 at 02:29 PM
Gunzorro
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p.2 #2 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


So this CV 50/3.5 is completely manual? No electronic aperture or exif? If so, those are strong negatives in my book against this otherwise fine lens. I don't want to have to fuss with aperture ring moving or focusing at shooting aperture -- been there plenty with view cameras!

Let me know when they put this fine lens in a modern body with modern controls.

Thanks for the comparison shots, Fred!

Re: the Loxia 28 rumor -- sounds good. I keep getting pulled toward the Loxia 25, but I have enough 24 and 25 lenses. A lovely Loxia 28 would be very welcome at a decent price point.




Feb 07, 2019 at 03:38 PM
MAubrey
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p.2 #3 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


I'm genuinely curious how well this little guy will do on a thin sensor stack Sony.
Feb 07, 2019 at 06:11 PM
Fred Miranda
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p.2 #4 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Fred, thanks for tests. Quite interesting how such a simple lens can perform so well. On another hand; not so surprising as these simple designs were used before lens coatings were invented to produce "good" contrast and now same design with modern lens coating can produce superb results. Would be interesting to see would it peak it's performance already @ f/5.6 if it's design would compensate Sony's thick sensor cover glass.


Yes of course, on my normal forest shooting about >75% of Loxia 25 images require 16:9 crop and <25% of 28mm images require 16:9 crop. Cropping needed to hide...Show more →

Yes, the 50/3.5 peaks at f/8 (or perhaps a third stop earlier) likely because of the Sony's thicker sensor stack. Having said that, f/5.6 and f/8 are super close and the lens is already excellent from wide open. It's similar to the Zeiss 85/4 ZM's performance where f/4 is excellent and f/7.1 is outstanding.

I think a slight design mod for the Sony could bring field curvature to a minimal. Still, any lens approaching the 50/1.4 ZA's center, mid and corners is to be taken seriously, even if not designed for the Sony.


Feb 07, 2019 at 07:29 PM
Fred Miranda
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p.2 #5 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Gunzorro wrote:
So this CV 50/3.5 is completely manual? No electronic aperture or exif? If so, those are strong negatives in my book against this otherwise fine lens. I don't want to have to fuss with aperture ring moving or focusing at shooting aperture -- been there plenty with view cameras!

Let me know when they put this fine lens in a modern body with modern controls.

Thanks for the comparison shots, Fred!

Re: the Loxia 28 rumor -- sounds good. I keep getting pulled toward the Loxia 25, but I have enough 24 and 25 lenses. A lovely Loxia 28...Show more →

The functionality is definitely a negative for this lens but it is not that bad and pretty usable as long as the lens is focused at working aperture. Having said that, if you move the click-less aperture ring very slowly and in a controlled manner, the focusing ring does not move. You gotta go Ninja when operating this lens as it's very sensitive.
The reward is undeniable though.

Yes, the lens is fully manual but you can operate aperture in lens and exposure in camera like with any alt lens.
Feb 07, 2019 at 07:37 PM
pdmphoto
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p.2 #6 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


This is the good review that also adresses useability (on an M mount camera). On Sony, the lens might be a good candidate for the Techart AF adapter.

Seems the direct link to the review is not possible, but just select reviews - there is only one as of now.
https://www.adorama.com/vt5035m.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-cmd2oKr4AIVlNdkCh0WjwurEAQYAyABEgIaVfD_BwE
Feb 07, 2019 at 08:57 PM
expwmbat
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p.2 #7 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Fred, thanks for tests. Quite interesting how such a simple lens can perform so well. On another hand; not so surprising as these simple designs were used before lens coatings were invented to produce "good" contrast and now same design with modern lens coating can produce superb results. Would be interesting to see would it peak it's performance already @ f/5.6 if it's design would compensate Sony's thick sensor cover glass.


Yes of course, on my normal forest shooting about >75% of Loxia 25 images require 16:9 crop and <25% of 28mm images require 16:9 crop. Cropping needed to hide...Show more →

Thank you for the thoughtful response--that makes sense. And yet, the difference appears to be simply a matter of how many photos require a slight crop. Given how simple and straightforward that is with current processing software, it seems like a non issue to me (unless you are processing thousands of photos and cropping adds significant processing time). Other than your unique, low sun through the trees circumstance, I have trouble believing that the 1 or 2mm difference warrants the continual chant, not least when the Loxia 25mm have proved to be so exceptional.

NB. I don't own the Loxia 25mm--it's out of my price range. But I really enjoy the 24/25mm view and love the rendering and close focus of my ZF 25/2.8.

Cheers,
Daniel
Feb 08, 2019 at 09:21 AM
Samuli Vahonen
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p.2 #8 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


The Voigtländer 50mm f/3.5 seems to be really difficult to buy at decent price from Finland/Europe. This far all websites I have checked have had zero availability, and Amazon.de is 90EUR overpriced but it's the only one with availability and warranty (some store from Netherland in eBay also has the lens, but not clear will it have warranty and their prices are without VAT). So I guess I have to order the overpriced Amazon one.


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expwmbat wrote:
And yet, the difference appears to be simply a matter of how many photos require a slight crop. Given how simple and straightforward that is with current processing software, it seems like a non issue to me (unless you are processing thousands of photos and cropping adds significant processing time).
The work caused by cropping is not the problem. The problem is that I would need to crop to make the photos somehow usable at all, but in real life if cropping is needed I rarely bother taking picture at all - for horizontal images I prefer 3:2 aspect ratio. Also I hate losing sensor size what cropping is always also causing.

Also it causes extra work on the field while hiking, and I'm lazy, I don't like extra work... When I go to shoot with Loxia 25, I many times take off my backbag, which requires opening waist and chest straps, setup tripod, take camera off from backbag, turn it on, and then immediately see it will not work because too wide, pack everything, raise bag to back and attach wait and chest straps. When repeated enough times I will automatically generate negative bias towards the lens with "wrong" focal length. And next time when deciding lenses for next shoot "oh well, Loxia 25 is so nice but so frustrating, maybe I take ZE/CY/G 28 instead which is less frustrating even technically inferior" => and Loxia 25 does not get much use.


expwmbat wrote:
Other than your unique, low sun through the trees circumstance, I have trouble believing that the 1 or 2mm difference warrants the continual chant, not least when the Loxia 25mm have proved to be so exceptional.
I'm not sure why few mm in focal length could not make meaningful difference to someone, if it's not meaningful for you. I have no problem believing that it makes no difference to you and I respect your opinion.

When I shoot I "see" photos and compositions without camera, then I place tripod to place I feel correct, get camera from my backbag and take a photo. With 28mm, 50mm and 85mm I rarely need to move the tripod more than 1-2cm (less than inch). Despite trying to learn many years to "see" 25mm compositions, I never learned it, there is always something ugly peeking in edges or corners and composition is ruined. I even noticed that Sigma Art 50mm is slightly wider (~1mm) than Sony/Zeiss Alpha 1.4/50 or Zeiss ZE 1.4/50, later I confirmed my observation by testing all of them in same shoot. Maybe 25mm vs. 28mm would be damn same if I would need camera to compose instead "seeing" compositions, but with comfortable focal lengths I have not needed to do that in ~10 years. Neither I'm interested to walk all the time with camera (or external RF viewfinder) and view all around everything through it, if I can just see my compositions, and use camera only for taking the photo what I did discover just using eyes.

In 2018 I mostly shoot my wide angles with 24-35mm f/2 zoom, I just checked the amount of photos in each focal length, while I had free choice of focal length:
samu@photo:/z/photo/RAWs$ find 2018/ -name '*SI2435*.ARW' | cut -d'_' -f4 | sort | uniq -c

    370 24mm (259 photos from my friend, so 111 is correct count)

      6 25mm

     20 26mm

     26 27mm

    291 28mm

     30 29mm

      7 30mm

     11 31mm

     13 32mm

      8 33mm

     88 35mm

I checked and majority (>75%) of my own 24mm & 35mm photos seem to be landscapes, both of these focal lengths did have just few of my normal photos. So it's obvious when free choice of wide focal length is given on non-landscape shooting it seems I end up shooting automatically 28mm. So I'm pretty sure that few mm are pretty important for me.

For landscape it's completely different story. After removing 259 shots @ 24mm by my friend, based on photos it's pretty obvious that for landscapes I prefer either end of the zoom (This has been mentioned many times in forum and YouTube that when shooting landscapes people tend to use either end of the zoom). So for that kind of usage for me it's less meaningful what is the exact focal length.


Samuli
Feb 08, 2019 at 11:47 AM
GMPhotography
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p.2 #9 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Can you buy from B&H and even if you had to pay import it maybe cheaper overall. Not sure how that all works
Feb 08, 2019 at 12:01 PM
Samuli Vahonen
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p.2 #10 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


GMPhotography wrote:
Can you buy from B&H and even if you had to pay import it maybe cheaper overall. Not sure how that all works
I could (if they don't sell directly I have friends in US), but customs and taxes make it even more expensive. I would have to pay customs fee for the product and for the shipping. Then based on the total amount of product, shipping and customs they add 24% for VAT (similar to sales tax in US). So if price would be 500USD and shipping 75USD and customs 20% it would become (500+75)*1.2=690USD and then VAT 690*1.24=855USD and the expensive Amazon price is 619EUR=666USD (free delivery). Also the USA one would need to be sent to USA for warranty.

Local store would have one used (mkIII or mkI, not mkIV) and even used prices are ridiculous: 699EUR

So I guess I buy the overpriced from Amazon.de.


Samuli
Feb 08, 2019 at 12:18 PM
 


Search in Used Dept. 

GMPhotography
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p.2 #11 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


I bought mine used from B&H for 438.00. It comes today

Hopefully I will like it otherwise sell it to a member. I’ll test it this weekend
Feb 08, 2019 at 01:16 PM
bjornthun
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p.2 #12 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Samuli Vahonen wrote:
I could (if they don't sell directly I have friends in US), but customs and taxes make it even more expensive. I would have to pay customs fee for the product and for the shipping. Then based on the total amount of product, shipping and customs they add 24% for VAT (similar to sales tax in US). So if price would be 500USD and shipping 75USD and customs 20% it would become (500+75)*1.2=690USD and then VAT 690*1.24=855USD and the expensive Amazon price is 619EUR=666USD (free delivery). Also the USA one would need to be sent to USA for warranty....Show more →

In Norway there is no customs on lenses, only VAT, which is 25%. The a fee to the postal service for doing the customs handling job, which is about 20 USD. I think the EU import coustoms on lenses is about 5-6%, but that will be cut to 0% in three years due to a free trade agreement between EU and Japan.
Feb 08, 2019 at 01:25 PM
Sarpedon
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p.2 #13 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Samuli Vahonen wrote:
The Voigtländer 50mm f/3.5 seems to be really difficult to buy at decent price from Finland/Europe. This far all websites I have checked have had zero availability, and Amazon.de is 90EUR overpriced but it's the only one with availability and warranty (some store from Netherland in eBay also has the lens, but not clear will it have warranty and their prices are without VAT). So I guess I have to order the overpriced Amazon one.

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The work caused by cropping is not the problem. The problem is that I would need to crop to make the photos somehow usable at...Show more →

This is a truly excellent explanation of why just a few mm might can make all the difference to an experienced photographer, and it applies just as well to less methodical work like street, sports, and portraiture. Kudos, Samuli.


Feb 08, 2019 at 01:35 PM
expwmbat
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p.2 #14 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Samuli Vahonen wrote:
When I shoot I "see" photos and compositions without camera, then I place tripod to place I feel correct, get camera from my backbag and take a photo. With 28mm, 50mm and 85mm I rarely need to move the tripod more than 1-2cm (less than inch). Despite trying to learn many years to "see" 25mm compositions, I never learned it, there is always something ugly peeking in edges or corners and composition is ruined. I even noticed that Sigma Art 50mm is slightly wider (~1mm) than Sony/Zeiss Alpha 1.4/50 or Zeiss ZE 1.4/50, later I confirmed my observation by...Show more →

Thank you, again. That's all very interesting indeed, and makes perfect sense of why the difference does matter to you. It's incredible that the human eye is capable of visualizing such minor differences--but of course it is, and even more precisely too, under other conditions.

I appreciate you taking the time and effort to explain all of this with regard to your own photographic process.

Best wishes,
Daniel
Feb 08, 2019 at 01:35 PM
KarmaKramer
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p.2 #15 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


I absolutely love the Sony50/1.4, at the right distance (mid distance? I'm not technical) its amazing. Well,all distances but one in particular.
The perspective,sharpness,separation abilities and rendering...love this thing! Indoors,1.4,bounced flash...incredible. So much fun when you get results you love. Sorry,ranting a little. Just go buy it,you'll see.
Feb 08, 2019 at 01:58 PM
Fred Miranda
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p.2 #16 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


KarmaKramer wrote:
I absolutely love the Sony50/1.4, at the right distance (mid distance? I'm not technical) its amazing. Well,all distances but one in particular.
The perspective,sharpness,separation abilities and rendering...love this thing! Indoors,1.4,bounced flash...incredible. So much fun when you get results you love. Sorry,ranting a little. Just go buy it,you'll see.

The 50/1.4 ZA is the missing GM in the middle of the 24/1.4 GM and 85/1.4 GM lenses. The only negative is weight but that's what makes it great optically. It's still smaller and lighter than the competition that shares similar IQ.
Feb 08, 2019 at 02:03 PM
KarmaKramer
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p.2 #17 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Yeah? It renders much like 24-70 GM but sharper! I've always loved 50s going back to the Canon 50/1.8STM. This one's crazy good. I leave on one body all day for weddings.

Fred Miranda wrote:
The 50/1.4 ZA is the missing GM in the middle of the 24/1.4 GM and 85/1.4 GM lenses. The only negative is weight but that's what makes it great optically. It's still smaller and lighter than the competition that shares similar IQ.
Feb 08, 2019 at 02:09 PM
GMPhotography
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p.2 #18 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Geez this lens is so small you could put in your front pocket. Lol
Feb 08, 2019 at 03:22 PM
GMPhotography
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p.2 #19 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Got the grandkids . Going to put one down for a nap and take a couple of the other one.


Feb 08, 2019 at 03:23 PM
GMPhotography
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p.2 #20 · Infinity test: CV 50/3.5 vs CV 40/1.2 vs FE 50/1.4 ZA


Crazy. Ultimate travel lens. No question






Edited on Feb 08, 2019 at 03:48 PM · View previous versions
Feb 08, 2019 at 03:46 PM
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