Fred Miranda wrote:
Yes, the mirrorless versions definitely have a different aesthetic and they already focus much closer, which is great. I was actually referring specifically to the M-mount version.
I guess the effect of a diopter on M would be a bit counterintuitive
It's probably worth pointing out at this juncture that the VM and the E/Z versions of this design are in fact two rather different lenses. When you replace APD glass with regular (but still very high quality) optical catalog glass, the entire lens design has to be revised.
I had naively thought Cosina simply de-tuned the (12/12/2019) E-mount lens with the (27/01/2021) M-mount 'version' of the lens. The later Z-mount is identical to the E-mount lens. They dropped L1, L3 and L6 from APD glass and made the two internal doublets completely regular glass. Virtually every element is altered in size, shape and spacing from its neighbors. Two different lenses.
I had figured this was done to soften wide open performance of the same lens - Cosina would know the Sony user group wanted a super sharp landscape oriented lens, whereas M users would be more interested in street and people photography.
In any case, the changes knocked off 5% or so from ALL spatial frequencies; it sounds like not much, but it matters greatly to rendering, as well as resolution (lens contrast). You see the effect in hair, textures in clothing, facial edges on the focal plane.
Pavel's lovely shot above is helped along by the detail-obscuring effect of high tones from the window light. This happens once the subject enters into the highest quintile of the brightness tone range.
This is a good example of 'less can be more'. I'd expect bokeh to be more settled as well. Another takeaway is that we have passed (not reached) the point at which ever more MTF might turn around and bite us, for people photography at least.
philip_pj wrote:
It's probably worth pointing out at this juncture that the VM and the E/Z versions of this design are in fact two rather different lenses. When you replace APD glass with regular (but still very high quality) optical catalog glass, the entire lens design has to be revised.
I had naively thought Cosina simply de-tuned the (12/12/2019) E-mount lens with the (27/01/2021) M-mount 'version' of the lens. The later Z-mount is identical to the E-mount lens. They dropped L1, L3 and L6 from APD glass and made the two internal doublets completely regular glass. Virtually every element is altered in size, shape and spacing from its neighbors. Two different lenses.
I had figured this was done to soften wide open performance of the same lens - Cosina would know the Sony user group wanted a super sharp landscape oriented lens, whereas M users would be more interested in street and people photography.
In any case, the changes knocked off 5% or so from ALL spatial frequencies; it sounds like not much, but it matters greatly to rendering, as well as resolution (lens contrast). You see the effect in hair, textures in clothing, facial edges on the focal plane.
Pavel's lovely shot above is helped along by the detail-obscuring effect of high tones from the window light. This happens once the subject enters into the highest quintile of the brightness tone range.
This is a good example of 'less can be more'. I'd expect bokeh to be more settled as well. Another takeaway is that we have passed (not reached) the point at which ever more MTF might turn around and bite us, for people photography at least. ...Show more →
Although what you wrote is technically sound, I believe that any differences would likely be more noticeable due to copy-to-copy variation than from the relatively small performance margin between the mounts.
A well made comparison would probably settle it in your mind, but it's not the kind of thing anyone would usually do. Their MTF charts are presumably produced in the same way, with a sound copy of each lens.
They equalise at f4, leaving the wide open performance to be what is at stake here. I was surprised at the 10lpmm differences, but they had a full year to revise the lens so it was clearly intentional.
philip_pj wrote:
A well made comparison would probably settle it in your mind, but it's not the kind of thing anyone would usually do. Their MTF charts are presumably produced in the same way, with a sound copy of each lens.
They equalise at f4, leaving the wide open performance to be what is at stake here. I was surprised at the 10lpmm differences, but they had a full year to revise the lens so it was clearly intentional.
A proper comparison really means using optimized copies of each lens on the same type of sensor, which isn't fully possible in practice. What I mean is that in normal production, that 4-5% difference in performance shown in the MTF is mostly negligible because of copy-to-copy variation. In other words, many production lenses don't hit the absolute optimum like the MTF charts suggest.
I would guess the lenses will probably render very similarly, even with the optical tweaks. I trust Cosina knows what they're doing and the reasons behind the changes.
Nicely illustrates that f/1.4 or faster isn’t really needed for decent bokeh. I realise that the APO-L’s rendering may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do like the way you’ve used it here — rather good 3D pop, in fact!
philip_pj wrote
Cosina would know the Sony user group wanted a super sharp landscape oriented lens, whereas M users would be more interested in street and people photography.
There could be some truth about it. Basically, we Sony users need such a lens where exact manual focus is more helpful than autofocus or focus by wire. Furthermore, APO lenses are a very good choice for landscape and botanical subjects. For street and people we rather take autofocus lenses, an option that does not exist for Leica M users. Actually, I indeed have a few street and people photos taken with this lens, but I mainly use autofocus lenses for that purpose.
As a manual focus lens for street and people I would rather prefer one of the two Nokton lens, F1 or F1.2 anyway. The bokeh of the Nokton lenses is softer for most apertures and APO correction is not required for that purpose.
Andrew CD wrote:
Nicely illustrates that f/1.4 or faster isn’t really needed for decent bokeh. I realise that the APO-L’s rendering may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do like the way you’ve used it here — rather good 3D pop, in fact!
I personally don't know what there is to complain about in the "rendering" and have never understood that argument against the APO-L line.
RoamingScott wrote:
I personally don't know what there is to complain about in the "rendering" and have never understood that argument against the APO-L line.
Here, we need to be able to criticize every piece of equipment and with the CV 50/2 the only possible criticism is rendering since it’s subjective.
RoamingScott wrote:
I was a silly goose and sold this lens a while ago, but luckily was able to get another one back for the same price.
Nervously recalling that I've now owned 5 copies of this lens...
Mostly bought and sold the E mount version a few times. I've held onto my M and Z mount copies for a few years now. I believe this is still my most used M mount lens, though I've been favoring the nokton more lately.
Andrew CD wrote:
Nicely illustrates that f/1.4 or faster isn’t really needed for decent bokeh.
I would boldly claim that it would be difficult to find a lens that doesn't produce decent bokeh at this close distance.
However, even under these circumstances, I don't find the bokeh in image 2 very attractive.
JimBuchanan wrote:
Hmm, thanks for your responses. My lens goes way past infinity distance, by a large range. I find it odd that temp or atmosphere could affect infinity that much on a short 50mm lens. My FD 300L has an adjustable infinity stop, but that's 300mm. I've always had a hard stop infinity on most of my lenses. I wonder if its adjustable?
As a follow-up on my own comment, and my other comments on the 50/2 APO Lanthar, my 50/2 now has a hard stop infinity and I'm loving it. It cost me, though. I tried to modify lens #1 and ruined the ribbon cable to the bayonet contacts. I got it back together, minus the exif data to the camera. That process or nightmare, allowed me to learn the mechanism and I was able to put in the appropriate micro stop to have infinity at the hard stop. The double helical does not have a variable adjustment for infinity. I now use my dumb lens #1 as my macro lens on a apsc body. With an almost surgical procedure in mind, I opened the new lens #2, fitted a new micro stop at my camera/lens real world infinity, retained the double helical alignment, and protected the ribbon data strip. I even applied a rubber adhesive focus tab to the lens. It is such a joy to know where infinity is by feel. This is a very special lens.
'I would rather prefer one of the two Nokton lens, F1 or F1.2 anyway. The bokeh of the Nokton lenses is softer for most apertures and APO correction is not required for that purpose.'
It might be one reason for the rather fast focus fade of some popular APO lenses, they can then deliver a 'safer' form of bokeh in a lens not really made for it. You have many more options with the Noktons, and you might agree bokeh at wide open aperture sets the overall tone for the bokeh the lens delivers at 1-2 stops down, where fast lenses pick up more contrast as well. It's often a better picture.
If you have to use zoom to see image-relevant CA, it does not exist in the image the lens makes out-of-camera. Computers are fault-finding devices, for some that is more important than the photos. The exact opposite is that of gestalt (my preference):
Gestalt is a German term meaning "whole" or "form" that represents a psychology school and therapeutic approach emphasizing that human minds perceive objects as organized wholes rather than just the sum of their parts. It posits that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
Love the APO Lanthar. I really regret selling it. In fact, I now only have the Leica Summilux 50 close focus version and am wanting to get rid of it to go back to the voigtlanders. IMO , much better lens. But heck, that's just me.
I can't use the Camera Standard colour profile with the apo-lanthar. It's just too much contrast together with the sharpness. I use it with every other lens but not this one. It doesn't look right to my eye. It doesn't look at all like the scene that I'm seeing. For city/architecture it's nice. But for just standard shots, it's not accurate to the scene at all and imo needs considerable toning down. I'm reducing sharpness more than usual with it, clarity, texture, boosting blacks and shadows. I was shooting with +0.3 ev compenstion to get some of the shadows back. It's too much. Adobe Color is better with it imo, still a bit too saturated.
Maybe even a linear profile and adjusting the curve, or camera neutral and some post. It takes some work. I had a deceterned used copy previously...that one I was boosting the contrast with adobe color sometimes, not much else. I wouldn't dare with this one. Was some time ago though. Not sure exactly what's up as never had both at the same time. Maybe a lot of dust inside reduced the contrast with the used copy, maybe some settings on my end changed, I dunno but it's a little annoying that every shot needs work to look right because the lens is in super-saiyan contrast mode + pin sharp all the time.
It suffers from success.
I'm currently rotating it with a couple others I took with me on a trip. So far really enjoying the Fuji XF 35/1.4 + X-E5 and the FM2n with the 50/1.4, but I am with family (and won't see the fm2n results for some time ). I know they're 3 50mm lenses. I also took 2 40mms: 40/1.2 SE & 40/2 ultron for the fm2n. Mostly trying to get more familiar with them all. I wanted to bring the samyang 45/1.8 too but no space left. TTA 40/2 would have been a useful one being closer to 37mm but just wanted to get some time in with the lenses and I'd used that one a few times recently.
samsung s21U with super res:
almost good enough for me with the ultra-wide for memories - sharpening aretefacts, lacking some resolution, colour and a little contrast. Maybe a new iphone at some point when it would be noticeably better but this phone has been great. I always do the 85% max charging battery protection and slow charge overnight with a wireless charger I've had for a decade. The main reason I upgraded the phone last time was the battery so I wanted this one to hold up better. I pushed the last one longer so time will tell - if i leave it that long.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
It's a shame that no one owns the APO Lanthar 2/50 and the Viltrox Air 2/50. I'd find direct comparison photos very interesting!
I have both, I'm away at the moment though, what kind of comparison shots would you want? I did a bokeh one at roughly 1.5m, they looked very similar but I'm struggling to find the post now. I suspect wide-open, at the absolute very edge the apo-lanthar is better but I might have messed up that test since it wasn't at infinity.
Doesn't demonstrate any issues with the bokeh. But the nokton is capble of significantly better. I like the apo for being able to showcase a scene rather than a isolate a subject, while still showing background blur. Whereas the nokton you'd need to stop it down quite a bit to get similar uniformity. It also feels nicer in the hand than the SE. But I find it a bit harder to confirm focus with the a7cii viewfinder.
I think you're probably good with the nokton 1.2 and the viltrox, Nifty. But you might have more fun with the apo than the viltrox.
Thank you for the comparison images! I'm not considering buying an Apo Lanthar. I was simply curious to see if and what the difference is between the Viltrox Air, which basically flies completely under the radar, and the Apo Lanthar, which is universally hailed as the best 50mm lens ever. This was triggered by a comment on my sample images last year, where someone said he would has believed it if I had told him the photos were taken with an Apo Lanthar. The fact that the Air and the AL render virtually identically (at least in this example and based on my personal impression) surprises and impresses me quite a bit. I myself almost exclusively use the GM 1.2 now. While I've always focused manually, I've noticed that I find it somewhat annoying and, above all, extremely tiring for my eyes with my mirrorless camera. Therefore, someone who previously couldn't stand autofocus, I now appreciate this convenience immensely. So much so that I'm willing to lug around a large and heavy lens for it, and the Nokton, whose results I actually prefer, hardly gets used anymore. The Viltrox is small and light, but I can't and won't do without an f/1.2 aperture as long as possible.
PS: It's comforting to read that I'm not the only one who sometimes finds the sharpness of today's lenses too extreme.I've actually ordered a Black Mist 1/4 filter for the GM.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
PS: It's comforting to read that I'm not the only one who sometimes finds the sharpness of today's lenses too extreme.I've actually ordered a Black Mist 1/4 filter for the GM.
Im one of those guys that judges a lens by its ability to produce sharp images, great contrast and bokeh. That's just my preference.
If you like the more classic look of a vintage lens, you can always post process and soften an image. But going the other way around deteriorates it.
I still regret selling my nokton 1.0 and apo lanthar 50. I have without justification psyched myself into hating my summilux 50 and don't even want to use it. It's a great lens but just not for me
). I know they're 3 50mm lenses. I also took 2 40mms: 40/1.2 SE & 40/2 ultron for the fm2n. Mostly trying to get more familiar with them all. I wanted to bring the samyang 45/1.8 too but no space left. TTA 40/2 would have been a useful one being closer to 37mm but just wanted to get some time in with the lenses and I'd used that one a few times recently.