The people I spoke with don't mind me saying so - they are sold out pretty much worldwide, and have scheduled an emergency production run for January, to avoid a repeat of the 40/1.2 release backlog.
What happens with ranges is that the maker wants to replicate the general look and feel and dimensions in each lens. CV have done a fine job of minimising all their lenses' weight and they are painfully aware (coming from the M world) of preferences in this regard.
A very acceptable size/weight is in store if they wish to further expand the f2 APO range into the street/general lens category. Everyone will give them this feedback for the 50/2.
Copy variation - if the manufacturing manager is right, the lenses must be very well-centred to perform as designed. Yet another reason to encourage 'APO' lenses. They don't need to be perfect, we can settle for near-invisible aberrations, I think. Like this one.
I use Photo Ninja, and it has this nice feature of sticking lens info in (a lens it does know about) when it doesn't know what a lens is. Given how infrequently its updated, I've been having to fix EXIF more and more.
Should be fixed now.
-Tim
Jman13 wrote:
I'm confused. The EXIF on your lens shows it as the Loxia 50/2, not the Voigtlander?
My glass is half full - because I now have the CV 50/2, I’m motivated to finally get rid of all my other manual focus 50’s - my 50 cron, ZM 50/2, and F mount CV 58.
Can anyone comment on how easy it is to nail focus at infinity? I had heard the 65 and 110 APOs were quite tricky but being macro that makes sense. Wondering if this is similar or not.
This lens is indeed sold out everywhere, it's like a feeding frenzy. I managed however to hunt down the last one this morning at a German on-line store and snagged it right away. Now to prepare the tent and supplies for a month, as I won't be sleeping at home once it arrives.
Jeff Kott wrote:
My glass is half full - because I now have the CV 50/2, I’m motivated to finally get rid of all my other manual focus 50’s - my 50 cron, ZM 50/2, and F mount CV 58.
You and me both! xD
For me it is also time to get rid of all the old Contax Zeiss lenses. Also letting go of the Lox 50. The more photos I see in this thread the more I think the Lox 50 is quite redundant when my CV 50 APO arrives.
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stjepan wrote:
This lens is indeed sold out everywhere, it's like a feeding frenzy. I managed however to hunt down the last one this morning at a German on-line store and snagged it right away. Now to prepare the tent and supplies for a month, as I won't be sleeping at home once it arrives.
Mine is arriving today and I am full of anticipation for days since I ordered it. It is fun being like a kid waiting for christmas once again
The lens sure seems to be a performer. The only thing that turns me down however is the fact that it claims to be APO even though it isn't.
To justify such a high price for an MF lens, I think it really should perform like a true APO lens. Pretty disappointing.
I think it's pretty close to APO, and it terms of price, I think it's more than fair. But I realize everyone will form their own opinion. I think you can probably coax some level of imperfection out of most APO lenses, if you really try hard.
There's always this.....A couple stops slower and around 4x the price. Granted it's a macro and it's supposed to be APO beyond the visible range from what I remember.
keepcoding wrote:
Thanks Fred for the excellent review!
The lens sure seems to be a performer. The only thing that turns me down however is the fact that it claims to be APO even though it isn't.
To justify such a high price for an MF lens, I think it really should perform like a true APO lens. Pretty disappointing.
tsdevine wrote:
I think it's pretty close to APO, and it terms of price, I think it's more than fair. But I realize everyone will form their own opinion. I think you can probably coax some level of imperfection out of most APO lenses, if you really try hard.
There's always this.....A couple stops slower and around 4x the price. Granted it's a macro and it's supposed to be APO beyond the visible range from what I remember.
keepcoding wrote:
Thanks Fred for the excellent review!
The lens sure seems to be a performer. The only thing that turns me down however is the fact that it claims to be APO even though it isn't.
To justify such a high price for an MF lens, I think it really should perform like a true APO lens. Pretty disappointing.
I think you may misunderstand the definition of APO. A regular lens focusses at just one specific wavelength exactly on the plane of focus. An achromatic lens focusses on just two specific wavelength exactly on the plane of focus. An apochromatic lens (i.e., APO) focusses on three specific wavelengths exactly on the plane of focus. Almost every lens that claims to be APO does not present evidence that it meets this strict definition. I suspect many if not most lenses that claim to be APO do not meet this strict definition. I would not be surprised if the Voigtlander 50 f/2 APO does not meet that definition either. Still we don't really know. It is perfectly possible for a lens to meet even the strict definition of APO and still show some axial CA. Imagine a lens that focusses exactly on the focus plane at a red wavelength that is almost infrared, at a middle wavelength, and at a violet wavelength that is almost ultraviolet. Now if you plot the focus of each wavelength relative to the exact focus plane you would have a graph with a hump below the line on one side of the middle and a hump above the line on the other side of the middle. Those humps, if they are big enough, could still give you magenta and green fringing typical of axial CA even in an APO lens.
The point is that an APO lens limits the magnitude that some wavelengths deviate from the exact focal plane it does not make all wavelengths focus at the exact focal plane and in fact only three wavelength focus exactly on the focus plane. In practice an APO lens will have very little axial CA, but it could have some, and the presence of axial CA does not necessarily mean a lens is not APO. So, although I suspect the Voigtlander 50 f/2 APO does not fully meet the definition of APO I can't know that from looking at pictures. It could be APO and still show the same axial CA we can see in some of the examples.
So, it is fine to be a bit disappointed that the lens shows more axial CA than one would like--it is the only thing I am slightly disappointed in with this lens--but don't be disappointed the lens isn't fully APO. We can't really know that without some very careful testing with probably pretty specialized equipment. It doesn't really in the end matter whether it meets the strict definition of APO. What matters is what the pictures look like, and in most instances the axial CA is very minor, but in some difficult situations it will definitely be recongnizeable especially when you blow up a 61 MP file to the pixel level of magnifications (i.e., view it at 100%).
keepcoding wrote:
Thanks Fred for the excellent review!
The lens sure seems to be a performer. The only thing that turns me down however is the fact that it claims to be APO even though it isn't.
To justify such a high price for an MF lens, I think it really should perform like a true APO lens. Pretty disappointing.
Although I am confused about the first para, I can tell you that the APO Lanthar is without focus shift all the way to Infrared.
Unlike, the CO lens, the APO Lanthar does not show a hotspot at close focus distance even with extension tubes attached.
tsdevine wrote:
I think it's pretty close to APO, and it terms of price, I think it's more than fair. But I realize everyone will form their own opinion. I think you can probably coax some level of imperfection out of most APO lenses, if you really try hard.
There's always this.....A couple stops slower and around 4x the price. Granted it's a macro and it's supposed to be APO beyond the visible range from what I remember.
I managed however to hunt down the last one this morning at a German on-line store and snagged it right away. Now to prepare the tent and supplies for a month, as I won't be sleeping at home once it arrives. 
