curious to see size difference between the 3 CV50's too ... 50/1.2, 50/1.5 II, 50/2 APO
like what Im seeing so far from the 50/1.5 though and size wise looks good on the A7
philip_pj wrote:
They want to keep the lens brand name upfront, but a strong convention is 'make, then model', like Toyota Landcruiser or Subaru Outback, hence Cosina Voigtlander (CV for short). Because of their other businesses, they would prefer you just use: Voigtlander.
The V word has cost them many sales, when simply using their company name would be much better. Branding is important business. For example, 'Ultron' sounds like a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books.
They included the diacritic mark (the diaereses or umlaut), ending up with an unknown and (for many in their important markets) impossible to pronounce correctly: Voigtländer. A decent and easy to recall approximation is: 'vote lender'. Easy to remember in the current times, but then again, many would rather steal your vote than lend it to you....Show more →
Hi Philip,
Cosina wanted to take advantage of the well known and well respected Voigtlander name so they obtained partial rights to the name.
I know I know, just having a little fun, a strange concept in 2020 admittedly. But still there is a case for lenses like the 'Cosina APO-Lanthar 65mm' etc. Too late now, but they would have got past the first post with a catchy name like their company's name. Then we could practice with '(k)hosh-y-na'.
philip_pj wrote:
They included the diacritic mark (the diaereses or umlaut), ending up with an unknown and (for many in their important markets) impossible to pronounce correctly: Voigtländer. A decent and easy to recall approximation is: 'vote lender'.
A while back I think there was a discussion on the forum here; someone asked why no one ever included the Umlaut when writing Voigtlander... I think it was just a matter of simplicity for English speakers.
If you want to be particular about pronunciation, 'V' in German is pronounced more like 'F' whereas 'W' is pronounced more like English 'V.' For example Volkswagen is really pronounced more like folksvagen.
As for Cosina licensing the Voigtlander brand: IMO it was a good move. Growing up with photography in the 80s-90s, if you were to ask me about Cosina's standing, I'd rank them below Ricoh, which at that time in Canada was the cheaper alternative to Pentax and always reminds me of the Japan Camera chain of photography stores. That in turn reminds me of the 'Sun' brand of lenses Japan Camera was so fond of selling. I wonder who made those? Off on another tangent, reading an interview on DC Watch of a former long-time Sigma lens designer, he mentioned they used to make lenses for Spiratone, haha. They've sure come far! And so has Cosina. Does anyone make bad lenses? Even the new Chinese brands are good, if maybe less consistently so.
philip_pj wrote:
They want to keep the lens brand name upfront, but a strong convention is 'make, then model', like Toyota Landcruiser or Subaru Outback, hence Cosina Voigtlander (CV for short). Because of their other businesses, they would prefer you just use: Voigtlander.
The V word has cost them many sales, when simply using their company name would be much better. Branding is important business. For example, 'Ultron' sounds like a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books.
They included the diacritic mark (the diaereses or umlaut), ending up with an unknown and (for many in their important markets) impossible to pronounce correctly: Voigtländer. A decent and easy to recall approximation is: 'vote lender'. Easy to remember in the current times, but then again, many would rather steal your vote than lend it to you....Show more →
I had two german employees at the studio who made sure I was taught how to pronounce it properly.
However, they also don't have it in the main lineup. It is listed here, but in Japanese...
The English pages in Cosina's website always seems to get new lens info added a couple of months after the release. Doesn't seem to be a priority for them to update those in timely manner. I suppose the German voigtlaender.de pages are handled by Ringfoto rather than Cosina.
teh_rebel wrote:
curious to see size difference between the 3 CV50's too ... 50/1.2, 50/1.5 II, 50/2 APO
like what Im seeing so far from the 50/1.5 though and size wise looks good on the A7
I have the E-mount version of 50/1.2 (original, not SE) and the 50/2 APO as well. I'll take a shot of all my CV 50mm glass lined up sometime this weekend (6 lenses now, 4 in M or LTM and 2 in E-mount). 50/1.5 II is definitely a nice fit for smaller cameras in size and weight. I always thought the 50/1.2 in E-mount is a bit too bulky and heavy. Otherwise it's great though. SE version would be a bit better in size but I didn't want to go through a swap and there are some aspects to the original that I prefer. 50/2 APO is nicely slim, but gets a bit long with the original hood. I slightly prefer the 50/1.2 to it overall though.
It's raining today but I did some little shooting during lunch break anyway with this new combo. I'll share some new samples from that later today, need to sort them out first.
Here are some samples with CV 50/1.5 II on A7C. All are SOOC JPEGs. Most were taken wide open again, but a couple are at f4 and thereabouts. In the outdoor shooting I was holding an umbrella while shooting so it was a bit tricky.
I used electronic (silent) shutter on all of them. First 2 were shot on pretty slow shutter speeds with help from IBIS but there might be very slight movement blur on them. I found it pretty easy to focus manually with the EVF even though it is small. I used peaking and occasionally also magnified view. I programmed AF-ON button for the magnification. With the video record button, thrashcan and AF-ON button I think there are enough programmable custom buttons for manual shooting but a joystick would be a little nicer than the control wheel at the back for moving the focus area for magnification area selection.
I think the colors came out nice with these OOC JPEGs (Standard settings + all noise reduction turned off). So far this feels like a very nice combo
Juha Kannisto wrote:
Here are some samples with CV 50/1.5 II on A7C.
Great set Juha! It does look like a great combo that's probably very lightweight as well. Could you snap a picture of the lens on the A7C?
I really like the character of the lens and the rendering, particularly the close-up performance.
zz wrote:
Great set Juha! It does look like a great combo that's probably very lightweight as well. Could you snap a picture of the lens on the A7C?
I really like the character of the lens and the rendering, particularly the close-up performance.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I also think they make a very nice pair
I'm still on my morning coffee, my bad for not noticing the photo. It does looks like a very stylish and compact kit!
The lens does make a nice mix of having the dreamy look and still having biting sharpness. The picture of the fire hydrant really shows that.
zz wrote:
I'm still on my morning coffee, my bad for not noticing the photo. It does looks like a very stylish and compact kit!
The lens does make a nice mix of having the dreamy look and still having biting sharpness. The picture of the fire hydrant really shows that.
Yes, I also like those characteristics a lot. The biting sharpness reminds me of the CV 35/1.7 Ultron I used to have. I think I'll use this smaller Nokton a lot more on the A7C thanks to size and weight than the native E-mount CV 50s that I also have. I think lenses below 300g are going to be the sweet spot with this camera. My Rayqual adapter is only about 42g so the total weight of adapter + lens becomes 240g (+ the hood which I haven't measured for weight yet but it's not going to add too much).
Juha
Those look great! Any chance you have photo of A7c and 50/1.5 without the hood?
Also hows the shooting experience with the smaller evf vs a7r (not sure which one you have)? Would you say it's still very useable and not an issue with manual focusing?
teh_rebel wrote:
Juha
Those look great! Any chance you have photo of A7c and 50/1.5 without the hood?
Also hows the shooting experience with the smaller evf vs a7r (not sure which one you have)? Would you say it's still very useable and not an issue with manual focusing?
Thanks very much! I'll take another shot of the camera and lens without the hood tomorrow when we have do daylight again I have an A9 as my main camera prior to A7C + older gen A7II and original A7r. The small EVF on A7C worked quite well for MF shooting for me today, peaking is very clear even without magnification and magnification is available to 5.9 and 11.7 times or something like that (if I remember right). I could frame my shots and see the focus clearly all the time and MF ease of use was pretty much the same that I'm used to, only with a smaller view. The smaller EVF view is not as good for reviewing photos etc. where my A9 is pretty good though. I've not yet shot the camera in bright daylight under the sun, that might be a bit more challenging since there is not much in terms of eyecup around the EVF. Overall I think the EVF will not make it hard to get focus and framing right and I much prefer having an EVF to using the screen. I've been frustrated with my Sigma fp having to use the screen only if I want to keep it small (the LCD viewfinder makes it a much bigger camera).
That in turn reminds me of the 'Sun' brand of lenses Japan Camera was so fond of selling. I wonder who made those? Off on another tangent, reading an interview on DC Watch of a former long-time Sigma lens designer, he mentioned they used to make lenses for Spiratone, haha. They've sure come far! And so has Cosina. Does anyone make bad lenses? Even the new Chinese brands are good, if maybe less consistently so.
zz wrote: