Please share more of your impressions. Are the wonky features in your images due to field curvature from the lens or just age related warping of the subjects?
TIA!
leicamera wrote:
Thank you Fred for kindly sharing your test results of your Voigtlander 35mm Apo Lanthars (FE)...most appreciated - Its a wonderful lens!
This afternoons snaps on a walkabout around the back streets of Looe, Cornwall (A7R4 + 35mm Apo-Lanthar FE)
After reading this thread I decided to get me this Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar 2/35. Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw don't provide a profile for it as yet, so I made one myself with the Adobe Lens Profile Creator. This went well enough, except for one thing: I didn't manage to correct for the vignetting at f/2. It looks to me that there is a sharp light fall-off in place at f/2 in the extreme corners; at f/2.8 and smaller nothing of the sort is happening.
A little cropping will get rid of it and with judicious local adjustments the effect can be mitigated, but annoying it is nevertheless, something to keep in mind when using the lens wide-open. To be sure, I didn't use filters, just the lens hood that came with the lens.
Edit: Thinking about this further, it seems more likely that something is wrong with the correction algorithm in Lightroom/Camera Raw. Such a sharp lightening of the corners is unlikely to come from the lens. Strange anyway and I don't know what to think of it. Manual correction of vignetting gives reasonably good results without the anomaly of sharply delineated bright extreme corners.
Please share more of your impressions. Are the wonky features in your images due to field curvature from the lens or just age related warping of the subjects?
TIA!
Hi Vivek, you do have a wonderful way with words my friend ...So you want to know about my "wonky features"
I won't upload all of my initial infinite de-centering test images (center and 4 corners etc...) + All of my other test images, like if you need to refocus for the corners or not (I don't!)...suffice to say I'm very happy with my copy of this lens.
I will add these 2 SooC images though, just some levels applied as the light changed between shots (Camera was resting on the table with EFCS left turned ON for worse case scenario creamy back/foregrounds etc...)...I took these shots a few days ago.
First up the big heavy 35mm Sigma DN DG @ f1.2 followed by the 35mm Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar @ f2.0 both images were shot WO...The larger full sized versions can be found on my Flickr.
Plane of focus (just visible across the table) was about 0.5m away with the edge of a white door about 0.8m beyond that (center top/vertical white line)...I just wanted to see how these lenses compared/rendered at a very close distances (focus zone).
I'm not detecting any field curvature in landscapes or close-ups...the lens is another Planar style lens just like it's twin brother the 50mm Apo Lanthar.
It's definitely not another wavy moustached Zeiss Distagon type design with a mid-field drop in resolution (As per MTF's) case in point my old ZM 35mm f1.4 Distagon.
(That needed a OptoSigma correction lens to sort out most of the field curvature + In my particular case one shim was also removed to get infinite at the hard stop).
BTW. I'm not knocking that lens because I believe you also have a copy...in truth I REALLY loved that lens despite all of it's faults with the Sony sensor cover glass plate, it's one of those lenses I miss the most!
The only glaring obvious problem (for me) is that the 35mm Apo-Lanthar is only f2 fast!!!...I still need/want to keep the 35mm Sigma f1.2 for it's extra OoF when shooting WO subjects circa 3-5m away.
My 35mm Apo-Lanthar very slightly out resolves my Bigma from f2 to stopped down f8 across the frame (Center/Mid/Corners) the centers were very close...The 35mm Apo-Lanthar will cover 80% of what I regularly shoot in a nice lightweight/small travel package.
I have just cancelled my order for the Sony 35mm f1.4 GM as the Bigma gives me more range of speed and smoother OoF than that lens does below f2...It will be interesting to see how the 35mm Sony GM stacks up against the 35mm Apo-Lanthar (as that lens could be still the best 1 lens solution for many).
So long story short...Obviously we don't have a profile for it yet, so I guess what you must be seeing is an "age related warping of the subjects" - Some of those stores were indeed in a sorry old state.
Cheers Barry
EDIT...Just inserted the 35mm Sony GM f1.4 rendering WO test (taken today 22/04/21), the lens was well centered... The weight saving was worth it to me in the end.
I shall now keep the 35mm Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar f2.0 together with the 35mm Sony GM f1.4 and sell the 35mm Sigma Art f1.2.
(Since I have cameras with no cover glass or with custom thin cover glass, in addition to the M cams, the ZM 35/1.4 in its original state is very useful to me.)
Apologies for the size of these, I promise that next time I do this they will be smaller. Trying to follow more of Fred's lead in posting comparisons (thanks Fred!.) These were taken with all in camera corrections off, on a tripod, manually focused. They were processed in Lightroom Classic, all corrections off (although it said it was using a built in profile for the Tamron.) I used the same sharpening for both lenses (matching Fred's.)
All were taken on my a7R III, which is probably limiting some of the ability to cross compare.....but it's all I have.
Hopefully this will give you an idea where I pulled the crops from.
These are center crops.
Left - Tamron 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSD 1:2 / Right - Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 35mm f/2 Aspherical
Apologies for the size of these, I promise that next time I do this they will be smaller. Trying to follow more of Fred's lead in posting comparisons (thanks Fred!.) These were taken with all in camera corrections off, on a tripod, manually focused. They were processed in Lightroom Classic, all corrections off (although it said it was using a built in profile for the Tamron.) I used the same sharpening for both lenses (matching Fred's.)
All were taken on my a7R III, which is probably limiting some of the ability to cross compare.....but it's all I have.
These are center crops.
Left - Tamron 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSD 1:2 / Right - Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 35mm f/2 Aspherical
Granted, I have untrained eyes, but unless I'm just horribly mistaken, I can barely see any difference in resolution once you reach f/5.6/8, which in and of itself says something pretty remarkable about the $200 Tamron. I'd assume that when looking on your own screen and not dealing with <2MB files there may be a difference, but that's pretty damn good for a $200 lens compared to what is likely the sharpest 35 available for E mount.
You can see that the Tamron is wider than the Voigtlander, I did not adjust the framing to account for that. I'm hoping it doesn't get in the way of comparison.
I'm shooting the a7R III which is a limiting factor. Also, you can see while the Tamron is sharp to the corners, it can't quite maintain the resolving power of the Voigtlander, at least that's what I see.
These are 100% crops....so you're seeing what I'm seeing.
I also believe I have a stellar copy of the Tamron.
photosbyjaron wrote:
Granted, I have untrained eyes, but unless I'm just horribly mistaken, I can barely see any difference in resolution, which in and of itself says something pretty remarkable about the $200 Tamron. I'd assume that when looking on your own screen and not dealing with <2MB files there may be a difference, but that's pretty damn good for a $200 lens compared to what is likely the sharpest 35 available for E mount.
tsdevine wrote:
Apologies for the size of these, I promise that next time I do this they will be smaller. Trying to follow more of Fred's lead in posting comparisons (thanks Fred!.) These were taken with all in camera corrections off, on a tripod, manually focused. They were processed in Lightroom Classic, all corrections off (although it said it was using a built in profile for the Tamron.) I used the same sharpening for both lenses (matching Fred's.)
All were taken on my a7R III, which is probably limiting some of the ability to cross compare.....but it's all I have.
These are center crops.
Left - Tamron 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSD 1:2 / Right - Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 35mm f/2 Aspherical
Thanks Will. These were shot from the Hershey Gardens parking lot, probably about 2 miles from my house. Glad you recognized it, I guess the stacks in the one shot along with the rides make it a dead giveaway.
Hope you had a less crowded day at Longwood than I did....
WillR wrote:
Tim, these have to be the sweetest comparisons on Earth!
Where was your vantage point? Its been more than a decade since I took my boys to HersheyPark, but your test photos brought back memories.
I have to give the edge overall to the Voigtlander, but its pretty close.
Thanks for doing these, For the moment the Tamron suits my needs pretty well (I just used it with the tulips at Longwood).
tsdevine wrote:
You can see that the Tamron is wider than the Voigtlander, I did not adjust the framing to account for that. I'm hoping it doesn't get in the way of comparison.
-Tim
Thank you Tim, not at all, these are wonderful to study.
j4nu wrote:
Hmm, interesting - seems that Tamron is again punching above its weight (save for the corners) .
There is a premium for f/2 and perfect corners. That said, I think we're used to seeing these comparisons done on 60mp shown at super-high magnification where we can evaluate which blurry image is blurrier than the other blurry image
Apr 19, 2021 at 08:07 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
tsdevine wrote:
I'm shooting the a7R III which is a limiting factor. Also, you can see while the Tamron is sharp to the corners, it can't quite maintain the resolving power of the Voigtlander, at least that's what I see.
These are 100% crops....so you're seeing what I'm seeing.
I also believe I have a stellar copy of the Tamron.
I do see a difference, even in the center I see more micro contrast from the CV 35 f/2 AL, but the difference are not that big. The Tamron turns in performance that makes it a real bargain, but the CV 35 f/2 AL to my eyes is clearly the stronger performer in this test.
No argument with that assessment, although I'm not sure any native would do much better against the CV, short of the GM 35. It's hard to judge whether the Sigma 35/2 did better than the Tamron, as I'm only shooting the a7R III, so I hesitate to make any comparisons to the test Fred did earlier in this thread.
I think the Tamron is a great budget choice for landscape shooting, and was the best native 35 I found for that purpose up to this point.
My Tamron will probably be relegated to shooting waterfalls in wet conditions, basically when there is rain in the forecast and I don't want to risk shooting the CV.
Steve Spencer wrote:
I do see a difference, even in the center I see more micro contrast from the CV 35 f/2 AL, but the difference are not that big. The Tamron turns in performance that makes it a real bargain, but the CV 35 f/2 AL to my eyes is clearly the stronger performer in this test.
...So you want to know about my "wonky features" 
