I preordered this lens and received it last week to use with my Minolta CLE. Previously I’ve been using a Voigtlander 25mm F/4 Skopar and this 28mm will match the frame lines rather than being a little too wide and give me 2 more stops. I hesitated on the previous version of the Voigtlander 28mm f/2 due to its larger size, and the Elmarit 2.8 seemed too pricey, even used. I also hoped/guessed that a lens like this new 28mm would eventually be released.
The lens is small and dense, and the results from the first roll I shot were as expected. While the nuances of the performance that the digital images show above aren’t apparent on film, I’m happy with the purchase and will likely use it on digital in the future as well.
Lovely clarity there, I'm sure the photographer matter the most but I'm seeing the M9 character there too - clarity between tones, and somewhat vibrant lips. I really wish M9 will have an update with modern ISO performances, the color noise just spoil a lot of indoor shots (luminance noise, however, quite resemblance of film grain, which is somewhat desirable).
Fred Miranda wrote:
Sample from today. (wide open)
Hello, thanks for all your pictures and review. Would you be able to post a close-up (shoulder and waist level) portraits with some busy foliage in the background? Thanks
My new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II lens from Cameraquest was delivered at about 3:15 PM today. That was too late for my running any tests comparing the lens with my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2.
I did take the image below though comparing the sizes of my Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph lens with Leica hood to the far left, my Minolta CLE MC 28mm f2.8 M-Rokkor (without white spots) and Minolta hood to its right, my new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II with the Haoge LH-VM12 hood (their replacement for the Voigtlander LH-12 hood) to its right, and my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2 with the hood extended at the far right.
The new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II is quite small and without the hood, I believe is smaller than the Minolta CLE 28mm M-Rokker lens though it is heavier than the Minolta.
Hopefully tomorrow I will run some tests of the new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II including confirming the lens is centered. I will test the lens on my Kolari Vision UT sensor modded A7rII and compare the performance of the lens with my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2 on the Kolari UT A7rII and also on my stock A7rIII. I do not intend to test the Voigtlander on my stock A7rIII.
Once I have some of the test results, I plan to post them here.
naturephoto1 wrote:
My new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II lens from Cameraquest was delivered at about 3:15 PM today. That was too late for my running any tests comparing the lens with my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2.
I did take the image below though comparing the sizes of my Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph lens with Leica hood to the far left, my Minolta CLE MC 28mm f2.8 M-Rokkor (without white spots) and Minolta hood to its right, my new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II with the Haoge LH-VM12 hood (their replacement for the Voigtlander LH-12 hood) to its right, and my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2 with the hood extended at the far right.
The new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II is quite small and without the hood, I believe is smaller than the Minolta CLE 28mm M-Rokker lens though it is heavier than the Minolta.
Hopefully tomorrow I will run some tests of the new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II including confirming the lens is centered. I will test the lens on my Kolari Vision UT sensor modded A7rII and compare the performance of the lens with my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2 on the Kolari UT A7rII and also on my stock A7rIII. I do not intend to test the Voigtlander on my stock A7rIII.
Once I have some of the test results, I plan to post them here.
The Voigtlander LH-4N hood is not as long as the LH-12 (yours). Both LH-4N and LH-12 are compatible with this lens.
See image showing the LH-4N hood:
Hi Fred,
Thank you.
Yes, I am aware that the LH-4N and the Haoge equivalent are not as long as the LH-12. I believe the LH-12 may offer a bit better protection and shading. I liked the design of the LH-12 better since it was a little longer and lacked the cut-outs for the Leica M viewfinder (I am only using the lens on my Sony bodies) found on the LH-4N as well as the hood for the Minolta CLE MC 28mm M-Rokkor, and the Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph. I believe that Juha purchased the Voigtlander LH-12 hood. The LH-12 is more squared like the hood for the Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph. and the Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2.
I used both Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph. and the Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2.
Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asphis extreme sharp center and middle zone, and blurred at corner in Sony A7R2, while Leica Elmarit-R 28mm V2 E55 is quite sharp most area except extreme corner. I wish how this CV 28F2 v2 stand against both of them in your test.
junglialoh wrote:
I used both Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph. and the Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2.
Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asphis extreme sharp center and middle zone, and blurred at corner in Sony A7R2, while Leica Elmarit-R 28mm V2 E55 is quite sharp most area except extreme corner. I wish how this CV 28F2 v2 stand against both of them in your test.
At the moment, I was not planning on testing the Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph lens in these tests. As I recall though, the lens produces very sharp corners at f8 on my Kolari Vision UT A7rII. I would have to check the corners at f6.7.
As to the Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2, I can get pretty sharp corners with the lens, maybe not tack sharp, but sharp on my A7r. Below are a series of images taken in Shenandoah NP with the lens of cascades on my A7r which was tripod mounted. The first 2 are from the same series. The first one was processed a little larger for the full frame. The second one was also checked at 100% in all 4 corners. The last image is another cascade in the park processed the same size as the first image.
This is my first round of tests with my tripod mounted (Gitzo 1257LVL tripod with Fotopro E-6H Gimbal head) Kolari Vision UT sensor modified A7rII and my new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II VM lens. This is quite different from what Fred has done so far. For this test, I am trying to ascertain whether the lens is centered in particular. The lens had the B+W 39mm XS-Pro UV MRC-Nano 010M Filter and the Haoge LH-VM12 hood installed for these tests. Unfortunately, I do not have a target area like Fred, so for this test (which may appear boring) I photographed one of my Wife's wall hangings in our dining room as a target. The light was coming from the windows to the left and I could not confirm that the camera and the lens were totally parallel to the wall hanging so I can not be sure that that everything was level and the lens does not have any tilt.
In any case, I photographed the wall hanging at f2, f2.8, f4, f5.6, and f8. Focus was in the center of the frame and according to the lens markings were at a distance of about 2.4 feet so these tests do offer some indication as to how the lens performs on my Kolari Vision UT sensor modified A7rII camera. All of the images are straight out of the camera with Lightroom defaults and prepared as JPEG files from the original RAW files.
Photos to continue for several postings below where I will offer some comments.
Based upon my posted images, I believe that I have a centered copy of the new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II VM lens. I also believe that at least in the close focusing distance that my lens with Kolari Vision UT A7rII camera performs similarly to what what Fred has reported with his lens and his Leica M-10R. Since I am unable to confirm that my camera and lens were totally parallel with the wall hanging I will not and can not say that the lens and camera combination perform as well as reported by Fred, but I am quite pleased with the results so far. Yes, and can be seen in the images performance does improve across the frame and into the corners at least until about f5.6 or f8, and the vignetting noted particularly on the right side of the images and the light fall off on the earlier more wide open images improve as the lens is stopped down.
I hope that I will be able to continue additional tests shortly and to compare the performance of the lens and my Kolari Vision UT sensor modded A7rII with my Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2 lens both on the modded A7rII as well as my stock A7rIII. I anticipate that based upon what I am seeing so far that at least my Minolta CLE MC 28mm f2.8 M-Rokkor lens without any white spots will be looking for a new home later in the year when temperatures cool as I do not want to tempt the possibility of white spots developing in temperatures above about 80 degrees F.
Of note and as can seen in my previous image showing the 4 images including the 3 28mm lenses, the new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II VM lens is so light and small and balances so well on the Kolari Vision UT sensor modded A7rII when compared with the Leica R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit V2. I believe the weight difference between the lenses as shown is about 7.1 oz and when you include the Novoflex adapters for both lenses the weight difference is about 9 oz.
I forgot to mention in the first posting of these results, the shutter was set to silent shutter so as to not induce any vibration and the Sony wired release to fire the camera.
It has been gradually improved at corner with increasing F number as we expect.
But there is no reference lens such as Sigma 28mm F1.4 FE art (Benchmark) to compare with this lens.
BTW, thanks to sharing and it is good sharpness better than expectation.
junglialoh wrote:
It has been gradually improved at corner with increasing F number as we expect.
But there is no reference lens such as Sigma 28mm F1.4 FE art (Benchmark) to compare with this lens.
BTW, thanks to sharing and it is good sharpness better than expectation.
Hi,
Thank you. As to the comparison with the Sigma 28mm f1.4 FE art, it weighs 30.5 oz, is 82.8 x 107.7mm in size with a 77mm filter size. The new Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron II VM lens weighs 8.1 oz, is 51.4 x 36 mm in size with a 39mm filter size. Which would you prefer to carry into the field as a landscape lens? I am still not sure as to how sharp the lens is into the corners as mentioned I could not confirm that my Kolari Vision UT A7rII and lens were totally level and parallel with the wall hanging. Additionally, the lens was focused at the center of the wall hanging and at this point, no tests were run by focusing in the corners.
