p.11 #1 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Looking forward to your thoughts. I'm guessing your A7C is stock?
I'm sure you'll want to enjoy your new lens but perhaps a test focusing on the centre, midframe and corner wide open and at around f/5.6 if you can would be very helpful 😁 otherwise also happy to wait for Fred's tests.
I should make a video on removing LPF2 on the A7 series since it's not that challenging and leaves you with about 1.2mm total stack height and the additional IR sensitivity can be white balanced out for 95% of scenarios.
p.11 #2 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Interesting conversation on the leica forum where it has been pointed out this is a very similar lens design as the 35/1.2 viii.
https://i.ibb.co/PD8GZw3/35f12-vs-35f15.jpg
Aperture on the 1.5 is obvs 0.8x the size of the 1.2. The filter thread on the 35/1.2 is 52mm and so 80% of that is 41.6mm so perhaps with the slight design changes they will have equivalent or slightly better vignetting that the 35/1.2 which is admittedly also very high.
p.11 #3 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
thrice wrote:
Interesting conversation on the leica forum where it has been pointed out this is a very similar lens design as the 35/1.2 viii.
https://i.ibb.co/PD8GZw3/35f12-vs-35f15.jpg
Aperture on the 1.5 is obvs 0.8x the size of the 1.2. The filter thread on the 35/1.2 is 52mm and so 80% of that is 41.6mm so perhaps with the slight design changes they will have equivalent or slightly better vignetting that the 35/1.2 which is admittedly also very high.
p.11 #4 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
thrice wrote:
Looking forward to your thoughts. I'm guessing your A7C is stock?
I'm sure you'll want to enjoy your new lens but perhaps a test focusing on the centre, midframe and corner wide open and at around f/5.6 if you can would be very helpful 😁 otherwise also happy to wait for Fred's tests.
I should make a video on removing LPF2 on the A7 series since it's not that challenging and leaves you with about 1.2mm total stack height and the additional IR sensitivity can be white balanced out for 95% of scenarios.
Thanks! Yes, my A7C is stock. I use it with native as well as as adapted lenses and have not planned modifying it. Would be nice to add a 2nd one with a modified sensor some day but it hasn't been a priority. I also have a Sigma fp which has a thinner sensor stack but typically more color shading and vignetting (can be compensated in-camera but requires some extra steps).
I usually go for native CV glass when there are native E-mount and VM options but I also like to pick up the most interesting unique VM offerings. If they don't play nicely with Sony sensors I usually trade them later when getting something new. I also have some legacy rangefinder glass and MS-Optics glass etc. I'm especially into small FF cameras and lenses but not into rangefinder focusing mechanism or highly expensive cameras & lenses.
I'll try to get some of those samples that you mentioned e.g. to provide some insight on how it works on Sony sensor stack but I know Fred will do much more formal & controlled testing as he usually does. I'll mainly just go out and shoot a lot of stuff with various apertures around Tokyo as has been the tradition with the CV lenses that I get early
The optical design is indeed similar but I expect the new CV 35/1.5 to outperform it at any aperture.
My bad Fred 😅 we would hope it to outperform it but that could be asking a lot with the size consideration and that at f/1.5 the 35/1.2 is half a stop closed.
p.11 #6 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
My Type I lens did ship today and is on track for delivery 8:00-12:00 tomorrow morning so hopefully I can share some early samples later tomorrow. After full day of rain today the weather forecast for tomorrow is actually looking pretty good now so I should be able to get some shots in nice weather.
I ordered it with an LH-4N hood as I have the other matching LH-12 hood on my 28/2 II already, so I can use both lenses with either hood going forward.
p.11 #9 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Hopefully this lens is much better than the 35/1.2 despite the similar layout. Chromatic aberration on the 1.2 is absolutely out of control (perhaps the strongest purple haze I’ve seen) and the sharpness isn’t that great until around f/2.
p.11 #10 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
I received my lens this morning and I'm now out shooting with it. It's behaving very well on my A7C, much less noticeable field curvature (hardly any) from center into the corners compared to the 35/1.7 and 35/2 and 35/2.5 that I used to have. I think the corner-to-corner sharpness for infinity shots is perfect by f5.6 when focusing a hair before hard infinity (around the middle of the first loop of infinity symbol) with my Rayqual adapter. It's already pretty good at wider apertures too. My first impression is that it's also plenty sharp at MFD wide open.
p.11 #11 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I received my lens this morning and I'm now out shooting with it. It's behaving very well on my A7C, much less noticeable field curvature (hardly any) from center into the corners compared to the 35/1.7 and 35/2 and 35/2.5 that I used to have. I think the corner-to-corner sharpness for infinity shots is perfect by f5.6 when focusing a hair before hard infinity (around the middle of the first loop of infinity symbol) with my Rayqual adapter. It's already pretty good at wider apertures too. My first impression is that it's also plenty sharp at MFD wide open.
Handling is fine and very similar to 28/2 II....Show more →
Sweet!! A couple questions:
1) How are colors and contrast? Similar/as punchy as the 28/2ii?
2) How are LoCal and SA (especially WO)?
3) How is overall rendering, up near, but also 4-15 feet away at f1.5-2?
I used electronic / silent shutter in all the daylight shots. After dark I used EFCS with anti-flicker on especially on the shots that were mostly lit by artificial lights.
I went to Odaiba (Tokyo Teleport station) and walked to Ariake and beyond, then crossed some bridges and walked to Ginza before returning to Ebisu by train. A very long walk
Most of them were taken at f5.6 or wide open at f1.5. There are no shots stopped down further than f5.6 there. Several of the wide open shots were taken at or very close to MFD. I didn't use a helicoid adapter today so there are no samples focused closer than 0.5m so far. When it started getting dark I also used some intermediate apertures more to keep ISO low. Most of the shopfront shots in the dark were taken wide open.
I think the colors and contrast are typical Voigtländer and similar to e.g. 28/2 II (punchy and well saturated). The lens seems to have great flare-resistance and there was no problem shooting against the sun at all. Tested with some artificial lights, 12-point sunstars are pretty well formed already at f2 and perfect at least by f4.
The next aperture stop after f1.5 is f2, there's no half-stop between those 2.
I didn't shoot much at f1.5 from longer distances with background further away but there might be a couple of samples like that as well. I don't usually test for CA especially but I didn't notice any in my shots so far... I hope Fred can cover those areas in his test much better.
When shooting more I noticed that hard infinity actually worked fine with this lens with my spec-accurate Rayqual adapter for infinity shots when the targets are really far away (it was the best setting for center, midfield, edges and corners), so I ended up using hard infinity a lot. In my early testing where I had to pull back a hair from hard infinity, I think the buildings I was shooting were not far enough in the end.
So far I'm very happy with how the lens performs on my A7C so it's definitely a keeper for me. The usability aspects are also excellent, nothing to complain about so far.
I'll get some shots of the lens on Camera afterwards and will post here.
p.11 #15 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
thrice wrote:
Meanwhile, the Australian distributor and thus all Australian retailers don't even list the lens yet
Can we get a picture (or 10) of the lens on the camera for an idea of scale? All pictures thus far are of the lens floating in nothingness.
A couple of quick smartphone pics showing the lens on my A7C. The adapter adds a bit to the length of course. It's slightly longer than I was expecting but usability is perfect.
Nov 24, 2022 at 07:48 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
p.11 #16 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Juha Kannisto wrote:
Here are 150 SOOC JPEG samples taken today with the new lens on my Sony A7C (stock):
I used electronic / silent shutter in all the daylight shots. After dark I used EFCS with anti-flicker on especially on the shots that were mostly lit by artificial lights.
I went to Odaiba (Tokyo Teleport station) and walked to Ariake and beyond, then crossed some bridges and walked to Ginza before returning to Ebisu by train. A very long walk
Most of them were taken at f5.6 or wide open at f1.5. There are no shots stopped down further than f5.6 there. Several of the wide open shots were taken at or very close to MFD. I didn't use a helicoid adapter today so there are no samples focused closer than 0.5m so far. When it started getting dark I also used some intermediate apertures more to keep ISO low. Most of the shopfront shots in the dark were taken wide open.
I think the colors and contrast are typical Voigtländer and similar to e.g. 28/2 II (punchy and well saturated). The lens seems to have great flare-resistance and there was no problem shooting against the sun at all. Tested with some artificial lights, 12-point sunstars are pretty well formed already at f2 and perfect at least by f4.
The next aperture stop after f1.5 is f2, there's no half-stop between those 2.
I didn't shoot much at f1.5 from longer distances with background further away but there might be a couple of samples like that as well. I don't usually test for CA especially but I didn't notice any in my shots so far... I hope Fred can cover those areas in his test much better.
When shooting more I noticed that hard infinity actually worked fine with this lens with my spec-accurate Rayqual adapter for infinity shots when the targets are really far away (it was the best setting for center, midfield, edges and corners), so I ended up using hard infinity a lot. In my early testing where I had to pull back a hair from hard infinity, I think the buildings I was shooting were not far enough in the end.
So far I'm very happy with how the lens performs on my A7C so it's definitely a keeper for me. The usability aspects are also excellent, nothing to complain about so far.
I'll get some shots of the lens on Camera afterwards and will post here....Show more →
Thanks Juha. I would say so far the lens looks great even on the thicker cover glass Sony. Thanks for the samples.
p.11 #19 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Vignetting seems under control. Much better than I expected from these initial samples. Thanks Juha!
Nov 24, 2022 at 12:00 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
p.11 #20 · Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 35/1.5 VM I & II and Nikon Z Apo-Lanthar 65/2
Fred Miranda wrote:
Vignetting seems under control. Much better than I expected from these initial samples. Thanks Juha!
Remember this are straight our of cameras jpegs, however, so I wonder if there is some correction baked in. Perhaps not, but I suppose that could be done if Sony wanted.
