p.1 #1 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
I‘m very interested in a list of e-mount lenses with full or extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction.
The following come to my mind:
Voigtländer Apo Lanthar 2.0/35mm
Voigtländer Apo Lanthar 2.0/50mm
Voigtländer Apo Lanthar 2.0/65mm
Voigtländer Apo Lanthar 2.5/110mm
Zeiss Batis 2.8/135mm
Are there any Sony lenses that could qualify?
In addition I‘m not aware of any lenses below 35mm that could qualify. Am I missing any?
p.1 #4 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
It's a bit hard to define "extremely high" LoCa correction but I don't think CV 35 APO is that well corrected. If we're not that strict, Sigma 85/1.4DN is rather well corrected. Also some longer macro lenses are really good in that regard, like Sigma 105/2.8 DN...
p.1 #7 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
Always a touchy and vexed issue, is our old friend: longitudinal chromatic aberration. I did a mini-sweep of the review commentary on some of the above lenses, and I add my personal takes.
The caveats include: the worst first - no easily reproducible real world tests of LoCA exist. Copy variation does exist and may exert an influence on LoCA. Use of the APO term elicits various responses among reviewers, some of them personal reactions. Many look askance at the boldness of the claim by lens makers.
We see great variation in how some members and reviewers approach the subject, ranging from (i) taking the maker's word for 'APO' (very common, almost universal for Leica APO lenses), to (ii) casual observations of full images, to (iii) looking at what they get in the way of general imagery with the lens, finally to (iv) actively seeking the tiny skerricks of residual LoCA wherever it may try to hide.
People use different resolution cameras, exacerbating problems of comparability (100% views differ greatly). Some view fountain water droplets, some use gushing water flows, others look at small motifs on table tops, others use the slanted chart model to show the familiar green/magenta pattern. For open air assessments, light conditions vary widely.
There is no scale for APO acceptability, it cannot easily be so modelled, nor is it a yes/no dichotomy as 'LoCA exists/no LoCA exists' in test images. The subject often receives no critical attention at all in reviews, giving way to coma, distortion and our dear friends vignette and bokeh ball shapes. The best coverage of the topic is right here, in the reviews and discussions.
Now the good news: very many high end lenses, including Sonys, have very little LoCA. See here:
Others mentioned above are similar, one case being the Loxia 85mm, with small 'non-photographic' traces only. See here, YT title (9:30):
'Zeiss Loxia 85mm F2.4 Sonnar: IQ Breakdown | 4K'
Stepping back for a birds eye view, my sense is that the recent complex lenses (C/N/S/Sigma) have stepped up more than is commonly appreciated, to the point where most recent lenses experience very little real world intrusion (let's call it) in their imagery from unacceptable LoCA. This makes the matter less critical for all of us, but APOs still provide better colour saturation and, for want of a better word - 'image snap'.
Another related issue for you to be aware of is the notion that highly corrected APOs show less pleasant bokeh, the impression being that they pay for the fine correction with poorer bokeh. But that is a shibboleth for another day - certainly the CV APOs (as a class) produce fine bokeh by design, in my view at least.
p.1 #8 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
The response to the Voigtlander APOs is interesting. The longer pair (both designated as macros) received less searching inspection and greater approval than the two shorter lenses that compete head-on with many more lenses. Pigeonholing is therefore to be expected. It is very common to see a lens only from your own work with it, in your own hermetic environment, and to extrapolate from there. So we need to look across the range of commentary.
It's interesting that the two shorter CV APOs compete technically with equivalent Leica (and other favourite) lenses, and indeed they have come in for more scrutiny, some resulting in unfavourable commentary. See here for an example of 'searching for LoCA' regarding the CV 35/2 APO:
p.1 #9 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
Well, there are not many lenses that can resolve 50 lpmm with an MTF of 50 at f2.0 in the corners.
And of the less than a dozen lenses that may qualify (across a broad range of focal lengths), only the following two Voigtländer Apos weigh clearly less than 400g.
(The 35 and 50mm Apo)
p.1 #11 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
architekt wrote:
hope voigtlander release a 24/28 f2 APO to complete the set
I would love such a lens as well. Unfortunately the challange to get a really well corrected lens at these focal lengths is increasing (meaning more lens elements and more weight).
None of the present 24-28 crop tested by lenstip reach 50 lpmm in the corners at f2.0.
I might thus actually forgo 2.0 and be very happy with an f2.8 that is really sharp from wide open.
The weight aspect is also an important consideration:
- extremely well corrected f2.0/24mm or f2.0/28mm lenses will need many elements, raising weight to 600-700g for an extremely well corrected example. More than I would want to carry for such a lens.
- I would thus prefer a perfectly corrected f2.8 24/28mm lens that I can use from wide open without reservations and that only weighs 350-400g.
p.1 #12 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
philip_pj wrote:
The response to the Voigtlander APOs is interesting. The longer pair (both designated as macros) received less searching inspection and greater approval than the two shorter lenses that compete head-on with many more lenses. Pigeonholing is therefore to be expected. It is very common to see a lens only from your own work with it, in your own hermetic environment, and to extrapolate from there. So we need to look across the range of commentary.
It's interesting that the two shorter CV APOs compete technically with equivalent Leica (and other favourite) lenses, and indeed they have come in for more scrutiny, some resulting in unfavourable commentary. See here for an example of 'searching for LoCA' regarding the CV 35/2 APO:
You might want to average out the various reports....Show more →
The Phillip Reeve review you reference is the VM-version of the 35mm Apo Lanther. The other reviews you list are all for the E-mount version.
Bastian even says in the E-mount review "It also comes as M-mount lens – which at first sight seems to have the same optical design – but in fact doesn’t, as I will show you in my review of the M-mount version (coming soon)."
Comparing the LoCA images between the two versions shows a stronger red fringing on the water fountain closeup in the M-version.
The fringing in E-mount closeup of the Church wrought iron fence is confused by the multicolors of the way-over-exposed stained glass windows behind it.
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p.1 #13 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
Knut. wrote:
I would love such a lens as well. Unfortunately the challange to get a really well corrected lens at these focal lengths is increasing (meaning more lens elements and more weight).
None of the present 24-28 crop tested by lenstip reach 50 lpmm in the corners at f2.0.
I might thus actually forgo 2.0 and be very happy with an f2.8 that is really sharp from wide open.
The weight aspect is also an important consideration:
- extremely well corrected f2.0/24mm or f2.0/28mm lenses will need many elements, raising weight to 600-700g for an extremely well corrected example. More than I would want to carry for such a lens.
- I would thus prefer a perfectly corrected f2.8 24/28mm lens that I can use from wide open without reservations and that only weighs 350-400g....Show more →
I think it is important to keep in mind that axial CA (i.e., longitudinal CA) decreases as you stop down, so an important question is at what aperture do you want to no longer see axial CA? Faster lenses will always require more correction at wider apertures, so it isn't surprising that a lens like the Laowa 100 f/2.8 macro can get quite decent axial CA from wide open with a smaller lens, than the Zeiss Otus 100 f/1.4 which requires a lot more correction and a lot more size and expense to correct for axial CA.
With that said, I am a fan of the Zeiss Loxia 25 f/2.4 and 85 f/2.4. They are small lenses and their relatively modest maximum aperture allow them to be quite decently corrected. In fact, I think for E-mount the set of Loxia 25 f/2.4, Voigtlander 35 f/2 APO, Voigtlander 50 f/2 APO, and Loxia 85 f/2.4 creates a range of pretty similar, pretty small lenses. The Loxia 25 is not a perfect lens and its chief weakness is axial CA. In practice I find it is rarely an issue at f/4 and I have never found it to be an issue at f/5.6, but I don't think you could ever say the lens is highly corrected for axial CA. It isn't quite flat field either, but field curvature is well tamed by f/4. Yet I think it is a strong option at 25mm and has high resolution across the frame and is generally well corrected.
The Zeiss Loxia 85 f/2.4 still has a little bit of axial CA at f/2.4, but in practice it has never been an issue for me even at f/2.8. Coma doesn't really clean up in the corners until f/4, but it is a really nice lens even if a bit on the heavy side. I would say it too has high resolution across the frame and is generally well corrected. I would also say that this lens is generally as well corrected as the Leica 90 f/2 APO, so although not given an APO labelled has corrections that are competitive with APO lenses.
So, could someone make a 24/25 with very high correction for axial CA while still keeping the lens small? I think they could, but I think the lens would be more likely to be an f/3.5 lens than even and f/2.8 lens and at that speed I am not sure there would be much of a market for such a lens.
p.1 #14 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
I have recently been lurking in the Leica forum on this website. While I haven‘t been convinced that it is a better platform for the use of manual focus lenses (versus e-mount), I have been astounded how small lenses can become if you forgo wide apertures (while maintaining astonishing performance).
Voigtländer 3,5/21— 180g
Voigtländer 2.8/28 — 106g
Voigtländer 3.5/50 Apo —150g
Voigtländer 2.8/90 Apo — 250g
That is a total of less than 700g for four lenses covering the range from 21 to 90mm.
And with excellent performance at that.
This is crazy and not available in the e-mount world, not even close at this performance level.
It is a bummer that Leica and Sony have different sensor glas thicknesses.
To me small aperture low weight lenses are a very interesting alley!
p.1 #15 · e-mount lenses with extremely high longitudinal apochromatic correction:
Such prime lenses are chronically under-appreciated, for various reasons. It's been astonishingly easy to sell people on the simple metric of lens speed (or maximum aperture). It's at the point where many look askance at f2 lenses! Many are stuck in the 'faster equals better' rut, even if they want to shoot general subject matter including landscapes.
It was not always so. In more intelligent times, a large variety of slow lenses were produced and sold in large volumes. Examples include the Zeiss ZM range, with just two of ten lenses were faster than f2, with five at f2.8. In the huge Contax Yashica range, only a handful were faster than f2. All Loxias are f2 or slower. Batises are slow too.
Erwin Puts believed that f2.8 lenses have an order of magnitude (10x) less aberrations than f1.4 lenses. The short take home message is that many slow lenses from Leica/Zeiss/Cosina are high performance lenses. That is why I use and still own: VE 15/4.5; VE 21/3.5; CY 21/2.8; CY 28/2.8; CY 35-70/3.4; VM 50/3.5; VM 75/2.5; CY 100/3.5; CY 100-300/4.5-5.6; L85/2.4; VE 110/2.5. Not a lemon among them, I'm a careful buyer.
It was a sad day when we lost Cosina from Sony E-mount several years ago. They simply stopped making lenses for us - with no reason given, then or now. I suspect foul play. ;-)
And it came on the back of Zeiss leaving the stills industry as well. Worse still, many of the older lenses in my list above are not as well looked after as mine are. More disappear from circulation each year. So the future for mirrrorless users of this category of lens is bleak indeed. Such is life in the fast (lens) lane.
philip_pj wrote:
Such prime lenses are chronically under-appreciated, for various reasons. It's been astonishingly easy to sell people on the simple metric of lens speed (or maximum aperture). It's at the point where many look askance at f2 lenses! Many are stuck in the 'faster equals better' rut, even if they want to shoot general subject matter including landscapes.
It was not always so. In more intelligent times, a large variety of slow lenses were produced and sold in large volumes. Examples include the Zeiss ZM range, with just two of ten lenses were faster than f2, with five at f2.8. In the huge Contax Yashica range, only a handful were faster than f2. All Loxias are f2 or slower. Batises are slow too.
Erwin Puts believed that f2.8 lenses have an order of magnitude (10x) less aberrations than f1.4 lenses. The short take home message is that many slow lenses from Leica/Zeiss/Cosina are high performance lenses. That is why I use and still own: VE 15/4.5; VE 21/3.5; CY 21/2.8; CY 28/2.8; CY 35-70/3.4; VM 50/3.5; VM 75/2.5; CY 100/3.5; CY 100-300/4.5-5.6; L85/2.4; VE 110/2.5. Not a lemon among them, I'm a careful buyer.
It was a sad day when we lost Cosina from Sony E-mount several years ago. They simply stopped making lenses for us - with no reason given, then or now. I suspect foul play. ;-)
And it came on the back of Zeiss leaving the stills industry as well. Worse still, many of the older lenses in my list above are not as well looked after as mine are. More disappear from circulation each year. So the future for mirrrorless users of this category of lens is bleak indeed. Such is life in the fast (lens) lane.
Or are they taking a break to flesh out their offerings for Nikon Z, etc?