Fred Miranda wrote:
Just to make you happy, I haven't noticed much flare so far. I've compared it to the 50/2 APO-Lanthar, and it definitely has better flare resistance than the Leica lenses you mentioned. Among modern designs, the worst offender is the Cron, but I don't mind some flare in my images, depending on the context.
Flare can be cool depending on the type. It's just that with Crons (35, 40 and 50) sometimes it is that really heavy veiling haze that just ruins the image.
Infinity Resolution and Contrast on Leica M10-R (41MP)
The Voigtlander 50mm f/2.2 Color-Skopar performs optimally on the thin Leica M sensor stack, so this resolution and contrast test was conducted on the high-resolution Leica M10-R at infinity. The lens performed impressively, especially considering its ultra-compact size and the number of elements. However, we can't expect it to match the resolution of larger and better-corrected lenses like Cosina's 50/2 APO-Lanthar. It's worth noting that there are no aspherical elements in the optical design.
When examining these 100% magnified crops at the pixel level, I see great resolution and contrast from wide open, along with a bit of lateral chromatic aberration (LaCA). The lens achieves optimal resolution at f/4 and f/5.6 but performs similarly at wider apertures. There is no obvious weakness off-axis, resulting in a uniform performance across the image field, with a strong center and a gradual fall-off towards the edges.
There is no correction for chromatic aberration or vignetting in these crops, so we can see significant vignetting at wider apertures in the extreme corner crops. At f/4, vignetting subsides considerably and gradually diminishes until f/8.
Here is the full image thumbnail showing the area demonstrated at 1:1 magnification.
Distance: Infinity
Camera: Leica M10-R
Focus: Center - Best of three @ 12.4x magnification
At Extreme Corner Infinity Resolution and Contrast on Leica M10-R (41MP)
Extreme Corner: f/2.2 (LEFT) | f/2.8 (RIGHT): There is significant vignetting wide open, which improves slightly at f/2.8. Resolution is very good but does not improve much from wide open to f/2.8.
Extreme Corner: f/2.8 (LEFT) | f/4 (RIGHT): At f/4, vignetting improves significantly, and there is a noticeable increase in contrast and resolution.
Extreme Corner: f/4 (LEFT) | f/5.6 (RIGHT): f/5.6 is the optimal aperture for the corners, offering lower vignetting along with excellent resolution and contrast.
Extreme Corner: f/5.6 (LEFT) | f/8 (RIGHT): Not much changes in this area.
Wow.. glad I rented the 50 APO Lanthar (comes in Thursday) to get a feel for size before purchasing.. the 2.2 seems pretty impressive, I might go that route instead.
Very impressive, in particular the colour tonal separation, and very acceptable outer frame resolution - this from a 135 gram lens. It's worth noting, as the lens is coming in for criticism over its vignette pattern, that the bottom right is very different in transition apertures from the far corner at top left. They now have great and well justified confidence in their APD glass.
philip_pj wrote:
Very impressive, in particular the colour tonal separation, and very acceptable outer frame resolution - this from a 135 gram lens. It's worth noting, as the lens is coming in for criticism over its vignette pattern, that the bottom right is very different in transition apertures from the far corner at top left. They now have great and well justified confidence in their APD glass.
Do you have a Sony body around?
I'll try to borrow one since I just converted my A7R II to a thin filter. I love the results; it feels like shooting with a Leica sensor. Here's a test I did yesterday with the CV 28/2.8 Color-Skopar lens wide open. For those with modified sensors, I can also share resolution and contrast results with the CV 50/2.2 Color-Skopar.
At f/4.5 with vignetting corrected.
ILCE-7RM2Voigtlander 28mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar lens28mm1/250s100 ISO0.0 EV
f/2.8 with vignetting corrected.
ILCE-7RM2Voigtlander 28mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar lens28mm1/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
f/2.8 with vignetting corrected.
ILCE-7RM2Voigtlander 28mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar lens28mm1/200s100 ISO0.0 EV
It’s worth noting that with the CV 50/2.2 Color-Skopar, Cosina has changed the lens packaging. The styrofoam has been replaced with thick paper for lens protection inside the box, similar to Fujifilm’s approach.
Also, the top interior of the box now features the phrase "built to create," which was not present in previous lens packaging.
Here is a sample using the A7R II (modded), Techart AF adapter and the CV 50/2.2 at closer range. The lens is so light helping the AF adapter to move very fast to achieve focus.
ILCE-7RM2Voigtlander 50mm f/2.2 Color Skopar lens50mmf/2.01/500s100 ISO0.0 EV
philip_pj wrote:
People like the silver, but the bold lettering looks great on the front of the black version.
How do I go about this: 'A7R II to a thin filter'?
(It's moving closer to the time to join them. The wide angles are so good, and I already use the longer VMs anyway.)
Send it to Kolari for a $399 service. They took two weeks to service my A7R II, and I think it's worth it, especially since you can find a mint A7R II for around $700 nowadays. Your M-lenses will thank you.
There's only one issue: the new Ultra Thin (UT) cover glass will add a slight color cast. However, this is very easy to fix in-camera, and you can adjust all white balance presets, including auto WB.
I simply adjust each white balance preset using Sony's "White Balance Adjustment" feature. This helps eliminate the color cast, making the images look like they did before. It did take some effort to determine the right settings using a gray card and some calculations, but here is what I got:
Fred Miranda wrote:
It’s worth noting that with the CV 50/2.2 Color-Skopar, Cosina has changed the lens packaging. The styrofoam has been replaced with thick paper for lens protection inside the box, similar to Fujifilm’s approach.
Also, the top interior of the box now features the phrase "built to create," which was not present in previous lens packaging.
The new Nokton 75/1.5 for Sony E-mount also came with this new type of packaging (as it was released on the same day as 50/2.2 in Japan and this seems to be Cosina's new packaging style). From ease of use perspective I prefer the old packaging but the new one might be more ecological without the styrofoam.
The Voigtlander 50mm f/2.2 Color-Skopar has surprisingly flat field curvature from close distances all the way to infinity. I was expecting some outward field curvature, which is common in 50mm lenses, but Cosina managed to design this lens to be as compact as possible without compromising field curvature. This gives it a significant advantage over other 50mm f/2 lenses.
Here is a GIF animation showing the area of focus from close distance to infinity in four increments.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'll try to borrow one since I just converted my A7R II to a thin filter. I love the results; it feels like shooting with a Leica sensor. Here's a test I did yesterday with the CV 28/2.8 Color-Skopar lens wide open. For those with modified sensors, I can also share resolution and contrast results with the CV 50/2.2 Color-Skopar.
These are with vignetting correction? Looks very strong still.
The appearance of the early image sets you and others have taken have that look about them. They suggest sound field shape control. It's a welcome inversion, and now becomes: 'what you get is what you see' (WYGIWYS).
