Steve Spencer
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 p.25 #15 · Thypoch Simera 50mm f/1.4 ASPH. Review | |
philip_pj wrote:
I can't deal in better or worse anymore, all the good lenses have their special look to the images. To offset the excellent points for the CV 21/1.4, I don't like the deep strong contrast, which makes it unsuitable for the night images I enjoy.
People use it primarily (and seemingly exclusively) for non-people imagery, most treat it purely as a landscape lens. It is also highly dependent on leading lines, front-back separation to induce a degree of dimensionality, which is otherwise almost entirely lacking. Focus fade is very fast. Color is bold rather than elegant.
The Simera range are cine-oriented people optics. This is what they excel at, because of the cine heritage bestowed by parent company DZOFilm. While the 21mm Simera will share the same MFD as the CV lens, you will notice very few closeups shot with the CV 21/1.4. Near-camera objects are often added to lead the eye into the images, rather than be an integral element of the shot. If you can find it, bokeh is also high contrast and a little globby, and it abstracts quickly. I'm not sure how the CV lens treats skin, it's very hard to find any near-camera people images shot with it.
I have faith in most decent photographers to quickly find out what their new lenses are best at, so I take notice of this kind of thing. The Sims do the exact opposite, they transition very smoothly and leave plenty of context in the (very fine) bokeh field, front and back. So they suit a very different kind of photographer, allowing that there is plenty of use case overlaps in these two.
Luckily we have plenty of footage shot with the Simera 21/1.4 (as the 21/T1.5) from which to see its strong family traits. Being an unusual photographer, I certainly notice these things.
(And the C version looks to be out, it has the markings on the side of the lens as mounted, cine style.)
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This is not my experience of my CV 21 f/1.4 at all. I find the lens great for people shots (and use it for that a lot), I like the bokeh a lot and find the focus fade to be quite nice. I also like the moderately but not ultra high contrast. I like it for all the things you don't in this post.
I agree the Simeras have a different look, but I think both looks have their place. The CVs in general have higher contrast, but I like that for a lot of my shots. Some of the CV Noktons, (the 28 f/1.5, 35 f/1.2, 40 f/1.2, and 50 f/1.2) have fairly weak control of axial CA, and purple fringing, and lose some performance to spherical aberrations at close distances as they lack a floating element design. Interestingly, the 21 Nokton does not share these weaknesses. It has very nice control of axial CA and purple fringing, and has a floating element and has wonderful performance at close distances (I use if for that a lot too).
The CV 21 f/1.4 is one of my favorite lenses. There isn't much I don' t like about it at all. Yeah, it is a little bigger than ideal, but I am happy to trade that for the all around wonderful performance I see with the lens.
In my view, the Simera 21 f/1.4 has a lot tougher competition from CV than the Simera 50 f/1.4 does. I like the 50 f/1.2 Nokton (it is my third favorite Nokton just behind the 75 f/1.5) but I like th 21 f/1.4 a lot more, so although I will very likely get the Simera 50 f/1.4 and keep it alongside my CV 50 f/1.2, I am a lot less interested in the Simera 21 f/1.4. Said another way, I value the Simera 50 f/1.4 over the CV 50 f/1.2 for the Simera's better control of purple fringing, better close up performance, and better off center performance at close distances. I will be quite surprised if the Simera 21 f/1.4 has better performance than the CV 21 f/1.4 in any of these aspects. The CV 21 f/1.4 is very good in all these respects making it in my shooting a lot more useful for a wide array of different shots.
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