Voigtlander FE 50mm f2 APO
Voigtlander FE 28mm f2 APO
Voigtlander FE 21mm f3.5
Voigtlander FE 15mm f4.5
I wasn't impressed with reviews for the Voigtlander FE 35mm f2 APO, so I held off for the 28mm APO instead. Hopefully it will review well like the 50, and I will obviously test my copy as well 🙂
Map Camera published a photo article for the E-mount version:
Voigtlander APO-LANTHAR 28mm F2 Aspherical E-Mount | KASYAPA | Photo Preview https://share.google/YcKSQLdbgJtRQH985
jaybr wrote:
I went with the following Voigtlander set:
Voigtlander FE 50mm f2 APO
Voigtlander FE 28mm f2 APO
Voigtlander FE 21mm f3.5
Voigtlander FE 15mm f4.5
I wasn't impressed with reviews for the Voigtlander FE 35mm f2 APO, so I held off for the 28mm APO instead. Hopefully it will review well like the 50, and I will obviously test my copy as well 🙂
J
I have the 35/2 and the 50/2. The 50/2 sometimes has noticable lateral CA where I have hardly noticed any CA with the 35/2. A scene with branches in the corners with a clear sky clearly shows it and it is good to be aware of it. I hope the 28/2 does not have that.
Here are lots of samples from my short trip to Yutorian Kawaba Onsen (Hot Spring) at Gunma prefecture, taken with my A7CII & the new CV 28/2 APO-Lanthar E-mount lens. I exported these from RAW with C1 Pro without any additional PP. Almost everything was shot at f2 (close range shots) and f4 (long distance shots), maybe 2 shots at f5.6.
On the first day the weather was very cloudy and snowy and I mainly shot indoors at the impressive Onsen place. Somehow me and my wife were the only guests there on Friday so I could enjoy taking photos quite freely inside the facilities. Today the weather was great but our train back was already before noon so time to shoot was limited. I'm very happy with the lens so far, I think it works very nicely both for close-up scenarios and for landscapes / cityscapes and there's no need to stop down much at all (except to reduce vignetting which is noticeable wide open).
ustjwenew wrote:
I have the 35/2 and the 50/2. The 50/2 sometimes has noticable lateral CA where I have hardly noticed any CA with the 35/2. A scene with branches in the corners with a clear sky clearly shows it and it is good to be aware of it. I hope the 28/2 does not have that.
I can only comment about the reviews I have read about the 35 APO.
If you're happy with the performance of your copy, that's all that matters to you.
photonc wrote:
Great sample set Juha, thanks for sharing. Would love to see some comparisons of the 28 Nokton @ F2 VS 28 APO at F2 if you happen to have both lenses.
Thanks very much! I have both lenses in E-mount. I'll try to get some comparison samples taken outdoors as soon as I can.
photonc wrote:
Great sample set Juha, thanks for sharing. Would love to see some comparisons of the 28 Nokton @ F2 VS 28 APO at F2 if you happen to have both lenses.
Today I took out both lenses on 2 cameras for my lunch break and tried to shoot same shots with both setups (as close as I could get them without a controlled setup). Most shots at f2, but I also shot 2 aperture series with both setups from f2 to f8 with full stop intervals. Since I don't have 2 of the same cameras, I had to go with my A7CII and A7C (I didn't want to swap lenses on one camera a lot of times).
All shots exported from RAW with C1 Pro. In some cases I adjusted exposure and white balance a bit to make the shots more comparable. No other PP was done.
From corner-to-corner sharpness perspective the APO-Lanthar is a lot better / flatter lens, it keeps great sharpness across the frame from wide open. The Nokton has to be stopped down at least to f5.6 to get best possible corner-to-corner sharpness. I think AL would certainly be a better landscape and cityscape lens.
On the bokeh front the 2 lenses didn't look very different to me at f2. I think the Nokton clearly has a brighter T-stop at equal apertures, it seemed to have faster shutter speeds or a bit brighter exposures at f2, unless the different cameras somehow impacted that significantly.
I think there is a very big difference with the results using the E-mount APO-Lanthar compared to the VM APO-Lanthar 28/2 adapted to A7CII (I had that version of the lens for a couple of months earlier). With the VM version, I had to use f8 to tackle the sensor stack induced field curvature for best corner-to-corner sharpness but the E-mount version is great already from f2 and I'd just stop down to reduce vignetting.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
Today I took out both lenses on 2 cameras for my lunch break and tried to shoot same shots with both setups (as close as I could get them without a controlled setup). Most shots at f2, but I also shot 2 aperture series with both setups from f2 to f8 with full stop intervals. Since I don't have 2 of the same cameras, I had to go with my A7CII and A7C (I didn't want to swap lenses on one camera a lot of times).
All shots exported from RAW with C1 Pro. In some cases I adjusted exposure and white balance a bit to make the shots more comparable. No other PP was done.
From corner-to-corner sharpness perspective the APO-Lanthar is a lot better / flatter lens, it keeps great sharpness across the frame from wide open. The Nokton has to be stopped down at least to f5.6 to get best possible corner-to-corner sharpness. I think AL would certainly be a better landscape and cityscape lens.
On the bokeh front the 2 lenses didn't look very different to me at f2. I think the Nokton clearly has a brighter T-stop at equal apertures, it seemed to have faster shutter speeds or a bit brighter exposures at f2, unless the different cameras somehow impacted that significantly.
I think there is a very big difference with the results using the E-mount APO-Lanthar compared to the VM APO-Lanthar 28/2 adapted to A7CII (I had that version of the lens for a couple of months earlier). With the VM version, I had to use f8 to tackle the sensor stack induced field curvature for best corner-to-corner sharpness but the E-mount version is great already from f2 and I'd just stop down to reduce vignetting.
Here's the CV 28/2 APO compared to the Sigma 28-45/1.8 @ f/2. No corrections for the CV (no profile) and I left distortion correction turned on for the Sigma but turned off vignetting correction. Balanced exposure and color a bit.
The Sigma can be a bit nervous with detail at certain distances in the background, you can see that a bit in parts of the shot focused on the shed. You have to zoom past 100% to see it, so it's not too noticeable in this shot. Maybe a bit less blur from the CV towards the edges due to the optical vignetting.
In my experience IMHO, Sigma could have put the APO moniker on the 28-45.
Sony a7R V + Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 28mm f/2 @ f/2 (focused on the shed)
photonc wrote:
In Juha's shot of the meal with coffee and water, the Nokton appears to exhibit more bokeh at F2 compared to the APO at F2.
It seems to me that in all photos that blur may be seen the Nokton shows more blur than the APO.
tsdevine wrote:
Here's the CV 28/2 APO compared to the Sigma 28-45/1.8 @ f/2. No corrections for the CV (no profile) and I left distortion correction turned on for the Sigma but turned off vignetting correction. Balanced exposure and color a bit.
The Sigma can be a bit nervous with detail at certain distances in the background, you can see that a bit in parts of the shot focused on the shed. You have to zoom past 100% to see it, so it's not too noticeable in this shot. Maybe a bit less blur from the CV towards the edges due to the optical vignetting.
In my experience IMHO, Sigma could have put the APO moniker on the 28-45. ...Show more →
Thanks Tim, I’ve been considering the Voigt 28/2 APO but the rendering on that Sigma is very nice.
