Does anyone know how good infinity performance is on this lens?
Is LOCA correction reasonable?
I am interested in this lens as a light weight tele addition for an e-mount camera: how much degradation of the corners must I expect with this lens? (as I understand, there is practically no degradation with the Leica 90mm/f2; but this lens might differ in this aspect).
It's reasonably corrected, but far from perfect. There is a bit of green fringing that improves as it's stopped down. Infinity performance is good by 5.6 or 8, but I feel it's a bit soft wide open. Could have just been my copy though. I recently sold mine to B&H, as it was having some unexpected mechanical issues (the front of the lens with the filter threads was becoming very loose and it got worse every time the lens was collapsed/extended). Probably an easy fix, but I'm sure it would have cost a few hundred minimum. The price is another issue. $4400 bucks is almost insulting. Truthfully, it's not worth anywhere near the cost, based on my experience.
The lens is very compact, but maybe at the expense of ultimate image quality. If you can stomach a slightly larger lens, you might take a look at the 90mm Voigtlander 2.8 APO. That's what I ended up with and it is a better performer and a stop faster. With the Leica extended, they are not that different in size, but the Leica is way smaller when collapsed.
*EDIT* I used with several different systems (Leica/Sony/Lumix) and it seemed to perform about the same across the board.
Feb 06, 2026 at 08:54 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
Knut. wrote:
Does anyone know how good infinity performance is on this lens?
Is LOCA correction reasonable?
I am interested in this lens as a light weight tele addition for an e-mount camera: how much degradation of the corners must I expect with this lens? (as I understand, there is practically no degradation with the Leica 90mm/f2; but this lens might differ in this aspect).
I had this lens and mostly used it on a Leica M10. It is wonderfully small collapsed. The sharpness was very good but not excellent. I don't remember it have much axial CA at all, but it had some lateral CA that cleaned up well in post processing. The little bit I used it on Sony, I saw no performance decrements on E mount which makes sense with such a slow longer focal length lens.
I bought it partly for the macro ability with the Leica Macro adapter, but in the end I actually liked the Leica M 50 lux Asph with the macro adapter better than this lens even though the macro adapter was designed for the 90 f/4. In the end I replaced it with the Voigtlander 90 f/2.8 APO but I replaced the Voigtlander with the Leica M 90 Elmarit-M. On the Leica M10 I liked the Elmarit-M the best of these three lenses even though it was the biggest.
Thank you for your responses.
I‘m still looking for the equivalent of the 50 mm f3,5 Apo Lanthar @90mm (for e-mount).
It appears that such a lens is not yet on the market.
Have you tried the Laowa 2x Macro 85mm 5.6 APO? It's a good lens from wide open, probably comparable to the Leica 90 at infinity, but the macro capabilities are incredible. 2X internal focusing and the image quality holds up. Usable wide open, although there will be major DOF issues at 2x and f5.6. But it's dirt cheap and worth trying just for the macro uses.
The one I have is M mount and it adapts well to Sony. I have used it mostly on a full spectrum camera for 1-2x macro video and it performed well across the entire spectrum, which is a very demanding test. It's a little longer than the Voigtlander 90 2.8 APO, but has a 46mm filter size, so it's not huge.
Knut. wrote:
Thank you for your responses.
I‘m still looking for the equivalent of the 50 mm f3,5 Apo Lanthar @90mm (for e-mount).
It appears that such a lens is not yet on the market.
Indeed, the Voigtlander 50 f/3.5 APO is a pretty unusual lens on a number of dimensions including coming in two very different body styles. I believe it is also the only Voigtlander APO Lanthar without a floating element design and with a 10 blade aperture mechanism. It has quite a bit smaller max aperture than any of the modern Voigtlander APO Lanthar lenses which are mostly f/2 (the 110 Macro is f/2.5), as well.
I don't think we will see other lenses like it at other focal lengths, but you never know. In the mean time at 90mm you have recently discussed most of the options that are available. One additional option, which isn't manual focus but might be worth considering is the Sigma 90 f/2.8 Contemporary. The lens is small, light, and a very solid performer. It competes well in most optical categories with the Voigtlander 90 f/2.8 APO Color Skopar and is even stronger than that lens in a couple of ways. With an adapter on the Voigtlander they are about the same size and weight as well.
