rscheffler
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dan98 wrote:
Many of us buy M lenses primarily to adapt to mirrorless bodies. M lenses offer two key advantages: (1) they tend to be smaller and lighter than native mirrorless lenses; and (2) they can be used across many different systems--you are not locking yourself into a single mount. The downside is that the Leica and Cosina lenses tend to be optimized for the thin filter stack of digital Leica M bodies. In some cases the Chinese lenses are better optimized for thicker filter stacks, because they realize that a large part of their market consists of mirrorless camera users. The most extreme example of this is the 7Artisans 28/1.4 M-mount lens, which came in an "FE-Plus" version specifically designed for mirrorless cameras (but with an M mount). Unfortunately that was a one-off experiment, but some other Chinese lenses also seem to be designed with an eye towards the market for adapted lenses, even when they only produce a single variant....Show more →
retrofocus wrote:
Interesting info - I was not aware of that Chinese M lenses take thicker sensor stacks into account! That makes them fitting much better to a broader field of M and mirrorless cameras!
I don't think this can be assumed and is one of the 'risks' of the Chinese lenses, because these points are not communicated or documented. With Cosina/Voigtlander, it's understood that each mount version of a given lens model is optimized for that mount's sensor stack. Therefore, M lenses are optimized for M mount.
When Fred (and others) tested some of the Thypoch Simera M mount lenses, the conclusion for some, such as the 28/1.4, was that they were indeed optimized for the Leica M sensor stack. This led to a fair amount of discussion/debate about whether or not Thypoch actually modified element spacing of their mirrorless versions of these lenses for the respective sensor stacks. The impression, from Bastian's review of the 28 was that Thypoch wouldn't comment on it and he concluded that they did not.
I can appreciate that a lot of M lenses are adapted to mirrorless, but IMO if they are marketed for M, they should be optimized for M. Maybe some of these lenses are 'in between' to be good enough on both.
What makes some of the Chinese lenses interesting to me is what would make pretty much any lens interesting. Potentially high optical performance, or interesting character, at an attractive price point.
I bought a couple 7A/TTA lenses - the 50/1.1 and 35/2, both in M mount, a while back. I was curious about these because they were Sonnar designs. I like the 50/1.1, within reason and for certain applications, but for me it's not a 'daily driver' type of lens, therefore doesn't get much regular use. But I expected this and it was inexpensive, therefore a low risk gamble. The 35/2 disappointed me with poor veiling flare resistance, flat colors and overall 'meh' performance, but was also inexpensive and a similarly low-risk gamble. But these were from 5+ years ago and a lot has changed in the landscape of Chinese lenses.
I did the LLL pre-order for their first replica lens, the 35 Cron 8 element because I was always curious about the original lens but didn't want to pay the collectors' premium for it, just to try out. The LLL was relatively attractively priced at $500 for the preorder, but I probably wouldn't have committed to it if it was at its eventual retail price of ~$1300. I'm really appreciative that a company like LLL exists to do exactly this - make copies of unobtainable lenses obtainable for the masses. IMO it doesn't matter that they're from China, but that probably helps with end user pricing. Otherwise we're looking at the UK-based Skyllaney 50/2 Sonnar release that is several times more expensive than a typical LLL release. Granted, that one is an extremely niche, extremely low production lens.
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