What a well made lens, silky smooth and feels like it`s carved from solid. clever lens hood/ close up lens holder. With the close up lens on the focus is between 0.45Mtr- 0.25Mtr (very handy to have in your pocket), standard close focus without the CU lens is 0.38Mtr- infinity.
Because of the Christmas post it was dark before the postman arrived so only a few indoor shots but they look quite promising. Certainly makes my 1dsmk2/3 a camera that can be slipped into a light (non photographic) canvas shoulder bag.
I`m glad I went down this road rather than sourcing a 5D because although the 5D would be light it would still stick out in a bag with anything but this lens attached.
No problems on the mk2 and mk3 and even on the 450D the exposure looks good where it would be a short tele lens. Everything seems in line and flush to the adapter on the rear where ever the lens is focussed to.
I`ll check out infinity focus properly in the light but it looks like it will go just a tad beyond infinity when trying to focus on the moon behind fast moving clouds.(this is with everything cold) this could be the adapter I suppose but correct me if I`m wrong but your better to have(like most Canon lenses) a touch past infinity rather than not being able to get to infinity?? then at least you can focus on the distance.
What a well made lens, silky smooth and feels like it`s carved from solid. clever lens hood/ close up lens holder. With the close up lens on the focus is between 0.45Mtr- 0.25Mtr (very handy to have in your pocket), standard close focus without the CU lens is 0.38Mtr- infinity.
Because of the Christmas post it was dark before the postman arrived so only a few indoor shots but they look quite promising. Certainly makes my 1dsmk2/3 a camera that can be slipped into a light (non photographic) canvas shoulder bag.
I`m glad I went down this road rather than sourcing a 5D because although the 5D would be light it would still stick out in a bag with anything but this lens attached.
No problems on the mk2 and mk3 and even on the 450D the exposure looks good where it would be a short tele lens. Everything seems in line and flush to the adapter on the rear where ever the lens is focussed to.
I`ll check out infinity focus properly in the light but it looks like it will go just a tad beyond infinity when trying to focus on the moon behind fast moving clouds.(this is with everything cold) this could be the adapter I suppose but correct me if I`m wrong but your better to have(like most Canon lenses) a touch past infinity rather than not being able to get to infinity?? then at least you can focus on the distance.
A touch past infinity won't cost you anything beyond a touch of close focusing on this lens since it doesn't use anything resembling floating elements.
dcmiller wrote:
Is a Rebel (450?) significantly smaller than a 5D? The 5D is not a small camera.
Another option in the discussion is the C/Y 50 1.7. Should have nicer characteristics than the tessar, which is a minimal design?
Dave, is the Ultron a lens currently in production?
The Rebel's are MUCH smaller than a 5D, they're marginally larger than the Oly E-420. Frankly, if you just want a pancake/small body combo the Nikon D40 or D60 is probably a better choice than a Rebel, since you get full lens function with the Ultron (which is a CPU lens). If you intend to use other lenses then the Rebel's are better. Either way you're buying SD cards and a new battery type.
The Ultron SLII is current production from Voigtlander (The only other current production Voigtlander SLR lens is the Nokton 58/1.4 SLII)
A nikon with ultron would have to be the d700. I can't use a short telephoto a my walkabout. I just don't see that narrow.
i have been experimenting with 450D and canon 24 f2.8 as a light walkabout. Frankly, it absolutely rocks. I found the lens languishing on display at an airport with 4 years of dust on it, boxes lost, and discounted. Often i can't tell if i was using the ef-s 24 or the zeiss 21. It's easy to form the opinion that cheap canon glass generally sucks, and it's not always true. The cheap 24 is very usable and makes a nice 38.4mm lens on aps-c. af works great, and green square mode too, when you don't want to think about photography. It's smaller and lighter than a 5D with Oly 40, and very nearly as good. I just discovered that i can load custom profiles into the 450d too. Bargain.
brainiac wrote:
..........experimenting with 450D and canon 24 f2.8 as a light walkabout. .....
Which 24mm (you are talking about)... I have tried many light cheap lenses (manual focus), but most of the near- pancake in 35mm formats are pretty tele on APS-C format. I havent bought tried any expensive pancake like Oly, Pentax or CZ.. but normal (small) 50mm like oly & Nikon 50/1.8, Petri 45/2.8 and Industar 50mm f3.5 (good for camera cap... but horrible focus plane curvature).
Small 24mm and/or 28mm are worth trying for light weight traveling lens... I found Tamron 28mm f2.5 AD-2 lens and Takumar 35mm f3,5 pretty small lenses (although Takumar is slow for most of the low light situations like airport or restaurant)...
The Tamron Adaptall 25mm f2.5 is actually a relatively low price option and the colors and sharpness are very good for a lens this cheap and compact..... may be worth trying out .... compared to forking over the $$$'s for the contax or the OM lens.
The Tamron 25mm f2.5 goes for around $100 used - if you find a brand new copy, it's probably around $150 - well worth the price - especially on full frame.
pascal03 wrote:
The Tamron Adaptall 25mm f2.5 is actually a relatively low price option....................
The Tamron 25mm f2.5 goes for around $100 used - if you find a brand new copy, it's probably around $150 - well worth the price - especially on full frame.
Are you talking about 28mm or 24mm... never heard about 25mm lens from Tamron.. but again, I may be wrong...
There's a number of small 28's that are quite good on crop bodies. Any of Nikon's 28's other than the E or original AF, The Oly 28's of course, the Tamron Adaptall-2 28/2.5, the Pentax SMC 28/2.8 A (and later) as well as their earlier 28/2.5's (SMC Tak or later). 24's are usually quite good as well.
A great walk-around lens for a compact kit is Nikon's 20/2.8 AF/AF-D. It's extremely compact for a 20 (4cm long, just over 62mm in diameter).
Remember, it just needs to be sharp in Zone A and B for great performance on crop bodies. There's a good number of lenses with poor/horrid zone C performance that are still good in A and B.
I've been saying it for over a year now, the Voigt 40/2 SLII kicks ass. People just don't listen, for the most part.
For the common price of an Oly 40/2, you could just about pick up a 40SLII and 58/1.4 SLII, both of which are stellar lenses. I think it is simply stupid to buy the Oly 40 for the $550+ is usually demands these days.
The Pentax 40/2.8 is also quite good, and easy to get for under $150 (well, when you find one). I bought one from the original owner for $90 i think, and included it as a body cap when i sold my 1DmkII.
The Tessar is beautiful, but i don't think it is worth a damn for use on a Canon FF. Needs slightly more surgery than the other options, and is actually so small that it's not convenient/easy to use.
I would LOVE to have a (black) Nikkor 45/2.8P AIS for my future D700, but they too command way too high of a price lately.
Personally, i think the F mount CV's are fantastic. Has a better market if you want to sell it, too. It adapts very easily to Canon, and can be used natively on any Nikon, due to the CPU chip.
