nhsonyshooter wrote: Steve Spencer wrote: nhsonyshooter wrote: Steve Spencer wrote: nhsonyshooter wrote: Steve Spencer wrote: vdo1 wrote: Steve Spencer wrote: vdo1 wrote: Steve Spencer wrote: vdo1 wrote: pdmphoto wrote: Jeff Kott wrote:
The last few posts made me curious, so I looked at Leica's page for their 50 Cron APO. Here's what they say:
"The apochromatic correction of the lens minimizes chromatic aberration to ensure natural rendition of every detail."
But in any event, it feels to me like some forum readers who for whatever reason don't want to buy the CV 50 APO are looking for some kind of rationale to justify their decision not to purchase, when none is needed whatsoever.
Maybe just tired of hearing the "No CA", perfect lens, ... hype.
Exactly. "APO" is the principal selling argument. Otherwise it's a manual focus, 50mm, f/2 lens. When was it last time that you had wet dreams about a MF 50/2? So obviously the "APO" thing will get scrutinized to death..... Hold on, it ain't over yet.....
I think this is nonsense for a bunch of reasons. The primary selling feature of this lens for a lot of us is that it is compact and high performing. Some of us actually prefer manual focus as well. There is a whole history of Leica selling 50 f/2 lenses that many people have been excited about for decades. When the Sony mirrorless cameras first came out one of the very first lenses available was a 50 f/2 manual focus lens from Zeiss. I don't think such a lens is inherently boring in the least. Heck, Leica currently sell a 50 f/2 (and yeah it is APO) for over $6,000 new. And even among their typical sky high prices this lens is very high priced. And yeah, I had that lens and it was the best lens I have ever had (I would still have it but alas it was stolen and I couldn't afford to replace it). So, I don't see anything boring about a 50 f/2 manual lens and yeah I do very much like minimized CA, so APO lenses are great but I have had a bunch of those lenses so I don't expect zero CA on those lenses either.
Can you quantify that "lot of us" in terms of market share?
Nope, not in terms of marketing share, but you are making your comments on a forum here at FM and you were talking about the discussion here on this thread and why it was scrutinized to death. I am pretty sure that lots of us in this discussion means at least 20 people and perhaps as many as 50 people. So your silly statement suggesting that hardly anyone would be excited about a 50mm f/2 manual lenses is ignoring that a good number of people reading this thread and commenting on this thread are indeed excited about just that sort of lens.
Your reading skills are failing you. I was actually saying that a *plain* MF 50/2 with no salient feature (such as "APO") would not raise much interest. I still stand by my affirmation - that it was the APO promise, not the rest of the package that was the main attraction here.
As for the 20-50 figure. They came here in this thread to watch an "APO" lens not a plain one. Also you have to put that figure in a context. As in a percentage of the total market. Otherwise it means nothing.
No my reading skills did not fail me, and we simply disagree. I think you are wrong about APO being the big feature with this lens. The big feature is that it is compact and yet very high performance and APO is not the big feature and certainly not the only one. The lens is sharp across the whole field (i.e., flat field) from wide apertures. The lens has a floating element so performs very well even close up. The lens has very low distortion natively. The lens has very low coma. The lens has quite nice bokeh. And very importantly the lens is small and compact. Sure that the lens has quite good control of color aberrations is nice too, but it certainly is not the only reason that people are interested in the lens as you portray. My view is you are just wrong about that and what is behind people on this forum interest in this lens is all about, but hey let's just agree to disagree about that because I doubt very much I will change your mind.
"I think you are wrong about APO being the big feature with this lens"
I guess you should let Voigtlander know since the marketing dept got it wrong then on their website
Very first paragraph describing the lens.
"Voigtländer APO-LANTHAR 50mm F2.0 is a high performance manual focus standard lens optimized for the imaging sensors of Sony mirrorless cameras.
Inheriting the apochromatic optical design, the lens is highly corrected to eliminate optical aberrations including longitudinal chromatic aberration."
I think that is pretty irrelevant. It should be clear I was talking about FM and this thread in particular. I am fairly sure that Cosina doesn't market to FM specifically and I doubt it makes much sense for them to do so. So it could be very reasonable for Cosina to heavily market the APO label and that APO is not the big feature for people at FM and on this thread specifically. I don't think I need to tell Cosina anything about their marketing, but that is pretty irrelevant to the current discussion of people's on this forum and this thread interest in the lens.
Sorry but as nice as the lens is with out the "APO" it's just another 50 and it would not have gotten half the attention it has here.
Sorry again we will just have to agree to disagree. My view is that the people on this forum and in this thread in particular are too sophisticated of users to fall for the APO label as the thing drawing their interest. To me it is clear that it was Fred's and Phillip's excellent reviews that documented the lens is very high performance in many different aspects (and CA was not the most striking of these) and yet the lens was small and haptically excellent that drove the interest on this forum and this thread in particular. You are free to disagree but I think you are not recognizing the sophistication of the people on FM and this thread in particular if that is what you think.
What do think "APO" is ? It is an extremely "sharp" "very high performance" lens. So if it had CA like 55 and shared the same sharpness as the 55 but it had CV "haptics" and was small this thread would be as long as it is? Really?
I think APO is what I think Philip wrote early in the thread. It's better corrected for CA than most other lenses, but that does not mean that CA is non-existent. That's it. Nothing more. If it's not your bag, no worries, move on.
So obviously the "APO" thing will get scrutinized to death..... Hold on, it ain't over yet..... 