The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95

henningw

Member
Louis,

My experience comes from many years as an architectural photographer, and for fast 8x10's and 11x14's the SWC was the go to camera for 30 years. If there was a bit more time, I'd use a Cambo Wide with roll film back with 47SA and 65 Grandagon, and later the 47XL-SA and 35 Apo Grandagon for any MF stuff. All four of these, and especially the latter two have more coverage for their angles of view and needed centre filters, but the last two especially eclipsed the 38 Biogon in almost every respect. I've also had 75 and 43 Biogons, and the latter was very good, but I find the better current designs generally 'better' than the old Biogons. 'Better' is of course a very subjective term.

Upon reflection, it was also silly of me to compare an MF lens designed for film with a m43 lens designed for a specific digital sensor. Apples and potatoes.

Doesn't mean I don't feel a great deal of fondness for the SWC, which I still have and occasionally use in conjunction with a Mamiya 6 set.

Henning
 

Tesselator

New member
Lenses are designed for size of (sensor/film etc. having to do with image circle size) the medium and flange focal distance (FFD). Besides the coatings I mentioned lens systems are not designed for a particular kind of medium like film or CMOS sensors, NMOS sensors, CCD Sensors, and et cetera.
 

henningw

Member
At present digital sensors generally require the light rays to strike the surface and enter the photosites close to perpendicular. Systems which are designed as digital systems, such as m43 and regular 43, have lenses whose exit light bundles never stray far from perpendicular. These may be termed 'digital lenses'. They would work well on film as well, but tend to be larger and heavier than needed for the format if they didn't have this restriction. As noted before, the Nokton 25/0.95 is huge in comparison to the format, and that is because it is designed for good digital performance. Scaled up to full frame 35mm, it would be twice as long, twice the diameter and 6 to 8 times the weight to have the same performance characteristics. It would make the SLR Magic 50/0.95 look small.

As film is not that fussy about angle of incidence, designs such as (old style) Biogons and Super Angulons, which are close to symmetric in design, can be made high performance with exit ray bundles that strike the film at very steep angles, far off perpendicular. These lenses either do not work or don't work very well on most digital sensors.

That's why most Leica mount wide angles do so poorly on the m43 cameras, because the photo sites on m43 cameras are expecting light rays from lenses designed for the system that are close to perpendicular to the sensor surface.

The Leica M8 and M9 have microlenses above the photo sites that can accept incident light over a greater angular distance and can therefore cope with many lenses designed for film. There are limits, though and lenses such as the 21 Super Angulons and the Hologon can't be accommodated as the image rays in the corners are just too far off perpendicular.

Another problem, well demonstrated with the Leicas and their requirement to accept steep incidence angles, is the IR problem. IR filtration which is necessary for most digital sensors is best handled by interference filters, which work by having reflective surfaces 1/4 wavelength of the offending radiation apart. As the rays reflect back from the second surface to the first and recombine with the incident radiation, the reflected rays are now 1/2 wavelengths 'off' and effectively cancel each other out. This works fine for rays that are close to perpendicular, but if the incident rays are at 45 degrees for example, the distance from the first layer to the second is much longer and longer wavelengths are cancelled. If white light comes in, the long red wavelengths are partly cancelled and the image is cyan.

In systems designed from the start for digital, like the m43, image rays from the lenses are not allowed to arrive far off the perpendicular, so this effect is never produced. Film lenses, where the designers never worried about angle of incidence, just don't work as well in this case.

With long focal length lenses, these issues don't arise generally, so most excellent film telephotos are still excellent digital lenses.

Henning
 

biglouis

Well-known member
Louis,

My experience comes from many years as an architectural photographer, and for fast 8x10's and 11x14's the SWC was the go to camera for 30 years. If there was a bit more time, I'd use a Cambo Wide with roll film back with 47SA and 65 Grandagon, and later the 47XL-SA and 35 Apo Grandagon for any MF stuff. All four of these, and especially the latter two have more coverage for their angles of view and needed centre filters, but the last two especially eclipsed the 38 Biogon in almost every respect. I've also had 75 and 43 Biogons, and the latter was very good, but I find the better current designs generally 'better' than the old Biogons. 'Better' is of course a very subjective term.

Upon reflection, it was also silly of me to compare an MF lens designed for film with a m43 lens designed for a specific digital sensor. Apples and potatoes.

Doesn't mean I don't feel a great deal of fondness for the SWC, which I still have and occasionally use in conjunction with a Mamiya 6 set.

Henning
Henning, interesting to hear of your experiences. Those must all have been very interesting cameras to work with.

Louis
 

CPWarner

Member
Henning, I hate to disagree but my experience with the 7-14 and the Hass SWC is not the same as yours. No way is the 7-14 even close. The 7-14 is a great lens and delivers on the promise of small portable good quality optics for m43rds but the SWC is a whole different order of quality above it, imho. However, I have rarely got a sharp image at the edges at 7mm even stopped down and comparing notes with at least one other owner we both agreed it was hard to do.
Hmm, my 7-14 stopped down is very sharp to the corners. Particularly when stopped down to f/9 or f/11. Maybe I got a ringer...

On another subject, I had the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. Ended up selling it as I did not like the results versus the Panasonic 25mm. At f/0.95 the lens produced images that had a sort of glow that was like it had significant flare. This was noted at Luminous Landscape in their review. Stopping down tended to get rid of it, but I guess I like autofocus and when I want manual focus, the Panasonic works just fine. Everybody is different. Not interested in the 17mm from Voigtlander.

Cliff
 

henningw

Member
Henning, interesting to hear of your experiences. Those must all have been very interesting cameras to work with.

Louis
Yes, lots of fun with toys! :)

Sinar-p 4x5 and 8x10, Roundshot, Horizon and just about every shift lens made, along with many hundreds of other lenses. Now many are gone or relegated to the bottom shelf, but the Rounshot still gets some use.

Now I mostly use teeny sensors up to 35mm ff. And for the most part, I'm quite happy about that, as long as I can still occasionally shoot some film.

It'd be interesting to hear what other's experiences have been. Should start a thread on it.

Henning
 

henningw

Member
Hmm, my 7-14 stopped down is very sharp to the corners. Particularly when stopped down to f/9 or f/11. Maybe I got a ringer...

On another subject, I had the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. Ended up selling it as I did not like the results versus the Panasonic 25mm. At f/0.95 the lens produced images that had a sort of glow that was like it had significant flare. This was noted at Luminous Landscape in their review. Stopping down tended to get rid of it, but I guess I like autofocus and when I want manual focus, the Panasonic works just fine. Everybody is different. Not interested in the 17mm from Voigtlander.

Cliff
My 7-14 also gives me excellent results.

I have the 25/0.95, and am quite happy with it. I bought it very lightly used, so didn't feel like I was taking much of a chance. I've used various Noctilux lenses over the years, from the 50/1.2 on. I still have and regularly use a ver.2 50/1 and have shot a bit with the f/0.95.

The Nokton is a lens I treat like I would the Noctilux f/1 on the Leica, and put up with/use the aberrations that it produces. They are not the same as those of the Noctilux, but after shooting with the 50/1 the foibles of the Nokton are not hard to get used to. It has harsher bokeh and is, of course, not nearly as flare resistant as the Noctilux which is probably the most flare resistant of any lens I've ever used.

In any case, on the GH2 and G3 the manual focussing operation feels quite easy and comfortable, and the results please me. I have the 20/1.7 and will not get the 25/1.4, as the 25 Nokton provides on the one had the slightly different f.o.v. and on the other a completely different character as well. The 17.5 will probably do the same but I'll wait a bit.

Henning
 
Last edited:

RichA

New member
Hmm, my 7-14 stopped down is very sharp to the corners. Particularly when stopped down to f/9 or f/11. Maybe I got a ringer...

On another subject, I had the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. Ended up selling it as I did not like the results versus the Panasonic 25mm. At f/0.95 the lens produced images that had a sort of glow that was like it had significant flare. This was noted at Luminous Landscape in their review. Stopping down tended to get rid of it, but I guess I like autofocus and when I want manual focus, the Panasonic works just fine. Everybody is different. Not interested in the 17mm from Voigtlander.

Cliff
Both Olympus 4/3rds 7-14mm and Panasonic's m4/3rd version are very good lenses, but at f11, it's a guarantee they would be suffering from a little diffraction-caused blurring because of the 4/3rds sensor size. As far as the ultra-fast 25mm lenses go, I've yet to find one that was really good, except for Schneider's 25mm f0.95 "TV" lens, made for CCTV work. The speed gain over f1.4 is marginal and probably not worth it, unless the shallowest DOF is an absolute must.
 

Tesselator

New member
I tested the Zeiss 45/2.8 and diffraction limitations didn't show up till f/16 and then it was VERY slight. It was noticeable at f/22 tho.



or see it here: Zeiss Tessar 45mm f/2.8 Image Samples Focus point was the highest point on the door seam (crack).


So I'm guessing that no lens will show DL at f/11 and that pretty much all lenses will follow the Tessar here: f/16 = an almost unnoticeable amount of DL but that's where it starts and increases from there.
 

CPWarner

Member
Both Olympus 4/3rds 7-14mm and Panasonic's m4/3rd version are very good lenses, but at f11, it's a guarantee they would be suffering from a little diffraction-caused blurring because of the 4/3rds sensor size. As far as the ultra-fast 25mm lenses go, I've yet to find one that was really good, except for Schneider's 25mm f0.95 "TV" lens, made for CCTV work. The speed gain over f1.4 is marginal and probably not worth it, unless the shallowest DOF is an absolute must.
Well your guarantee is going to have a rather hard time explaining the 24"x30" print hanging on my wall that is tack sharp corner to corner. The same shot at f8 had shallower depth of field and could not keep the entire image sharp due to the very close proximity of one part of the image.

See: http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/371197-post321.html

Cliff
 

CPWarner

Member
I tested the Zeiss 45/2.8 and diffraction limitations didn't show up till f/16 and then it was VERY slight. It was noticeable at f/22 tho.

So I'm guessing that no lens will show DL at f/11 and that pretty much all lenses will follow the Tessar here: f/16 = an almost unnoticeable amount of DL but that's where it starts and increases from there.
Nice demonstration that diffraction limits are indeed higher. Your conclusions are very similar to what I have seen in my own tests. It is always good to get real data on these things.

Cliff
 
Top