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!

Loxia or FE 55?

Annna T

Active member
I have it and not really as it suffers from smearing. Performs quite well on the A7s. It used to be one of my most used lenses when I had 2 M9's but since getting the A7 and FE55 it lives most of it's life in the back of the safe, can't bring myself to sell it though.
I have a pre-aspheric one and can confirm that : on the A7r the corners are really smeared. I was very deceived by the results. However I love the 55FE. I knew that the wide angles would produce smeared corners on the A7, but I was surprised that the Summilux was that bad. I'm on the verge of selling my two last Leica lenses (50mm F1.4 and 90mm F2).
 

cam

Active member
I have a pre-aspheric one and can confirm that : on the A7r the corners are really smeared. I was very deceived by the results. However I love the 55FE. I knew that the wide angles would produce smeared corners on the A7, but I was surprised that the Summilux was that bad. I'm on the verge of selling my two last Leica lenses (50mm F1.4 and 90mm F2).
Interesting… On the A7s, my 35/2 (the first version), looks lovely. No smearing in the corners, just some vignetting (which I happen to like) and the lower contrast of the lens. The 50/1.4 (pre-asph as well) is a revelation in dark places, especially up close. The shallow DOF is stunning!

What has your experience been with the 90/2 (and is it pre-asph or APO)? That is a lens I really look forward to shooting in tandem with my Nocti on the MM.

I'm sure tis is nothing new to all of you, but there definitely seems to be a difference on the performance of the Leica lenses depending which A7 one has.

Looks like I got the right one for me!
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Interesting… On the A7s, my 35/2 (the first version), looks lovely. No smearing in the corners, just some vignetting (which I happen to like) and the lower contrast of the lens. The 50/1.4 (pre-asph as well) is a revelation in dark places, especially up close. The shallow DOF is stunning!

What has your experience been with the 90/2 (and is it pre-asph or APO)? That is a lens I really look forward to shooting in tandem with my Nocti on the MM.

I'm sure tis is nothing new to all of you, but there definitely seems to be a difference on the performance of the Leica lenses depending which A7 one has.

Looks like I got the right one for me!
I think the common take away is aspherical Leica M lenses give mixed results without the Leica M corrections or film to help out the A7 series (with the A7s being the caveat to this rule.)

The Leica 90 Cron Pre-AA is the one Leica I plan to keep and not list on the B/S section that I own. I love them on the M but I have parted ways with it reluctantly but couldn't justify keeping both systems (although if for some strange reason I ran into a large sum of money a MM would be one of my first purchases as there's nothing else like it as of now.) My Zeiss ZM 50/2, Voigtlander 21/1/8, and 35/1.2 II all work fine without smearing on both the A7/A7r.
 

cam

Active member
The Leica 90 Cron Pre-AA is the one Leica I plan to keep and not list on the B/S section. My Zeiss ZM 50/2, Voigtlander 21/1/8, and 35/1.2 II all work fine without smearing on both the A7/A7r.
I'm curious -- which adaptor do you all use?

I saw on another thread that a lot are using the Novaflex whereas I am using the Voigtlander VME… I'm wondering if that makes a difference on corner smearing as well?

(And thank you for telling me which lenses *do* play nicely… ( have a 21/2.8 pre-asph and an old Canon 25mm screwmount I'm dying to try as well… It will be a very long plane and train trip to my lenses tomorrow ;) )
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
I use the original non-helicoid Voigtlander adapter for my M mount lenses (I use Novoflex for my C/Y lenses but there aren't as many choices for C/Y lenses as M) but I owned them before the the close focus one was announced. I didn't see a point in upgrading the close focus when on half my kit worked for both bodies.

Now I will add that the 24 Elmar DOES in fact work decently on the A7 for street photography where having the sharpest corners generally doesn't matter as much as it does in landscape. This of course is subjective to the user of what's acceptable. I actually was very disappointed didn't work as well with the A7r as it is one of my favorite M lenses. It was the first lens I mounted to either camera followed by the ZM 50/2 Planar then the 50 Lux ASPH FLE. I learned that the "perfect" Leica aspherical lenses benefited as much from software corrections as the Micro 4/3 and Mandler designs are even more awesome in hindsight.

*I haven't tried the 21/2.8 pre-asph but that was my assessment of my kit combined with some other feedback. The WATE is an amazing UWA if you own it and works on all the bodies.
 

Annna T

Active member
I'm curious -- which adaptor do you all use?

I saw on another thread that a lot are using the Novaflex whereas I am using the Voigtlander VME… I'm wondering if that makes a difference on corner smearing as well?

(And thank you for telling me which lenses *do* play nicely… ( have a 21/2.8 pre-asph and an old Canon 25mm screwmount I'm dying to try as well… It will be a very long plane and train trip to my lenses tomorrow ;) )
I have a Metabones adapter. But I think that the real difference comes from the sensor : with 36MB against 12MB the high pixels density creates more problems in the corners.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
I have a Metabones adapter. But I think that the real difference comes from the sensor : with 36MB against 12MB the high pixels density creates more problems in the corners.
I agree that the sensor (I believe the A7R is the only A7 sensor with microlenses) does make a difference in how a particular lens performs on the body as does optical design but I also would say that an adapter fabricated within the correct tolerances matters as well. Some empirically say M mount lenses wider than 50mm don't work with the A7 bodies and that's the urban legend going around as a blanket truth on the internet - however the WATE works better than the newly released 16-35 (as it should at 3-4X the price) and many other M mount wides work as well. Ironically the 50 Lux ASPH leaves a lot to be desired if corner sharpness and minimal vignetting is the goal.

Metabones makes a quality adapter from what I read about them and I wouldn't consider them a cheap adapter. Many people were disappointed in some of the cheap adapters out there that would vignette heavily or prevented them from focusing to infinity.
 

turtle

New member
I use a Kippon pro for my M lenses on the A7 and it works beautifully. Better than the more expensive Photodiox Pro due to the more accessible and easily

I have a metabones III that I use for Eos EF lenses and it too is perfectly level, as evidenced by the results I get with my Tokina 16-28mm. I guess I was lucky with my adapters, in contrast to my 35mm and 55mm FE lenses, which have totaled five purchases to get two good copies. I'm glad that I persevered, as I now have a small and fairly light pair of lenses that deliver exceptional performance.
 

cam

Active member
I just wanted to thank everybody on this thread for all the help. And a huge apology to the OP for hijacking the thread.

We're back in stormy Belgium and my boyfriend immediately started pulling out all of his old lenses last night, but I was too trashed from travel without sleep to enjoy.

A quick look at adaptor sizes and lenses of our menagerie, though, and I think my old ZM 50mm Sonnar might end up becoming the prize of the bunch. I'd forgotten how small and light it was!

When I start playing, I'll either put it in its own thread or add to the "old lenses" one…

Thank you again!
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
I just wanted to thank everybody on this thread for all the help. And a huge apology to the OP for hijacking the thread.

We're back in stormy Belgium and my boyfriend immediately started pulling out all of his old lenses last night, but I was too trashed from travel without sleep to enjoy.

A quick look at adaptor sizes and lenses of our menagerie, though, and I think my old ZM 50mm Sonnar might end up becoming the prize of the bunch. I'd forgotten how small and light it was!

When I start playing, I'll either put it in its own thread or add to the "old lenses" one…

Thank you again!
That was a great lens and in many ways preferable to the 50 Lux. Best of all no more focus shift.
 

cam

Active member
That was a great lens and in many ways preferable to the 50 Lux. Best of all no more focus shift.
I truly, madly, deeply loved that lens -- so much that I could never let it go, even when I stopped using the RD1 it had been optimised for (@f/1.5), making it almost useless on my Leicas. I never tried to get it reversed because by that time I had had a Nocti at f/1 or a pre-asph Lux for closer focus -- but I always kind of missed that lens, especially for colour at night (even though I typically shoot for b/w). Creamy, dreamy wide open and sharp sharp sharp, stopped down.

With the close focus adaptor, I think this lens may be glued to the camera, making it near perfect :p

(I've honestly never been so happy that I didn't get rid of a lens I stopped using -- except, maybe, that old pre-asph 35mm Lux that could come back to it's own again on this camera… Who knew Sony could be such a joy?)
 

jfirneno

Member
Im ready to pull the plug and am having a hard time deciding. Anyone here have the loxia and 55 ? I have not evaluated them and am looking for feedback.
RYC:
Don't know if you're still looking for info on the Loxia 50mm. I rented it and have played around with it a little so far. So far I can say that the center is extremely sharp from wide open. I really like the look of the files I get from it on the A7S. Finally, manually focusing with it is infinitely better than the electronic manual focusing of the Sony lenses. It's much easier and much more fun.

Regards,
John
 

jonoslack

Active member
That was a great lens and in many ways preferable to the 50 Lux. Best of all no more focus shift.
Tre - the 50 f1.5 sonnar is a lovely lens - but it has radical and chronic focus shift. Silas had his modified recently so that it's focusing accurately at f1.5 rather than the default f2.8. At 2m it's about 6" different!

With respect to adapters - I think Voigtlander made a new version of the 'standard' one specially for full frame lenses as the baffle in the older version was causing smearing.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Tre - the 50 f1.5 sonnar is a lovely lens - but it has radical and chronic focus shift. Silas had his modified recently so that it's focusing accurately at f1.5 rather than the default f2.8. At 2m it's about 6" different!

With respect to adapters - I think Voigtlander made a new version of the 'standard' one specially for full frame lenses as the baffle in the older version was causing smearing.
Yeah the focus shift was bad if the lens was optimized for f/1.5. If it was optimized for f/2.8 then it was so bad... You'd just have to back off a bit wide open.
 

algrove

Well-known member
At Photoplus a Zeiss employee mentioned that they now design lenses such as the Loxia line for the sensor it is to be used on.

I found that most interesting.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I think we need a 50-55 mm shoot out with that magic price range of 900 to 1200. Otus not welcome here. Lol

Let's say
ZA 50 1.4 A mount
FE 55mm
Loxia 50mm
Sigma Art 50mm 1.4 A mount
Mitiakon 50mm
Zeiss ZE or ZF.2 50mm 1.4

I'm missing something here. Hmmm
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Okay I have the Za50. Jack has the Mitiakon and the Sigma Art

Here is the catch you need to come to Moab with the 55,loxia and the Zeiss. Lol
 

cam

Active member
I think we need a 50-55 mm shoot out with that magic price range of 900 to 1200. Otus not welcome here. Lol

Let's say
ZA 50 1.4 A mount
FE 55mm
Loxia 50mm
Sigma Art 50mm 1.4 A mount
Mitiakon 50mm
Zeiss ZE or ZF.2 50mm 1.4

I'm missing something here. Hmmm
C-Sonnar, maybe?
 
Top