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 Adapter with WATE on A7?

Auni

Member
Ok, whatever... I'll change my statement to, Sony gave a promotion for a M-E Metabones adapter in the Australian box with the camera.

My point is, that by supplying an adapter to try with their camera may not implicitly suggest it will work, but it does imply that it will. Knowing that most all of Leica's lenses are retrofocus designs, it is hard to imagine Sony's engineers were not aware that most all Leica M lenses would fail to produce good images on their camera.

I, like most were somehow under the impression that we could use our M lenses on this new camera and get acceptable results. This is not true and I'll return mine. Simple, but a little disingenuous.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Ok, whatever... I'll change my statement to, Sony gave a promotion for a M-E Metabones adapter in the Australian box with the camera.

My point is, that by supplying an adapter to try with their camera may not implicitly suggest it will work, but it does imply that it will. Knowing that most all of Leica's lenses are retrofocus designs, it is hard to imagine Sony's engineers were not aware that most all Leica M lenses would fail to produce good images on their camera.

I, like most were somehow under the impression that we could use our M lenses on this new camera and get acceptable results. This is not true and I'll return mine. Simple, but a little disingenuous.
Again, no leica M adapter was ever offered, AFAIK.

As for "all" Leica lenses being of retrofocal design- even Leica would strongly dispute that!

It is one thing that the camera does not work for you. That is fine.

Claiming Leica lenses are something that they are not is wrong.
 

Auni

Member
So is the lens in Neil's link faulty? I'm interested, because my initial impression was that the WATE was fine as well, but these are not okay

all the best
Again, no leica M adapter was ever offered, AFAIK.

As for "all" Leica lenses being of retrofocal design- even Leica would strongly dispute that!

It is one thing that the camera does not work for you. That is fine.

Claiming Leica lenses are something that they are not is wrong.
Sorry, Sony did supply material that offers an M adaptor, it was found in the the box of the A7, you are simply wrong.

I won't get into an argument about the exact definition of retrofocus design. That is covered elsewhere. But the design of Leica M lenses do not lend themselves to producing good image quality in the edges of sensors with thicker IR glass coverings. This is also covered elsewhere. You can read about that as well on your own.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Geez! I am saying that even Leica themselves will not claim that all their M lenses are of retrofocal design!

Do you know how thick the IR cut filter is in the M9 and the one in A7R?

Have you seen pictures posted here using the A7R and Leica M lenses? :)
 

Ocean

Senior Subscriber Member
Thanks for the link Neil

I did my testing with the WATE at 20 ft - these show soft corners at all focal lengths - which I didn't see.

I'd say that if you want to use wide angle lenses for landscape on the A7r you'd better stick to slr lenses - I was sure the WATE was okay (and for sure there is no colour shift) , but these aren't okay - and you can't magic back soft corners.
Jono, is the WATE 'perfect' on M240 in terms of color cast and corner/edge sharpness?
 

Slingers

Active member
A Sony Rep said here in Australia that the A7(R) works well with rangefinder lenses, see about 29:20 Sony Alpha A7 & A7R - Hands-on at the Launch event - DigiDIRECT TV Ep 049 - YouTube I was at this event and this comment was made around the time the Ron Scheffler images were being talked about. So I found it odd he said it.

However my two cents on this issue is that every adapter is different even from the same brand and its possible that soft corners are showing up because of a bad adapter. Although if multiple adapters show the same issue then it's probably not the adapter.
 

Ron Pfister

Member
I think the gist is that many M-mount lenses are challenged in the digital realm (particularly wides), no matter what the camera platform is. Just look at the lengths to which Leica had to go to make them work acceptably (oblong micro lenses, profile corrections). It really is an example of shoehorning a legacy standard into a new technology framework, and the outcome is a more or less acceptable compromise.

Edit: I am not expecting *any* M-mount lens to perform flawlessly on a non-Leica body. Any other expectation will likely lead to disappointment, IMO. And being positively surprised is always nice… :)
 

waardij

New member
Forgive me if I am asking something stupid, but I read this thread an wonder what other people are doing with pictures. I work with an a99 and a ZA16-35 wide angle zoom. I am very happy with this combination and usually print at least 50x75 (cm). when I then see the result of the WATE on the a7r, I think this lens is amazing. no way my zoom is going to give corners as good as this. I am not thinking of the way they look in the example, but once I would be ready with some post processing.
even if I print 60x90 (cm), the biggest I do (apart form stitched panoramas), I can sometimes see things in my image I am not pleased with, mostly digital artifacts, if I get to close to the print), but soft corners are almost never a problem. what am I missing here?
 

Ron Pfister

Member
You're missing nothing. My above statement is a generalization regarding M-mount lenses. It is probably safe to say that the WATE is the best-performing M-mount WA-lens for use on the A7/A7R by a considerable margin, particularly regarding corner smearing, vignetting and color casts. As such, it is an exception to the rule. The reason for this is it's pronounced retro-focal, tele-centric design.
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
Michael Reichmann on a7r and Leica M lenses at LuLa.

A7R_M_Lens_Report

Graham

Many thanks. Tim Ashley has already elaborated extensively on the flat field correction technique and use with the A7R.

To try that I didn't use a piece of plastic to get the correction image but simply took an out of focus image of my white computer screen with the same aperture. Well, when I used that in the flat field approach, I got a very encouraging result. I wonder whether other folks have tried this and whether this gives an acceptable improvement or not.
 

JonPB

New member
These images are taken using the Voltlander adapter.

a7r-LeicaWATE

Neil
While I think it is fine for someone to say that this level of detail isn't sufficient for their needs, I don't see anything in this image to suggest that any part of the kit used to take it is defective.


a7rwate16f4-analysis with 1:1 size here.

At 20mm from axis, contrast for 10 lp/mm is quickly approaching 60%. Compare the blurring around the roofline pointing toward the top left corner to the MTF curve and my theoretical mockup--it looks about right.

Compare that to the sunlit band on the balcony wall near 15mm. The MTF says we should expect much higher, though still imperfect contrast, which is what we see.

Also, the amount of chromatic aberration closely matches the amount of divergence between the sagittal and tangential values.

Simply put, the inflection point on these MTF curves around 17mm is quite real: the majority of the image is superb and the corners significantly weaken.

In all--I don't think the adapter can be blamed but rather the exacting nature of the A7R.

On a personal note, I'm going to take a moment to celebrate the many and unnamed geniuses who made such details visible in the extreme corners of a 135-format photo taken with a 16mm f/4 lens. Isn't that extraordinary?

Cheers,
Jon
 
V

Vivek

Guest
On a personal note, I'm going to take a moment to celebrate the many and unnamed geniuses who made such details visible in the extreme corners of a 135-format photo taken with a 16mm f/4 lens. Isn't that extraordinary?
I am grateful to all the brick wall shots taken on film as well. :)
 

mark1958

Member
I used a Voigt adapter with a WATE lens and was overall impressed. I did a number of direct comparisons with a Zeiss 18mm/3.5 on a Nikon mount using a metabones adapter. In general, the image quality was very similar-- contrast, sharpness etc. Both had issues with vignetting that has been discussed. The one big difference was the fringing which was very apparent on the zeiss lens and much less noticeable on the leica.
 
Top