New Voigtlander 35/1.7 Ultron-M may be great on A7 series

[uhoh7]

F/8 test of the new 35 Ultron:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96189377@N08/21261216939/

That's on a plain A7. No mod. Maybe it's the best RF 35 I've seen on this camera for landscape.

He has an album with a few more shots including colorcast test, which seems to show none at F/8 and some shift at F/1.7.

Here is a thread with samples and vigorous discussion of the lens on Leica and Sony.

NEW Voigtlander 35 1.7 Ultron M mount - FM Forums

 

[Vivek]

Thank you.

Glancing through the links, I am not convinced that it would be "great".

I am under the impression that among Cosina's offerings, their 35/1.2 II is more suited for the A7 series?

 

[jrp]

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2015/09/15/quick-comparison-zeiss-35-1-4-zm-vs-voigtlander-35-1-7-vm/

 

[uhoh7]

Thank you.

Glancing through the links, I am not convinced that it would be "great".

I am under the impression that among Cosina's offerings, their 35/1.2 II is more suited for the A7 series?

The Jury is out still. But I do not believe the 35/1.2 will beat that landscape shot in the first link. I have the CV 35/1.2. Edges on it do get softer by quite a bit than the center, even on the M9, when you shoot a long landscape.

The A7 edges at F/8 are impressive. The Ultron is much smaller and lighter than the 1.2, which is very heavy for any 35.

Colorshift seems moot at F/8, but may be a factor wide open. The A7 series varies by model on colorshift. Original A7r is worst. A7S and new A7r2 are the best.

All that said "great" is a personal thing

 

[Juha Kannisto]

The Jury is out still. But I do not believe the 35/1.2 will beat that landscape shot in the first link. I have the CV 35/1.2. Edges on it do get softer by quite a bit than the center, even on the M9, when you shoot a long landscape.

The A7 edges at F/8 are impressive. The Ultron is much smaller and lighter than the 1.2, which is very heavy for any 35.

Colorshift seems moot at F/8, but may be a factor wide open. The A7 series varies by model on colorshift. Original A7r is worst. A7S and new A7r2 are the best.

All that said "great" is a personal thing

I have the new Ultron and I've been using it on my A7II for a few weeks now, ever since the release date in Japan (27th of August). I also have FE 35/1.4, FE 35/2.8, CV Nokton 35/1.2 v1 and used to have the old Ultron 35/1.7 and Color-Skopar 35/2.5.

I'm very happy with the new Ultron so far, it's has very good performance with reasonable size and weight. I also got the optional hood for it and I quite prefer that one to the bundled version.

The central sharpness is really excellent from wide open, and bokeh is very nice, somewhat similar to Nokton 35/1.2. For infinity shots it needs to be closed down a bit more than my Nokton to get 100% perfect corner sharpness, at f5.6 it's perfect. I prefer it to my Nokton as it's noticeably sharper right from wide open and the size and weight are much nicer.

Some albums I've taken with the lens (using my A7II and a few with A7r in 3rd album too), in the 2nd album there are also shots with 90mm FE Macro and 25mm Batis but majority is with the Ultron:

https://plus.google.com/+JuhaKannisto/posts/PjArz6J1woT

https://plus.google.com/+JuhaKannisto/posts/isrRoygUwRN

https://plus.google.com/+JuhaKannisto/posts/caxQq1kT55v

https://plus.google.com/+JuhaKannisto/posts/jeJEEjonQVs

https://plus.google.com/+JuhaKannisto/posts/g5phQLgyY7C

 

[uhoh7]

Beautiful samples and nice summation of the performance.

At 5.6 or f/8 you think the CV 35/1.2 and the ultron are equal or maybe the ultron is better?

 

[Juha Kannisto]

Beautiful samples and nice summation of the performance.

At 5.6 or f/8 you think the CV 35/1.2 and the ultron are equal or maybe the ultron is better?

Thanks very much! I do feel that the Ultron is crisper / better overall at f5.6 and f8 but I haven't carefully compared them side by side at those apertures. There may be some more vignetting with the Ultron at wide apertures but there it's sharper there for sure. My CV 35/1.2 is v1 though, not sure how much difference v2 would make.

 

[uhoh7]

The side by side I would really love to see is the new ultron vs FE 35/2.8

 

[Juha Kannisto]

The side by side I would really love to see is the new ultron vs FE 35/2.8

I copied some comparison shots at every half-stop with both Ultron and FE 35/2.8 here, check out the Ultron and Sonnar folders:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0BYrcxVNFdPOG5EbDEzSmExbWc&usp=sharing

I think the auto-corrections make Sonnar shots look pretty similar with each f-stop and the corners are sharp at infinity already from wide open with that one. With Ultron they pick up gradually, not as flat field. For infinity landscapes the native lenses might be best, but I really like the RF glass for different type of shooting.

Some low light city lights scenes can be found in City_Lights folder too, as somebody asked about handling of lights in the dark. Those are OOC JPEGs.

 

[uhoh7]

Juha, TY so much for going to that trouble.

It does seem, as far as the edges are concerned, the FE 35/2.8 is well ahead in your shots.

But you may be focusing on the center with the ultron. Critical focus with a goal of best across the frame sharpness is very tricky especially without a perfect infinity stop. In your shot the center is quite distant while the edges are much closer. True infinity at 35mm is 350 meters.

With that in mind it might be possible to finesse a bit more from the ultron in those long shots: retain good center clarity but capture the edges by adjusting the focal point.

This really shows how confusing various tests may be, and opinions can vary so much on the subject of RF glass on the A7 series.

How would the Zeiss 35mm Loxia compare to these lenses? Just curious. I've got the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 but it's HUGE! :bugeyes:

Joe

Well we are just talking about one single lens, a new offering from Voigtlander. The jury its still out on how it directly compares to the Loxia 35/2. It's a very good question.

 

[Juha Kannisto]

Juha, TY so much for going to that trouble.

It does seem, as far as the edges are concerned, the FE 35/2.8 is well ahead in your shots.

But you may be focusing on the center with the ultron. Critical focus with a goal of best across the frame sharpness is very tricky especially without a perfect infinity stop. In your shot the center is quite distant while the edges are much closer. True infinity at 35mm is 350 meters.

With that in mind it might be possible to finesse a bit more from the ultron in those long shots: retain good center clarity but capture the edges by adjusting the focal point.

This really shows how confusing various tests may be, and opinions can vary so much on the subject of RF glass on the A7 series.


Well we are just talking about one single lens, a new offering from Voigtlander. The jury its still out on how it directly compares to the Loxia 35/2. It's a very good question.

Yes, I think with corner-to-corner performance in landscape infinity shots, the native FE glass is hard to beat. In this test I focused manually at wide open at center area referring to both peaking and magnification with both lenses, and I left the focus there and then just closed the aperture shot by shot while keeping the camera in place. Ì have not seen any focus shift with these lenses so I figured that would work. I used Voigtländer Close Focus adapter with the Ultron, and it allows focusing a bit beyond infinity with most lenses so optimal focus for center area required a bit of dialling back from hard infinity. However, based on the focus markings on the lens the focus position was no different from what works best for shots at around 50m. I also have a Rayqual adapter (v2 for FF) and a Shoten close focus adapter. Those adapters are quite spot-on with infinity with most of my lenses whereas Voigtländer close focus adapter goes beyond infinity, but I've noticed that with several wide Voigtländer lenses I need to go further than Rayqual and Shoten to reach most optimal center focus at infinity, and then there's some difference in optimal focus positions between my A7II and A7r with same lenses and adapters... So it is indeed rather complicated topic I agree that tests can be confusing and have a lot of dependency on adapter and exact focus point used... I really like the Rayqual adapter with many of my legacy RF glass, especially the M-Rokkors, but for the Voigtländers below 50mm I usually always go with the CV adapter. It might be possible to get better corners earlier with different focus position with the Ultron, but I haven't done much experimenting with that yet.

Anyhow, I think Ultron is not best optimized for corner-to-corner sharpness at wider apertures at infinity but I think it's a great lens for the type of shooting I mostly do (daily life/street) and it also works fine at infinity when closed down enough... My other RF glass that works best with A7 series (e.g. M-Rokkors) also requires closing the aperture at least as much when shooting at infinity, though Nokton 35/1.2 v1 does get the corner sharpness slightly earlier than the new Ultron. On the other hand the Nokton doesn't have as good central sharpness at wide apertures in same kind of tests.

I don't have the Loxia so I can't compare to that...

 

[Juha Kannisto]

Philip Reeve's Rolling Review:
Voigtlaender Ultron 1.7 / 35 mm - Rolling Review - phillipreeve.net

I pretty much agree with everything he's written in the review so far. I haven't seen any color shift on my A7II, which anyway behaves better in that regard vs. A7r and original A7. I think with my A7r there is a little bit though it's not very noticeable.