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Voigtlander on a M8 or 9

purplepleaser

purplepleaser

pfm Member
Hi

I am just wondering if Voigtlander are up to the task. I have been looking around on the net and the prices are so much cheaper new than Lecia ones.

It's a pipe dream at the minute but later in the year things might look good on the money front. I would like a fast 50 and a wide 21 or 28.

So any helpful info
 
Hi pp, I have a VC 35mm 1:1.2 which is very nice especially in the bokeh stakes. The 1:1.4 Nokton classic 40mm (which I used on the M8 for a while) is also good and cheaper than the 1:1.2 35. The Nokton 1:1.1 50mm is basically the same as the 35mm so should be good, but anything more than F2 will be heavy (I know as I have the 1:1 50mm Noctilux).

Bear in mind that the M8 / M8.2 is a 1:1.33 crop compared to full frame, so you'd want the 35mm Voigtlander Cosina lens on that body for near to 50mm FOV. The M9 is full frame, and the best 50mm lens for that body is the Summilux ASPH 50mm. I'm not sure about any Voigtlander 50mm lenses apart from the 1:1.1 Nokton.

On the fast and wide front, I don't know of anything really fast at 21mm, but I use the Zeiss 21mm Biogon which is nice. At 28mm, you can get the older Elmarit 1:2.8 at reasonable prices I think.

Cliff
 
my photostream has some examples from the 35 and 40 voigtlanders here

the 40mm examples are mostly on film by the way, the one called Alienation was the M8.
 
When I had an M6 I used Voigtlanders almost exclusively, 28/3.5 Skopar, 21/4.0 (a brilliant lens, one of the best I have owned), 35/1.7 Ultron, and 50/1.5 Nokton. They've rejigged the lineup in the last couple of years so not all of these are still available new, but I'd recommend any of them, they're easily as good as anyone needs. There's a lot of hype about the special qualities of Leica glass. Good lenses, but there's nothing magic about them, they're too expensive new, and plenty of other people make or have made great M mount and thread mount lenses that are available secondhand for a fraction of the price. A nice mid-60s secondhand 50/2.0 Summicron is a good 50 to have though, and shouldn't cost too much.
 
Agree with the above - I have the Heliar/15mm, 35/1.7 Ultron, and 50/1.5 Nokton. The Nokton and Ultron are great lenses (the 15mm is new to me, so haven't formed an opinion yet). My only other RF lens is a Summicron 50/2 (available s/h for $600-), but on the m8 you'd really want 28 or 35 - in that size, CV lenses are really good value cf. Leica.
 
Ian, that 21/4 which you used for the no entry sign picture in the car park (I have a copy on my wall :) ) - wasn't that a Leitz Super Angulon rather than a Voigtlander? If so, I agree that it is a super lens.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the info. I will have to have a proper try with a lecia first of course (place in Manchester is only down the road). My style if I can call it that has change so much that a rangefinder might make some sense. Its a huge amount of money to lay down on a camera to get wrong. Knowing me I will just get a 5d2 or something similar in the end.

I will keep reading and dreaming
 
cliffpatte said:
Ian, that 21/4 which you used for the no entry sign picture in the car park (I have a copy on my wall :) ) - wasn't that a Leitz Super Angulon rather than a Voigtlander? If so, I agree that it is a super lens.
Click to expand...

glad you like the picture. that's with the voigtlander 21/4.0, i've never tried a super angulon.
 
Hi Ian

they're both great lenses, even Ken Rockwell agrees ;-)

Purplepleaser,

I've been running digital Leica RF cameras for three years now. The big benefits compared to 5d2/d700 etc are:

- small size
- backward compatibility with all Leica and other glass for M and LSM mount going back 70 odd years
- Very accurate focussing without relying on a mirror to interrupt the process
- low noise when shooting
- Window like viewfinder no matter what the aperture
- relatively firm resale values if you start buying second hand you don't lose much on resale

The advantages of the FF DSLR cameras are:

- higher frame capture rate
- autofocus
- more than one metering option
- lower noise at higher ISO
- Lenses longer than 135mm

maybe there are more pluses on each side, but these are significant to me. So if I were looking to shoot a Duck on a pond 100 yards away, I would take a 70-200 Nikkor and a D3S/D700. If I wanted to shoot whatever I could see on a 10 mile stroll I would take an M9/MP (or a voigtlander film body) and a 35mm lens and maybe a 75 or 90mm lens and a 21mm lens in case I really wanted a different FOV. Even with three lenses and two Leica bodies in a bag I would not feel the weight as much as a D3S and a 24/70 & 70/200 combo (heavy man)
 
HI Cliff

Thanks for that. I am used to manual focus now with my 5d and Zuikos. It's a massive amount of money to tie up in one camera body then the lenses too.

Cheers
 
purplepleaser said:
Hi

I am just wondering if Voigtlander are up to the task. I have been looking around on the net and the prices are so much cheaper new than Lecia ones.

It's a pipe dream at the minute but later in the year things might look good on the money front. I would like a fast 50 and a wide 21 or 28.

So any helpful info
Click to expand...


up to what task ?

anything that CV, zeiss or Leica make will be good enough for a hobbyist, even going back 20 or 30 years

good enough for pro DPS editorial work as well on an M8 and definitely on an M9

think more in tersm fo what look you want

CV glass tends to have a low macro contrast... obviously meaningless once you are in post but it can help if you shoot on bright days a lot or have an M9 (which is notably more contrasty over the M8)

I've shot with most of the modern ones. The 28 ultron (older one) remains a favourite. Having said that, wide open its hopeless compared to the summicron but then its 1/10th of the price and a small unsharp mask later you won't even know the difference (if sharpness is your thing).
 
jackal2513 said:
M9 (which is notably more contrasty over the M8)

I've shot with most of the modern ones. The 28 ultron (older one) remains a favourite. Having said that, wide open its hopeless compared to the summicron but then its 1/10th of the price and a small unsharp mask later you won't even know the difference (if sharpness is your thing).
Click to expand...

I have used the M8 and the M9 extensively. I would say that the contrast is exactly the same if you shoot RAW. The M9 may just edge the M8 in dynamic range, but that isn't the same thing.

I don't think that the only difference between the 28mm Ultron and 28mm Summicron is sharpness, and using USM won't supply information which is lost when using a soft lens, it will merely increase the contrast around lines and edges, which may fool you into thinking it is sharper - but try this on an 18mp M9 RAW image and it still won't make the VC lens look like a Leica.
 
cliffpatte said:
I don't think that the only difference between the 28mm Ultron and 28mm Summicron is sharpness, and using USM won't supply information which is lost when using a soft lens, it will merely increase the contrast around lines and edges, which may fool you into thinking it is sharper - but try this on an 18mp M9 RAW image and it still won't make the VC lens look like a Leica.
Click to expand...



I didn't say that was the only difference. And I didn't say that USM will create information that isn't already there.

You seem to have missed the thrust of my post which is that any M mount lens currently for sale is more than adequate for hobbyist use. CV are very very good value and sell a great range. You can't go wrong. Pick a few up and have fun.
 
jackal2513 said:
I didn't say that was the only difference. And I didn't say that USM will create information that isn't already there.

You seem to have missed the thrust of my post which is that any M mount lens currently for sale is more than adequate for hobbyist use. CV are very very good value and sell a great range. You can't go wrong. Pick a few up and have fun.
Click to expand...

Lets not get bogged down in the individual words here. Are you really saying that any voigtlander lens (lets ignore the Zeiss and Leica for the moment) is good enough for anyone who is not a professional photographer?

Do you group all photographers into hobbyist and pro ?

I'm curious because I chat with a lot of Leica M8/M9 users on flickr and the Leica forum and the minority of them are professionals, but most agree that the Leica glass is generally preferable to the Japanese glass from Kyocera/Cosina.

For sure you can get perfectly adequate images of street scenes with a Nokton classic, but the Summicron will render the bokeh in a much nicer way to my eyes. In some ways the hobbyist pays more interest to bokeh than the pro, who is maybe looking more for the composition.

Lastly, if I had VC lenses and Leica lenses of the same focal length I would probably prefer the Leica lens in most cases, the exception being the Nokton 1.2 35mm which I actually prefer in a lot of ways to the old Summilux pre-asph.

I think you need to be more specific than just saying that they are all adequate.
 
just don't get hung up on gear and studying pixels

its all about images, nothing else and the odd bit of smooth bokeh here, a wee bit more microcontrast there doesn't mean a great deal

focusing on these things won't make you a better photographer, only worse
 
jackal2513 said:
just don't get hung up on gear and studying pixels

its all about images, nothing else and the odd bit of smooth bokeh here, a wee bit more microcontrast there doesn't mean a great deal

focusing on these things won't make you a better photographer, only worse
Click to expand...

can you show us an example from M9/Ultron 28 to exemplify what you are asserting?
 
ok, more photos less waffle, eh Dan? Today Hampton Court with a Leica MP

4760666351_f04e883da6_o.jpg


Voigtlander Cosina 35/1.2 and Kodak Tri-X, home developed etc.
 
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