Voigtlander 50mm f/1 VM

[hdmesa]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Some camera p*rn between all the images. The hood will probably never go back on as it's so narrow, it can't be doing much – unless I'm shooting somewhere I need to protect the front of the lens (street shooting in crowds, etc.).

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[M Street Photographer]

Here are some from last year's collection. M10 R, first days with VC 50 1.0

1. f 5.6

2. f 1

3. f 1

4. f 1.2

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

I love the plasticity

Edited January 29, 2023 by M Street Photographer

[hdmesa]

4 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

"accidentally" huh? (faded lettering makes my assessment of focus in this tricky...)

-----------------------------

I'm not unhappy... maybe the focus ring is too tight, or one of you eagle eyed good folks spots something that's amiss with it in the photos, and I also need to try and test if it matches my RF ok (iirc Leica don't recommend the RF beneath F1.4...) and isn't de-centred or something.... a long time ago I stopped looking for problems with gear, it's better when the problem finds me...

...but if you see something call it out, if I need to return it'll be so much easier while I'm in England

 

Looks good. Straight-on subjects are not very forgiving of focus errors, so anytime I get close with a subject like this, I feel ok. At f/1 with this scene, it sounds crazy but you have to decide if you want the surface of the letters in perfect focus or the surface of the tombstone – f/1 is that narrow. You may not see that difference with the rangefinder, but you will with the high res EVF of the SL2/S cameras.

[M Street Photographer]

vor 14 Minuten schrieb hdmesa:

Agreed. But you do want to test this lens for decenting/tilt. At infinity stopped down for landscape, it sucks to have one or more corners softer than the others. And although this an f/1 lens, it's extremely capable for landscape, so don't overlook that testing right out of the box.

I also have an advantage there: I photograph few landscapes. And if so, it's about the mood for me. If it's important to someone that everything is sharp down to the last corner, ok. I don't share this across the board because it's rarely about the corners in a photo. What use is the technically perfect photo if it doesn't touch?
As I said, if you need it, you should pay careful attention to the corner sharpness, but corner sharpness alone does not make a good photo by a long shot.

[hdmesa]

22 minutes ago, M Street Photographer said:

I also have an advantage there: I photograph few landscapes. And if so, it's about the mood for me. If it's important to someone that everything is sharp down to the last corner, ok. I don't share this across the board because it's rarely about the corners in a photo. What use is the technically perfect photo if it doesn't touch?
As I said, if you need it, you should pay careful attention to the corner sharpness, but corner sharpness alone does not make a good photo by a long shot.

True, it's more of the imbalance of the corner sharpness I'm talking about. Imagine a landscape that is mostly sky and a strip of land across the bottom. Now imagine the land on the right side of the frame is much softer than it is on the left side. I would exchange such a lens for a copy that's correctly assembled. But like you said, if you don't shoot landscapes, then it doesn't matter. Many people would switch to an APO design for that anyway.

Example with the 50 f/1 stopped down where I would care if one side were a lot softer than the other:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

f/1 landscape example: if an element was tilted vertically in this instance, the bottom center of the frame might not have been in focus if using the rangefinder or trusting the infinity hard stop (corners won't be sharp anyway, of course at f/1):

Edited January 29, 2023 by hdmesa

[M Street Photographer]

@hdmesa , 

Thanks for the very clear examples. I can understand your arguments.
And it would be ugly if one side was much softer at the bottom than the other. Now we shouldn't define what "a lot" is, as everyone has different perceptions and sees things differently.
For your first B&W photo, the first and almost only thing I would pay attention to is the mood. Of course, if there was a lot of smack to be seen on one side, it would certainly be a little distracting, especially when the other side is very sharp. But that would be a deviation that I can't imagine with the VC 50 1.0.
With the color photo below, I have viewing problems here in the forum, in the foreground as well as in the slightly hazy background and sky. Overall, it doesn't appeal to me that much.
I could imagine hanging the B&W on the wall, but hardly the color image because it doesn't affect me.

[hdmesa]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

13 minutes ago, M Street Photographer said:

@hdmesa , 

Thanks for the very clear examples. I can understand your arguments.
And it would be ugly if one side was much softer at the bottom than the other. Now we shouldn't define what "a lot" is, as everyone has different perceptions and sees things differently.
For your first B&W photo, the first and almost only thing I would pay attention to is the mood. Of course, if there was a lot of smack to be seen on one side, it would certainly be a little distracting, especially when the other side is very sharp. But that would be a deviation that I can't imagine with the VC 50 1.0.
With the color photo below, I have viewing problems here in the forum, in the foreground as well as in the slightly hazy background and sky. Overall, it doesn't appeal to me that much.
I could imagine hanging the B&W on the wall, but hardly the color image because it doesn't affect me.

Yes, the color shot only has a small area in the center of the bottom that is in focus. And it's dark. The sky is really the subject. But if the lens had been tilted, nothing on the bottom would have been in focus since I was trusting the rangefinder.

On my most recent/current copy of the 50f/1 at f/8, the top of the frame (on the long side) is the slightest slight bit sharper than the bottom, but within tolerance. Besides, I usually focus with the EVF on that bottom strip of a landscape if that's how it's composed, completely mitigating the difference. It's also possible my M-to-L macro adapter is very slightly not parallel to the sensor, especially with such a heavy lens hanging off it. But in either case, it's about as perfect as a lens gets for tilt.

The kind of issues I'm talking about are really gross misalignments, ones that make your face pucker up and look away in horror  Yes, that's unlikely on a flagship lens, but not impossible. I have only had one CV lens that was obscenely off-kilter, a new copy of the tiny 35 2.5.

But that also brings me to another landscape-oriented thing to test, which is field curvature. My first copy of the 50 f/1 had a large amount of it at infinity, which caused the lens to be focused at infinity at f/1, but as I stopped down, the image became softer and softer in the center – I had to refocus the center at f/8 by quite a bit. My new copy doesn't change focus when stopping down at infinity.

[M Street Photographer]

vor 42 Minuten schrieb hdmesa:

....But that also brings me to another landscape-oriented thing to test, which is field curvature. My first copy of the 50 f/1 had a large amount of it at infinity, which caused the lens to be focused at infinity at f/1, but as I stopped down, the image became softer and softer in the center – I had to refocus the center at f/8 by quite a bit. My new copy doesn't change focus when stopping down at infinity.

If I remember correctly, this was also the subject of Miranda when he first ran it.
Others, including myself, have not had the problem. Maybe his was a pre-production model or just one batch was affected. Later he probably tested other VC 50 1.0 and it was hardly a problem.

[hdmesa]

52 minutes ago, M Street Photographer said:

If I remember correctly, this was also the subject of Miranda when he first ran it.
Others, including myself, have not had the problem. Maybe his was a pre-production model or just one batch was affected. Later he probably tested other VC 50 1.0 and it was hardly a problem.

Fred’s copy performed well at infinity, it was the initial evaluation of closer to mid-distance shooting wide open that drew concern (reverse field curvature and loss of bokeh at the edges of the frame). Ended up that once compared to Leica’s 0.95 and 1.0 Nocts it was apparent the Voigtlander outperformed them. 

[hmzimelka]

9 hours ago, hdmesa said:

But that also brings me to another landscape-oriented thing to test, which is field curvature. My first copy of the 50 f/1 had a large amount of it at infinity, which caused the lens to be focused at infinity at f/1, but as I stopped down, the image became softer and softer in the center – I had to refocus the center at f/8 by quite a bit. My new copy doesn't change focus when stopping down at infinity.

Here you're describing focus shift rather than field curvature. 

Field curvature is the shift of the focus plane, either forwards or backwards, observed by moving away from the frame's centre. Most typically, an example would be centre at infinity focus. Centre to mid-field of the frame the focus moves forward/closer. Then from mid-field to corners, the focus plane is reversed and moves away towards infinity again. Looks like a moustache. 

Focus shift, which this 50mm f/1.0 shouldn't have to any noticeable degree, is where the focus plane moves backwards as one stops down. From my understanding it's caused by spherical aberrations and that the actual focal length of the lens is different for the light that enters from the edges versus the light entering from the centre. Stopping down corrects for the spherical aberrations and shifts focus as a result. 

Many lenses show focus shift, but most modern ones correct for it to such a degree that it's usually unnoticeable for general photography and the subject usually stays sharp.
Many times one can observe the that subject focus remains sharp, but that the depth of focus enlarges backwards and away as one stops down.

[hdmesa]

12 hours ago, hmzimelka said:

Here you're describing focus shift rather than field curvature. 

Field curvature is the shift of the focus plane, either forwards or backwards, observed by moving away from the frame's centre. Most typically, an example would be centre at infinity focus. Centre to mid-field of the frame the focus moves forward/closer. Then from mid-field to corners, the focus plane is reversed and moves away towards infinity again. Looks like a moustache. 

Focus shift, which this 50mm f/1.0 shouldn't have to any noticeable degree, is where the focus plane moves backwards as one stops down. From my understanding it's caused by spherical aberrations and that the actual focal length of the lens is different for the light that enters from the edges versus the light entering from the centre. Stopping down corrects for the spherical aberrations and shifts focus as a result. 

Many lenses show focus shift, but most modern ones correct for it to such a degree that it's usually unnoticeable for general photography and the subject usually stays sharp.
Many times one can observe the that subject focus remains sharp, but that the depth of focus enlarges backwards and away as one stops down.

Thanks! These two concepts are confusing, but I think I get it now. So since I had one copy with focus shift and one without, that means it was caused by incorrect assembly tolerances of the optical elements versus the accepted design of the lens, right?

[hmzimelka]

1 hour ago, hdmesa said:

Thanks! These two concepts are confusing, but I think I get it now. So since I had one copy with focus shift and one without, that means it was caused by incorrect assembly tolerances of the optical elements versus the accepted design of the lens, right?

Yeah, I just can't see that the 50mm f/1 would have noticeable focus shift so it could very well be you got a bad sample with your first lens. Much like my experience with the Summicron 35mm ASPH II and the Summilux 35mm FLE... My Cron I had so much focus shift that the subject was only ever sharp at f/2 and only again at f/8. The Summilux had much less shift but it would still back focus enough for the subject to be slightly un-sharp at f/2.8 due to focus shift. Both of these lenses are claimed (and highly defended on this forum) for not having focus shift. I haven't had a chance to try different copies to verify that. But my point is it's possible to get a lens that has focus shift when its design intention was for it not to have or have very little of it.

 

[hdmesa]

53 minutes ago, hmzimelka said:

Yeah, I just can't see that the 50mm f/1 would have noticeable focus shift so it could very well be you got a bad sample with your first lens. Much like my experience with the Summicron 35mm ASPH II and the Summilux 35mm FLE... My Cron I had so much focus shift that the subject was only ever sharp at f/2 and only again at f/8. The Summilux had much less shift but it would still back focus enough for the subject to be slightly un-sharp at f/2.8 due to focus shift. Both of these lenses are claimed (and highly defended on this forum) for not having focus shift. I haven't had a chance to try different copies to verify that. But my point is it's possible to get a lens that has focus shift when its design intention was for it not to have or have very little of it.

 

Thanks, that makes sense.

For Voigtlander, I think I may start ordering three copies of a lens and only keeping the best one. They don't have sealed packaging of any kind, so not really a bad faith thing to do I don't think. Can't do that with Leica, though, since they are sealed and restocking fees apply should they all be good copies. For Leica, it makes me want to start buying used and then send them straight away for a CLA.

[hmzimelka]

8 hours ago, hdmesa said:

Thanks, that makes sense.

For Voigtlander, I think I may start ordering three copies of a lens and only keeping the best one. They don't have sealed packaging of any kind, so not really a bad faith thing to do I don't think. Can't do that with Leica, though, since they are sealed and restocking fees apply should they all be good copies. For Leica, it makes me want to start buying used and then send them straight away for a CLA.

If you're in a position to do that then you're in luck. 

Leica doesn't sell any product sealed in South Africa. It's just a box, without the paper outer box. Hardly any stock of anything M related, and any order that isn't in stock takes 6 weeks or more to arrive. I'm so over Leica's horrid quality control. My latest order over Christmas of the APO 50mm was the last straw; That copy was seriously disappointing. 

Voigtlander for me needs to be ordered from UK or BHPhoto, and I can't return any faulty item since shipping from here is stupendously pricey making it uneconomical. But Voigtlander QC has far exceeded that of Leica products from my experience.

[Adam Bonn]

A couple more test shots...

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

[Adam Bonn]

and another that didn't fit on the first post!

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[ru2far2c]

The devil is in the details 🤣
Yours and other images here are tempting me to reach for my wallet.

[M Street Photographer]

Then dig deep and fast. Sometimes there are very long delivery times because it is not in stock.

[Adam Bonn]

I got to compare my focus ring with another copy today and mine is fine 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Adam Bonn]

4 four more then next time from Portugal I would think!

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!