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Voigtlander 50mm f/1 VM


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The 62mm filters size seems a lot more manageable than 72mm of the old Canon lens I first envisaged it looking like.

Head to head comparison with the Leica 50/0.95 is inevitable ; the Voigtlander seems to have the size and weight advantage ; we need sample images now to determine how much time has eroded Leica's supremacy.

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Concerning floating elements, I have my opinion ;

- benefit from this difficult design is very small ( in my use of course ! )

- this is a fragile moving device, needing care in use and may break or out of alignment more frequently than fix elements

- I had Summilux-M 50 asph. (FLE) which was not reliable enough that now I use the 50 non-asph. instead

- my wife's Apo-Summicron-M 75mm (great lens) is more difficult (for me ) to have consistent images at all distances

- some aberrations are corrected but some others (CA for example) are bigger depending on the distance, this is not manageable for me.

Edited by a.noctilux
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29 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

As long time 50 Noctilux 1.0 user, I can confirm that using F/1 closer than 1.5m is working to have trouble.

Only new users would use this F/1 setting (under 1.5m wide open) then complain that the expensive Leica lens is not up to their expectations.

So having the F1 for RF M lens under 1m focus is bonus of course, but only marketing for me ( I can do what Leica can not ).

0.9m is fine and reasonable from Voigtlander, if using closer than that Liveview is a must, in this case Elpro or M ring ( as limited OUFRO ) can be used closed down !

Salut Arnaud - one if these things one can probably argue forever. I would not go so far to say it is marketing only. I can focus my 1.1/50 well most of the times at 1m, and a little bit closer should work, too. And then. there is always the Visoflex. I am probably more concerned that the rangefinder coupling is dead on with that lens.

Amicalement - Ivo

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17 minutes ago, FrozenInTime said:

The 62mm filters size seems a lot more manageable than 72mm of the old Canon lens I first envisaged it looking like.

Head to head comparison with the Leica 50/0.95 is inevitable ; the Voigtlander seems to have the size and weight advantage ; we need sample images now to determine how much time has eroded Leica's supremacy.

I hope it lives to expectations given the price will be more than any voigtlander m lens to date and verges onto leica price territory.

If voigtlander continues with this path of continually creating system of m lenses then i think it warrants voigtlander to consider creating a systems camera to suit.

But since its only rival would be leica, which is already a niche market, i believe it needs to expand to the L mount and service a larger audience.

An L mount system rangefinder would be something. Perhaps partner with epson/ricoh? I know a pipe dream, but nice to consider what ifs...lol

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12 minutes ago, Photon42 said:

Salut Arnaud - one if these things one can probably argue forever. I would not go so far to say it is marketing only. I can focus my 1.1/50 well most of the times at 1m, and a little bit closer should work, too. And then. there is always the Visoflex. I am probably more concerned that the rangefinder coupling is dead on with that lens.

Amicalement - Ivo

 

Hello Ivo,

You are right that focussing range closer would not heart,

as it should with FLE elements may be better.

 

I think that the longer ramp may be necessary, so bigger/longer lens then.

Edited by a.noctilux
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27 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Hello Ivo,

You are right that focussing range closer would not heart,

as it should with FLE elements may be better.

 

I think that the longer ramp may be necessary, so bigger/longer lens then.

Longer ramp? I am not familiar with that term in this context.

If you are talking about the focusing mechanism / the helicoid, then I think this sounds like a possible explanation regarding why the MFD is limited - in this case to 0.9 meter - considering their effort to keep the lens as short as it is. However, the 50mm Summilux Asph has FLE and reaches 0.7m, so I don't understand why an f/1 lens should be so limited in MFD.

As an end user, I do find it odd and a clear drawback that a 50mm lens is limited to 0.9 meter MFD. I even find a MFD of 0.7 meter to be too long, but this is of course relative and depend on use (and in my case, I would have liked semi macro distance if possible). Since I don't shoot an M camera, but a (sensor glass modified) Nikon Z6, the adapter will let me focus much closer - with the optical performance drop that often follows when going much closer, but sometimes the softness from spherical aberration is desirable (like the sample below shot with Nokton 50mm f/1.2 Asph wide open).

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2 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

So having the F1 for RF M lens under 1m focus is bonus of course, but only marketing for me ( I can do what Leica can not ).

For sure, but don't forget that many brands, including Voigtlander, release lenses in M mount to be used with other cameras too (Sony, Nikon etc), where focusing with an EFV makes focusing at f/1 and closer than 1m easy 

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31 minutes ago, Alexander-HH said:

I would love to see a good picture of this mounted on a M10 😍 on the other hand this will probably make me want it even more 😬

Can't help you with the new 50mm f1 yet but you could always get the 50mm f1.5 Heliar Classic in the meantime! 😂

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vor 9 Stunden schrieb Alexander-HH:

I would love to see a good picture of this mounted on a M10 😍 on the other hand this will probably make me want it even more 😬

There is a short video about this lens, they show it on the M, though unfortunately not very close up:

 

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23 hours ago, LarsHP said:

 

Yes. I just saw it in that thread this morning. So why on earth didn't Cosina write it in the Japanese and English description? This is really odd. To be honest, I am a bit hesitant regarding a final conclusion whether it actually has floating lens element design, as long as Cosina doesn't say it themselves. The German description at https://www.voigtlaender.de/objektive/vm/50-mm-11-nokton/ is the only official page that claims it so far, but even the video on that very page doesn't mention FLE.

The Japanese news site dc watch impress says floating elements ; it would be interesting if anyone can find the text of the Cosina-Voigtlander press release.

https://dc-watch-impress-co-jp.translate.goog/docs/news/1373041.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

"The shortest shooting distance is 0.9m (same as the rangefinder interlocking range). By adopting a floating mechanism, stable image quality can be obtained from short distances to long distances."

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8 hours ago, FrozenInTime said:

The Japanese news site dc watch impress says floating elements ; it would be interesting if anyone can find the text of the Cosina-Voigtlander press release.

https://dc-watch-impress-co-jp.translate.goog/docs/news/1373041.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

"The shortest shooting distance is 0.9m (same as the rangefinder interlocking range). By adopting a floating mechanism, stable image quality can be obtained from short distances to long distances."

Right. And over at Fred Miranda's site, one of the members linked to an official (Japanese) Cosina Facebook account that confirms that this lens does have a floating lens element design. Another said the Australian distributor also confirmed it. In addition, we already have the German site and Steve at Camera Quest saying the same.

Now someone in the marketing department at Cosina needs to update the description in both English and Japanese. Not mentioning an important feature usually means it isn't there, so this should definitely be added.

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On 12/11/2021 at 2:47 PM, Ouroboros said:

Can't help you with the new 50mm f1 yet but you could always get the 50mm f1.5 Heliar Classic in the meantime! 😂

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And the Minimal focus distance is 50cm.

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On 12/11/2021 at 12:55 PM, LarsHP said:

Longer ramp? I am not familiar with that term in this context.

If you are talking about the focusing mechanism / the helicoid, then I think this sounds like a possible explanation regarding why the MFD is limited - in this case to 0.9 meter - considering their effort to keep the lens as short as it is. However, the 50mm Summilux Asph has FLE and reaches 0.7m, so I don't understand why an f/1 lens should be so limited in MFD.

As an end user, I do find it odd and a clear drawback that a 50mm lens is limited to 0.9 meter MFD. I even find a MFD of 0.7 meter to be too long, but this is of course relative and depend on use (and in my case, I would have liked semi macro distance if possible). Since I don't shoot an M camera, but a (sensor glass modified) Nikon Z6, the adapter will let me focus much closer - with the optical performance drop that often follows when going much closer, but sometimes the softness from spherical aberration is desirable (like the sample below shot with Nokton 50mm f/1.2 Asph wide open).

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You can buy a proper close focus M-Adapter for your Z from the very company. I have one and it works very well.

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5 hours ago, Photon42 said:

You can buy a proper close focus M-Adapter for your Z from the very company. I have one and it works very well.

I have three. Two smart adapters with AF (Techart and Megadap) and one dumb with close focus helicoid (Gabale).

The reason why I am "whining" about the minimum focus distance is that (I expect) it tells us that at shorter distances, the performance will drop below a threshold that the engineers think is acceptable. To me, it is disappointing considering the floating lens element design.

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14 minutes ago, LarsHP said:

The reason why I am "whining" about the minimum focus distance is that (I expect) it tells us that at shorter distances, the performance will drop below a threshold that the engineers think is acceptable. To me, it is disappointing considering the floating lens element design.

Lens design is all about compromises. FLE helps but it's not a miracle maker. Besides, when designing a lens you pick the constraints and targets... do we want it to weight less than 500 g or does it have to hit the $2000 price point or if it has to focus down to 0.7m.

So far there's been precedent to let MFDs on ultrafast lenses go a little longer.

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I certainly would prefer a shorter lens and overall better image quality over a shorter focussing distance. So I am quite happy with their choice. If the image quality is up to it, I am quite likely to get this lens. I once shot the old 50/1 Noctilux and just liked that lens, unfortunately it is still quite more expensive as a used lens.

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