(UPDATED W/IMAGE SAMPLES!) HOT! NEW CV 25MM f0.95 NOKTON!

[PeterB666]

i've concluded the best way to use my 50/1.1 is to shoot it at f/2 all the time unless it's low light, and then i'll explore through to 1.1. I do sometimes wonder whether I would have been better off with the Zeiss ZM 50/2 or even the Olympus 50/2 macro!

Virtually every lens performs significantly better stopped down by 1 or 2 stops. Most f/2 lenses have a sweet spot around f/4 to 5.6. I would expect that the sweet spot of the f/0.95 would be around f/2 to f/4

 

[OzRay]

I think you will find the Mainline Photographics pricing will be the cheapest list pricing worldwide. Most of their Voigtlander stuff is well priced and stuff like the new 75mm f/1.8 and the older f/2.5 in M mount is quite appealing. It is nice to have a distributor that isn't out to rip off our relatively small market.

Yeah, I buy a lot of gear from Mainline and not only are their prices very reasonable, the service is exemplary. They replaced my new 12mm lens without hesitation when I noticed some chipping on the edge of the front element (manufacturing fault and turned out to be refractory material).

Cheers

Ray

 

[chylld]

I think you will find the Mainline Photographics pricing will be the cheapest list pricing worldwide. Most of their Voigtlander stuff is well priced and stuff like the new 75mm f/1.8 and the older f/2.5 in M mount is quite appealing. It is nice to have a distributor that isn't out to rip off our relatively small market.

for a local distributor yes, but on a worldwide stage they are very overpriced... at least for the 50/1.1, which they list for a whopping AU$1295 - over $300 more expensive than the HK shop I bought mine from (which was shipped 1 business day after I ordered it!!)

Virtually every lens performs significantly better stopped down by 1 or 2 stops. Most f/2 lenses have a sweet spot around f/4 to 5.6. I would expect that the sweet spot of the f/0.95 would be around f/2 to f/4

that's true, but the good lenses are still very sharp and clear wide open, a prime example being our own 20/1.7. the 25/0.95 and 50/1.1 in certain conditions (e.g. shooting in the sun, or shooting high-contrast scenes) are imo unusable wide open.

 

[chylld]

On the other hand, these comments are only for the pictures of this reviewer. Others may be better at taking pictures. So shall wait and see more before final judgement is passed, IMHO.

I will definitely keep my fingers crossed for better 25/0.95 image samples, but given that the image quality problems are consistently suspicious and aren't due to camera shake (zoom in on the in-focus areas, and check the exif shutter speed) my hopes aren't being held too high.

If the next batch of photos fails to impress then I would go so far as to say that I would be cancelling my preorder asap. Thankfully owning a super-fast CV lens has already warned me of the tradeoffs to avoid being put in that situation (again)

 

[Vidar]

Anyone found any more samples of pictures from this lens? I looked on the interweb but didn´t find any...

The few poor pictures we have seen can´t be representative for this lens (I hope)

 

[PeterB666]

that's true, but the good lenses are still very sharp and clear wide open, a prime example being our own 20/1.7. the 25/0.95 and 50/1.1 in certain conditions (e.g. shooting in the sun, or shooting high-contrast scenes) are imo unusable wide open.

Even the 20/1.7 isn't suitable for shooting into the sun wide open and suffers from a fair bit of flare (I know because I was using this lens for sunrises before I got my Olympus 9-18mm zoom).

While the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 is a good lens in practice, it doesn't live up to the legend created around it. In all respects, it is a competent enough performer for a general purpose lens and very compact to boot. Most pancake lenses scream compromise and MFT does an excellent job of masking those compromises with firmware/software corrections.

Check out the lens performance here...

Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 ASPH - Review / Lens Test Report - Analysis

So what you have is very high levels of distortion for a prime - about as bad as the worst on a zoom lens, very high vignetting all the way out to F/4 and while excellent sharpness in the centre, pretty ordinary on the edges.

Certainly the Panasonic and Olympus cameras correct for distorsion and vignetting. The 20mm lens would be a shocker if it didn't and very expensive for the level of performance.

I love my 20mm lens but when the light falls, I want something with easy to control manual focus. I can live with in-camera lens corrections but would prefer not to pay a premium price for lenses that are really of quite ordinary optical quality. What I have problems with is the fly-by-wire focus when the light levels are too low for using AF.

Both the 20mm f/1.7 and 25mm f/0.95 can be stopped down to f/16 (altough in practice I would rarely use more than f/9 in MFT due to the keeness to display dust bunnies at smaller apertures), both take filters I would expect tat the 25mm f/0.95 will have problems shooting into the sun just as the 20mm f/1.7 does - probably worse. I can always continue to use my 9-18mm lens which is very good for that.

Cheers

PeterB666

 

[chylld]

Well I have to agree with you about the manual focus control - fly-by-wire focus in my opinion is horribly implemented and makes it so unnatural to use. My Voigtlander's manual focus on the other hand is superb, because it provides a direct mechanical link to the focusing elements.

Regarding the 20/1.7's performance though, I haven't noticed any excessive flare shooting into the sun, at least compared to all the other glass I've used (including professional Nikon glass back in my SLR days.) As for distortion, well I've chosen the 20/1.7 as part of a whole system that gives me great distortion free pics. If correcting the distortion required a change to my workflow, then yes I would be annoyed, but as it stands I see no reason to disregard the lens for the subjects I usually shoot; let alone test charts.

(Mind you, some of my friends do take test charts on their holidays, but I'm not that type of photographer.)

 

[maxpiz]

It is a blurred line I think. Anything faster than f/1.2 was considered a "holy grail" in terms of lens speed, for cameras with 4/3-sized sensors and up. Before this announcement there were only 3 lenses in that category (see Lens speed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) the most famous of which being the US$10,000+ Noctilux f/0.95, so it is easy to see why prices are more at the "luxury" end of the scale.

Noktor tried to introduce their own cheap 50mm f/0.95 but failed miserably as it was optically just not up to par, especially wide open. This just proved how hard it was to make lenses this fast.

It all depends on the test results. If the CV 25/0.95 is sharp wide open, then it will be without peer even if Panasonic does introduce a f/1.2. However, if like the 50/1.1, it shows weaknesses wide open, then I think we will see a lot more people paying attention to the smaller, lighter AF options from Panasonic/Olympus.

I am perfectly agree!
This CV lens is wonderful, but I already have the 20mm 1.7 and I am very satisfied. If this CV will not be perfect lens wide open, I'll wait Panasonic 25mm 1.4.

 

[viztyger]

Awaiting Details on Panasonic MFT 25mm Lens

The Voigtlander 25/0.95 pretty much has to be good wide open. That's really its only advantage. Otherwise it's a much too heavy (410g) as well as not offering autofocus, exif support, automatic MF assist or face detection AE/AF. I do use manual focus, but there are also situations where I prefer relying on the autofocus. With the Voigtlander you don't have that choice. So I will definitely wait until there are more details on Panasonic's MFT 25mm lens before making a decision.

 

[Jerry_R]

as well as not offering [...] automatic MF assist

With G2, GH2 - you have it. You just touch any part of screen and it magnifies automatically.
Quick and easy for manual lenses.

So I will definitely wait until there are more details on Panasonic's MFT 25mm lens before making a decision.

Yeah, would be good to hear any confirmation from Panasonic. So far, we still speculate.

 

[Rider]

Is the Nokton available any where yet? What is the expected price?

 

[deirdre]

There's been a German seller who's listed a few on eBay for €899 which generally means (based on watching a lot of pricing of other kinds of products over the years) that it'll probably be close to $899 street price in the US.

 

[Rider]

As far as f-stops go, f0.95 on microthirds translates into around f1.9 on full frame 35mm, correct?

 

[Jerry_R]

I would wait for more offers for 749 EUR, like mentioned here:
43 Rumors | Home

Yes, the Voigtlander corresponds to 50mm f/2 at 35mm camera - in terms of DOF.
Light, exposure - it still remains f/0.95.

 

[Rider]

Which lens are you talking about here? Where did you find sample images for the VC 25/0.95?

OK wow. I have to honestly say that I am very disappointed by the image quality! I assumed the bokeh and sharpness would be optimised for the smaller image circle, but alas it is not.

....

And I thought I'd be the last one here to do a 180 degree u-turn....

 

[chylld]

Which lens are you talking about here? Where did you find sample images for the VC 25/0.95?

Talking about the VC 25/0.95. Image samples from vincechu's link in post #84: 43 Rumors | Home

 

[Jerry_R]

I wonder its sharpness and bokeh vs:
- 25mm 1.4 (43)
- 20mm 1.7 (u43)

 

[chylld]

I wonder its sharpness and bokeh vs:
- 25mm 1.4 (43)
- 20mm 1.7 (u43)

It is nowhere near as sharp as those lenses... the samples provided thus far are proof enough of that.

As for bokeh, the samples show the traditional Voigtlander "style" of having quite halo-like bokeh wide open, so unless that's your thing, it would only be able to compete when stopped down to ~f/1.7 like I have to do with my Voigtlander 50/1.1.

As Viztyger puts it, this lens has to be brilliant wide-open in order to earn its place, but unfortunately we've yet to see a sample that demonstrates that capability.

 

[Amin]

Chylld, I don't think that any particular style of bokeh can be described as a traditional Voigtlander style. Voigtlander bokeh varies by lens. For example, the CV 35mm f/1.4 was designed to mimic the look of the Leica pre-asph 35mm f/1.4 lux, and it does so very well. While it can have the ring bokeh you describe, so can the Leica it mimics.

In side by side comparisons, the CV 40/1.4 (generally regarded as having undesirable bokeh) has less of this ring-bokeh tendency at f2 than an Summicron-C 40 (generally regarded as having desirable bokeh) at the same aperture. CV lenses are much more likely to get slapped with a bad bokeh badge because people pay more for the Leica equivalents.

Meanwhile, a CV 35/1.2 doesn't at all have the type of bokeh you describe. So, while there may be something you see in common between your 50/1.1 and this new 25/0.95, I don't think it is something unique to Voigtlander or pervasive amongst Voigtlander lenses.

In most cases, superfast lenses have significant tradeoffs. The old 50 Noctilux could not match the same generation 50 Summicron with both lenses stopped down to f/4, and I would not expect the Voigtlander 25/0.95 to match the Panasonic 20/1.7 at f/4. One is a low light specialty lens, and the other is a general use lens.

I agree with Björn that this new lens has to be good wide open in order to be worthwhile, and I think the f/0.95 samples for this lens look good. Brilliant wide open is too much to ask at this speed and price point. There has never been a brilliant wide open f/1.0 or faster lens, at least not for under $9000.

 

[Rider]

Let's assume this lens delivers the goods optically. I still don't get the point. For a lot less money, I can slap a 50/1.8 on my DSLR and get the same shallow depth field. The DSLR will also have at least 2 stops more low light sensitivity (i.e. give similar noise performance at 2 stops higher ISO), so you're not gaining there either.

Someone please explain.