Voigtlander lenses on D700

[john dobson]

<p>Now that Leica have announced that there won't be an R10 (My current system is a Leica R8 with a digital back), I'm about to purchase a D700 to get full-frame capability with wide angle lenses. It will be my first Nikon DSLR - alyhough I've previously had Nikon-based Fuji S1 and S3 cameras.<br>

I'll probably buy the 24-70 f2.8 G ED AF-S as my main lens for the D700, but will also need a wider lens for interior work. I'm not totally sold on autofocus for critical work indoors, so am considering buying a Voigtlander 20/3.5 Color Skopar SL II Aspherical in the Nikon AI-s Bayonet mount with CPU, for use in focus-confirmation mode.<br>

Does anyone out there have any experience with this lens? The very similar Voigtlander 40/2 Ultron SL II Aspherical 'pancake' has had a good report as a 'walk around' lens from Reid Reviews.<br>

John Dobson</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>The 20/3.5 image edges on FX have some softness and internal flare at wide apertures (f/3.5-f/5.6). Center is fine. By f/8 the whole image is excellent. Very good resistance to flare and ghosting it seems. Extremely compact, has a very good manual focus feel.</p>

[tobey_bilek]

<p>Leitax lens mounts to put your leica lens on Nikon. Home swap.</p>

<p>The Nikon AiS and converted Ai primes work great on a D700. My 18 3.5 24 2.8 2.8 2.8 35 2.0 all go a little soft in the very corners until 8 or 11. Any Nikon 50, 85 105 135 200, 180 are very nice without limitations as long as it is Ai. The CV is the same in the corners from the review I read. The wides all have barrel distortion as does the CV. I have also used a 14 2.8 and 20 2.8 They are all about the same</p>

<p>All Nikon AF lenses can be manually focused without a problem. But why use a plastic AF lens when an older tough as nails MF will do the job at 1/4 the price or less?<br>

If you have a ton of cash and a strong back, the 14/24 zoom is your wide lens.</p>

<p>Spend $119 for NX2 at Cameta Camera and you will love what it does to Nikon files. I have not used my CS3 for some time.</p>

<p> </p>

[mark liddell]

<p>Voigtlander lenses seem very overpriced to me. Don't discount the zeiss 21mm.</p>

[tommyinca]

<p>Voigtlander lenses overpriced? I think if the same 20/3.5 carry an Nikkor label, would cost 50% if not more. Also Don't worry, you won't find any discount with the new 21mm Zeiss. That part is easy.</p>

[breogan_gomez]

<blockquote><p>so am considering buying a Voigtlander 20/3.5 Color Skopar SL II

Aspherical in the Nikon AI-s Bayonet mount with CPU, for use in

focus-confirmation mode.</p></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Focus confimation doesn't depend on CPU, is perfomed on every lens that is mounted on the camera, manual, AF or AF-S, the only limitation is that lens maximun aperture should be f/5.6 (not very limiting). What offers you CPU is metering... AI and AIS lenses uses a phisical link with the camera body to tell in which aperture you have set the dial. The photometer is biased accordenly... With CPU lenses this is not needed anymore as the lens tells the body basic paramenters about the lens and you select the aperture on the body only. Cheaper Nikon bodies doesn't have this sistem so they can ot meter with manual lens. However, with the D1/D2/D3 and D200/300/700 you can use manual lenses in the old way. </p><p><br></p>

[john dobson]

<p>Thanks guys! Some very useful info there.<br>

I'm interested in the Voigtlander lens because I've had excellent results using their screw-mount lenses (especially the 28/f3.5) with a bayonet adapter on a Leica M8, and the 20/3.5 AIS costs much less than a high quality wide angle zoom. I won't use it very often, so can't justify too much outlay. However, I do want the CPU because I don't want to muck around with stop-down metering (I had my fill of that with cheap lenses on SLRs back in the 1960s). The lack of auto-focus suits me fine - I'm happy with focus confirmation, and much prefer to choose my own focus points. I have CS4 and Lightroom 2 so dealing with vignetting and barrel distortion is no problem. </p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>You don't need to use stop-down metering on non-CPU lenses either as long as it is a Nikon mount Ai compatible lens.</p>

[bill_pearce1]

<p>My 17-35/2.8 is the lens I use most on my D3 and D700. I like it a lot.<br>

Bill Pearce</p>

[bsd230]

<p>The 17-35 is a good lens. I own the D700 and would love to have that lens. I use a Sigma 24-60 right now and am torn between the 17-35 and the 24-70.</p>

[samoksner]

<p>Why don't you mount you R glass onto the D700? Leica R glass is superb, that was the only reason to even own outdated, overly expensive R bodies. Make good use of them on whatever body you want. And if you aren't satisfied, you can check out whatever lens you like. <br>

The CV (cosina voigtlander ) 58mm f1.4, 40mm f2 both have a great reputation. Their screw mount and m mount glass is also well regarded. I expect the 20mm to perform just fine. <br>

Your D700 has a menu option where you tell the camera which focal length and aperture the lens mounted is and it meters in full matrix TTL in M and A mode. So even if you grab a 35 year old Nikkor, it will meter perfectly, no stop down metering required. <br>

If you decied to adapt your Leica R glass to F mount ( i would buy R glass just to use it on a D700 is i had the money) which i recoment, you would have to stop down meter since their is no aperture coupling between the modified lens and the camera. Wouldn't you stop down meter for your beloved R glass?<br>

<a href="http://www.leitax.com/leica-lens-for-nikon-cameras.html">http://www.leitax.com/leica-lens-for-nikon-cameras.html</a></p>

[dbcooper]

<p>Thursday, I got a D700 and a 24-70 f/2.8. Yesterday, I added the 20mm Nikkor f/2.8 AF. Needless to say, I was up late looking things over in Lightroom. In practical terms, I see absolutely no advantage to shooting the Voigtlander lens over the 20mm f/2.8 AF Nikkor, although saying 'Color Skopar' does have a bit of a ring to it. To me, it's like putting bias-ply tires on a Porsche 997...it negates a lot of the performance advantages.</p>

<p>The D700 has a light-falloff correction feature for jpg, so falloff/lens vignetting is a non-issue shooting wide-open with the Nikkor. Don't know it it'll work with the Voigtlander. If you shoot RAW, LR or PS will correct any falloff/vignetting...a total non-issue.</p>

<p>Not sure what you meant by "critical work indoors", but the Nikkor has a MF ring for manual focus override that works great and instantly - just grab it and turn, and it has 62mm vs 52mm filter threads (speaking of vignetting...). If speed is essential, MF can cost the 'decisive moment'. Stopped down a little, the AF Nikkor is very sharp. Considering the high-ISO performance of the D700, it's a total winner. With the D700's AF options and sensor array, the AF Nikkor just makes sense.</p>

<p>For distortion correction, PT Lens supports both the D700 and the 20mm Nikkor (DxO supports the D700, but not the 20mm Nikkor). No software I'm aware of will process the Voigtlander for distortion correction with any camera, but I could be all wet on that.</p>

<p>"I think if the same 20/3.5 carry an Nikkor label, would cost 50% if not more."<br>

The reality is the Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AF is less than $20 more than the MF Voigtlander at B&H, and it's widely available (BTW, the Voigtlander lens is 'special-order only' there, and not stocked).</p>

<p> </p>

[john dobson]

<p>

<p >Thanks again - lots of useful comment. I'll certainly look into getting a Nikon Ai 20mm instead of the Voigtlander, although reviews of the various Nikon 20mm lenses seem rather mixed, and the Voigtlander 20mm appears to be only about half the price of the manual Nikon 20mm (~£400 vs ~£800) in UK, if bought new. Vignetting and field curvature won't be too much of a problem as I'll be shooting RAW and processing the images in Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4. Correction of barrel or pincushion distortion is easy in CS4. The sequence is: Filter - Distort - Lens Correction, and the controls are self-explanatory. You can also correct or introduce vignetting at this site, and correct converging verticals. However, the software takes some time to load with a big file on my machine (a MAC G5 with only 1GB RAM), so is best done early in any PhotoShop treatment, before other corrections inflate the file size.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I'd love to be able to use my Leica 21-35 and 28-90 zooms on the D700 with a Leitax mount, but the Leitax site says they won't work - both lenses have rear elements that project too far into the camera body and they would hit the mirror. I don’t have any Leica wide angle primes - only 50 and 90 non-ROM Summicrons and an old 100/f4 Macro-Elmar (all three bought very cheaply secondhand). All of these could be converted with Leitax adapters if I felt the need. I also have an Angenieux 70-200/f3.5 zoom in R-mount which might possibly convert - I’ll have to look at the distribution of the mount retaining screws. It’s very sharp at full aperture, so stop-down metering could be avoided when speed in working is necessary.</p>

</p>

[photo5]

<p>When I had the D700, the Tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4 SP zoom was the lens I most used on it. Sharp and contrasty and a real low cost used lens. Only fault it has is some vignetting at 17mm. But small and lightweight and well built.</p>

[oskar_ojala]

<p>You can see some select sample pics in this thread http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00TAyN<br>

Don't get too excited about digital corrections; they often eat time and subtly degrade performance. Better get the pciture right in the camera if you care about these things, just saying.<br>

Since you're settled on manual focus, my view is pretty clear:<br>

Zeiss 21/2.8 if you can afford it and want the best<br>

CV 20/3.5 if you can't afford the Zeiss or want a very compact lens (I got mine from Germany for about 410 euros, which I think is pretty good).<br>

Second hand Nikkor 20 if you get a good deal on it and save significantly compared to the CV or for some reason want a Nikkor.<br>

Forget about buying a brand new Nikkor 20, they are not good deals considering their performance. Nikon has put their wide angle expertise into the 14-24/2.8 zoom and the primes are old and not really that good on modern DSLRs.</p>

[john dobson]

<p>Thanks Oskar!<br>

The <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00TAyN">http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00TAyN</a> thread answers all of my questions - I'll almost certainly get the Voigtlander 20 as well as the Nikon 2.8G ED AF-S 24-70 as my initial kit for the D700. <br>

Having now read the Reid Reviews reports on the D700 and the Voigtlander 40mm and 58mm lenses I'll almost certainly be looking at those as well in due course. As I mentioned in my initial post, I'm quite a fan of the Cosina/Voigtlander lenses in their Leica screw thread form - I have 10 of them in various focal lengths and they are all good. I'm not surprised that their AIS lenses are getting good reviews.</p>

[wildflower art]

<p>Dear John,<br>

I am in the seemingly unique position of having this lens, which I should say is probably rare, given its distribution chanels.<br>

The lens, I think is not quite as good as the Nikon 20 3.5 AiS, which will work on a Nikon D700 with most functionality.<br>

The biggest advantage for me of the Voight, is the close focus to .2m, and the CPU for the camera I use, a Kodak DCS pro/n which does not have the D700 backward compatablity.<br>

In direct comparisons, literally, I thought the Nikon glass was better, particularly with regard to color, but wides in my opinion are poor in color on digital because of the fact that the colors are so condensed and spread out at once.<br>

Also, the Voight doesn't work with the K1, I think, without you worried you'll destroy your lens.<br>

I think this lens is probably great for the near-far work I do wide open or with the requisite polarizer and deutral density filters wide angle work requires, but for total wideangle close-ups the picture quality suffers despite the unprecidented .2m close focus which I think is why this wide-angle is a classic.<br>

Don't under estimate a close-focus distance where there's no equal and the value of a CPU, but also enjoy the quality of Nikon AiS if you dare to compare.<br>

Please relate!!<br>

Matt</p>

[john dobson]

<p>Thanks Matt<br>

I've already bought the Voigtlander 20mm, so the discussion is now rather academic. I haven't had a chance to use it yet as I'm still waiting for the camera store (Cambrian Photography in Colwyn Bay) to tell me that my D700 has arrived - they had sold out when I phoned them last week and are awaiting a new delivery from Nikon UK.<br>

You have me baffled with your comment that the lens 'doesn't work with the K1' - What is a K1 (apart from the pioneer Garratt steam locomotive now on the Welsh Highland Railway)?<br>

I'll be using the 20mm mainly for interior work in the Ffestiniog Railway workshops at Boston Lodge, where the lighting is mixed* to put it mildly, so the finer points of colour balance are probably irrelevant.<br>

*fluorescent plus mercury arc plus tungsten, and some stray daylight... Surprisingly, I find that Lightroom does a fair job of finding a balance.</p>

[wildflower art]

<p>Dear John,<br>

The Nikon K1 is a 5.5 mm extension tube, that, when mixed with wideangles, specifically the Nikon 20 3.5 AiS yields a stunning perspective of great magnification and sharpness and "depth" or wide perspective.<br>

See <a href="http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html">http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html</a> for more reviews about, this lens in particular, and others.<br>

The K1 extension "ring" probably doesn't work with the Voight because of its CPU.<br>

Also, if the D700 is your first digital camera, you should be aware that it has auto white balance which could be good for your mixed lighting. But mixing lighting with flash could be brutal.<br>

Good luck!<br>

Matt</p>

[rahul_gaur]

<p>Dear Matthew<br>

just bumped into this thread (and photo.net after 4-5 years!)<br>

do you think some sort of filing the K1 can eliminate the problem of the contacts not allowing the fit with K1. I would like to buy the Skopar 20mm and a 24mm f2.8 (Sigma MF or Nikon AF) for use with K1 and will be better to clear my doubts before getting the lenses.<br>

regards<br>

Rahul</p>

[kivis]

<p>I have the CV 20mm, 40mm, 58mm. I would get the new 90mm if the Nikkor weren't so damn good. They all work great on my FM3a and my D70s. Remember the CV's are chipped ready to go on digital.</p>