Voigtländer APO-LANTHAR 50mm F2.0 Aspherical for Nikon Z.

[mike_halliwell]

Anyone got it?

Is the IQ as epic as it's reported to be?

FX edges are important for me and this lens seems to have pretty much the best there are.

Full manual doesn't bother me! Mirrorless is a whole new lease of life for such lenses.

[Dieter Schaefer]

I have that lens - though not in Z-mount but in E-mount for my Sony A7RIII. I didn't have much luck with Nikon's 50mm offerings and had settled for the behemoth Sigma 50/1.4 Art - until the Apo-Lanthar appeared on the scene. I like the absence of chromatic aberrations but haven't really paid attention to edge sharpness. Looking at the lenstip review results, there should be little to complain about: https://www.lenstip.com/613.4-Lens_review-Voigtlander_Apo_Lanthar_50_mm_f_2_Aspherical_Image_resolution.html

These images were taken with that lens:

Manual focus doesn't bother me either. And I sure like that the lens isn't as large and heavy as the Sigma 50/1.4 Art. The fact that it is "only" f/2 isn't a deal breaker either. And it costs only 1/20 of the Leica Apo-Summicron 50 ASPH - while not giving up anything in terms of performance.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Dieter Schaefer

[mike_halliwell]

Thank You Dieter!

I've been thinking about a 'perfect' set up for shooting some printed textiles ~ 3 x 2m mounted on hard board.

Edge sharpness is very important. Handily, the Lanthar seems to be very flat field too.

The only interest i have in the Zf is Pixel Shift to 96MPix.

I guess the Z6/7 MK III will have it, along with the Z10 or maybe a Z8/9 firmware....?

 

[rodeo_joe1]

A bit late to the party here, but I've just got around to properly testing my (far too extensive) collection of enlarging lenses as copying/macro lenses. I tested them adapted to my 60 Mp Sony a7r4, however I assume that L39 adapters are also readily available in Z-mount. 

Top of the tree came the 50mm f/2.8 El-Nikkor N, with a very flat field and good corner sharpness from wide open; increasing to excellent extreme corner sharpness by f/5.6. No discernible lateral CA either, but with just a tad of barrel distortion. Apart from the distortion it gave better results in terms of edge/corner definition than my 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor. 

Close also-rans were a Minolta CE and Durst Neonon (made in Japan version). The Minolta CE showed a slightly 'wavy' field curvature and the Neonon had a little lateral CA. Both had near zero distortion though. 

My Apo-Rodagon was extremely disappointing, showing distinct field curvature and LoCa! 

Lesser runners up were: Hoya Super El, Componon-S, Komuranon-S, and an old Leitz Focotar. 

All tests done at 1:8 RR, which should be about in the middle of their stated optimum ratio, mounted un-reversed.

Anyhow. I guess what I'm suggesting is that an El-Nikkor, used at f/5.6 could well be equal to the expensive Apo-Lanthar as a flat copying lens, at a tiny fraction of the cost. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by rodeo_joe1

[mike_halliwell]

Thank You RJ, most interesting. 

50 minutes ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

All tests done at 1:8 RR

What sort of area does that translate to?  ~ 10x8"/A4?

I guess it might not have the same quality of lens coatings if used outside?  Sorry, not trying to move the goalposts.... 😉

[rodeo_joe1]

My test chart just squeezes onto a sheet of A4 hi-res printing paper at (36x8) = 288 mm wide by 192 mm high.

Unfortunately my inkjet struggles to print more than a 3 lines/mm element clearly, so it can't test the lens resolution to anything like its limit at an 8x reduction. But even 24 lppmm at the image plane is enough to give a good impression of how sharp the lens is, and things like CA, poor contrast and astigmatism show up quite plainly.

FWIW, I've used the Sony's pixel shift on the same chart at a 1:50 RR, giving a maximum 150 lppmm image-plane resolution, and it turns out that most 'bog standard' 50mm standard lenses can easily resolve that at f/5.6 to f/8, even in the extreme corners. The visual IQ is much more affected by contrast, coma, distortion, CA and general 'smearing' effects than by pure resolution though. 

WRT coatings. A lot of my enlarging lenses have the old single, blue or amber coatings, but the El-Nikkor N has Nikon's green tinted multi-coating. So it should be fairly flare resistant.

Edited November 17, 2023 by rodeo_joe1