Reader Comment: Lenses Quality Control
Related: apochromatic, Jost A, Leica, Leica M, quality control, reader comment, Voigtlander, Voigtlander Lenses, Voigtlander M, Voigtlander M APO-Lanthar 35mm f/2 Aspherical, Voigtlander M APO-Lanthar 50mm f/2 Aspherical
re: monochrome
re: Voigtlander VM 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar
All brands these days have serious sample variability quality control issues.
Companies design fantastic optical performance, but then cannot build real lenses that deliver that performance more than 10% maybe 20% of the time eg 1 or 2 samples in 10. Which makes the computed not measured MTF charts they deliver a farce—aspirational idea of the marketing team, fantasy MTF.
To my knowledge, all major companies but Zeiss publish fantasy MTF charts that are computed from lens designs and (usually) also ignore diffraction. They never touch a real lens for the purpose of determining MTF—it goes beyond farce and edges into fraud IMO.
Exception: Zeiss measures real built lenses with white light on the K8 MTF tester(I’ve been there and seen how its done). Which is not to say that Zeiss is free of issues with with build quality, not at all, excepting the Otus line which must meet a baseline MTF guaranteed.
Jost A writes:
I had bought the Voigtlander M 2/50mm APO as soon as it was available, but it showed severe lens skew, so I returned it. My Voigtlander M 2/35mm is a far better copy, almost perfect!
Unfortunately, the manufacturing tolerances for reaching a good level of resolution across the whole, flat field are extremely small, due to the high pixel densities of modern sensors.
Even Leica has to accept limitations in that regard. The centering of my first Leica M 50/2 APO wasn’t perfect, so I returned it and now have a perfect copy, which was clearly better than the bad copy of the Voigtlander M 2/50mm APO.
I also own the Voigtlander 2/50mm APO with E-mount: It is one of the best lenses I have ever used and owned, working with it is a real joy! Pixel shift and motion correction also works with my Sony A1, and that was one more reason why I sold my whole Fujifilm GFX100S equipment. The Fujifilm GF lenses caused so many headaches!
DIGLLOYD: I have an excellent copy of the Sony FE 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar, but at the time I tested it I had two samples and the one I kept was clearly superior, the other being pretty good but noticeably less good at f/2. I also have a superb sample of the Sony FE 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar.
I too experienced problem samples of the Leica 50/2 APO, and owned one for some years, hand-picked for me by Leica which itself was a replacement for the dumpster fire original design... but the replacement had its own issue, being optically swung! The Leica 50/2 APO is IMO not in the same league as the CV50/2 APO, not in any of the samples I’ve tried or seen. See my coverage of the Leica 50/APO on the Leica M10-R—marginal results, not even in the same class as the CV50/2 APO, not even close.
Presently, with the Voigtlander VM 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar, its left edge is a dumpster fire of unsharpness, even as the right 2/3 of the frame is stunningly good. A good sample will have no peers. The Voigtlander VM 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar I am testing is acceptable at f/2 and f/2.8 but comes on strong at f/4—not as good as the Sony FE 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar that I own, but easily the match of the Zeiss ZM 35mm f/1.4 Distagon. And with Voigtlander you are spending 1/8 as much, so worst case you can buy several samples and keep the best one.
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$949 SAVE $200 = 17.0% Voigtlander 35mm f/2 APO-LANTHAR .0 Aspherical IN STOCK in Lenses: Rangefinder
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LEICA M11 Monochrom + Voigtlander M APO-Lanthar 50mm f/2 Aspherical
RAW: +10 Whites, +10 Clarity, USM {10,50,0}
[low-res image for bot]
