Luvwine wrote:
It was a nice day playing with my Voigtlander. Pretty much the end of a weekend. I suspect you guys are getting tired of seeing examples posted by me. Unless I can find something to take pics of tomorrow, probably won't have many more for a while. Let's drink to that eh? Candle light mainly, F2:
I just did a quick comparison: FE 55/1.8 ZA vs CV 65/2 APO.
Keep in mind that it was cloudy and low contrast outside so the 55/1.8 won't show as much LoCA as it would in high contrast situations...
I didn't change shooting distance between lenses because they produce almost identical amount of blur when the 55mm images are cropped in post to match the 65mm images when both are shot wide open.
65/55=1.18x crop
(f/1.8 x 1.18 = f/2.1)...Therefore, 55/1.8 is pretty much equivalent to 65/2...when I crop the 55mm to match the 65mm in post.
For each set of 3 images, l'll show the full image thumbs side by side, followed by the area of focus (1:1) and at last the background rendering at 1:2 magnification.
Note: **No changes in any Lightroom setting upon importing the RAWs. Same sharpening settings for BOTH lenses.
Daylight White balance for both, IBIS turn off. (Best of 3, manually focused for each set of images)
Well if no one else says it than I will. Time to sell the 55
VC has nicer Bokeh in my mind , has nice contrast and separation. Much more 3D look and images just have more presence. Given we know the VC has no CA and the 55 does in brighter light. I would want the 65 myself and I'm buying it anyway.
Wow! The contrast on the Apo Lanthar is impressive! And the sharpness. And the bokeh seems to be in no ways worse and often a bit better (though maybe the slight AOV difference is visible there.
And of course the colour correction. Though there was a touch more green fringing on OOF elements than I expected on the CV (I expected pretty much none, we got very little indeed.
I've just rung my local CV importer. He has stock.
Unless I control myself I'll be there late morning tomorrow to pick one up.
And to make matters worse, I can't persuade myself to sell any of the things that it would make sense to sell:
Loxia 2/50:: surely I need that for hiking-landscape (not going to take the CV)
FE 1.8/55:: Autofocus and eye-AF is really handy for a certain kind of work, and it's a travel favourite...
C-Sonnar 1.5/50: enough said.
ZM 4/85:: my hiking tele.
FE 2.8/50 macro (also justified by hiking if macro is needed: comes with me instead of Loxia)
And of course the vintage glass, but none of it is valuable enough to get enough $$ to be worth the effort, and anyway I use it form time to time (Biotar 2/58, Helios 44-2, Zuiko 1.2/50,)
I guess I could be persuaded to sell Zuiko 3.5/50 macro, but that won't offset much....
I've just rung my local CV importer. He has stock.
Unless I control myself I'll be there late morning tomorrow to pick one up.
And to make matters worse, I can't persuade myself to sell any of the things that it would make sense to sell:
Loxia 2/50:: surely I need that for hiking-landscape (not going to take the CV)
FE 1.8/55:: Autofocus and eye-AF is really handy for a certain kind of work, and it's a travel favourite...
C-Sonnar 1.5/50: enough said.
ZM 4/85:: my hiking tele.
FE 2.8/50 macro (also justified by hiking if macro is needed: comes with me instead of Loxia)
And of course the vintage glass, but none of it is valuable enough to get enough $$ to be worth the effort, and anyway I use it form time to time (Biotar 2/58, Helios 44-2, Zuiko 1.2/50,)
I guess I could be persuaded to sell Zuiko 3.5/50 macro, but that won't offset much....
Anyone talk me into getting rid of any of this?...Show more →
You will be fine David. It will be your first and only 65mm lens!
If you want to be bold and make a statement, forget about weight and AF and sell them all for it.
I'm actually helping you but not the way you would want it!
I sold my Loxia 50/2 and ZM 85/4 for it.
I'm still keeping my 55/1.8 ZA (Because it's AF, a super copy, light/small with great IQ and smooth bokeh) and 50/1.4 ZA (step above the 55/1.8ZA , pretty much APO, f/1.4 and IMO, the best Sony ZA produced so far)
My focus is on the 135mm range and I just got the Batis! I got spoiled and can't stand LoCA anymore.
F1.8 is a 'reserve' aperture on the FE55, a sop to lens speed fans, it's far stronger one stop down and peaks early - see PZ test. You can expect an APO 'macro' lens of 65mm to be a little stronger in any case wide open. These are wide open, Fred? Wording was not quite clear to me. Would be good to see f2.2 and f2.8 results. But two very sound lenses, however only one has AF and scales at 280g not 625g. CV is 10/8 compared with 7/5, FE uses asph heavily, like many Sony lenses. Different use cases too, only one can be a great street shooter, fast and manoeuvrable. And the Loxia 85mm and Batis 135mm are lighter/same as the CV.
Sony might look at a Leica approach for 'v2' of the 55mm - more high end glass and one (one) asph element, same as the CV and most top tier new lenses these days. But the guys most likely are Zeiss, agree for a Batis 55/2.
You caved in on the Batis 135. Your going to love it
Fred Miranda wrote:
I sold my Loxia 50/2 and ZM 85/4 for it.
I'm still keeping my 55/1.8 ZA (Because it's AF, a super copy, light/small with great IQ and smooth bokeh) and 50/1.4 ZA (step above the 55/1.8ZA , pretty much APO, f/1.4 and IMO, the best Sony ZA produced so far)
My focus is on the 135mm range and I just got the Batis! I got spoiled and can't stand LoCA anymore.
Fred Miranda wrote:
You will be fine David. It will be your first and only 65mm lens!
If you want to be bold and make a statement, forget about weight and AF and sell them all for it.
I'm actually helping you but not the way you would want it!
Wrong argument, David owns the Canon MP-E 65
But it doesn't share a focal range with the CV which would be a oerfect compagnion.
philip_pj wrote:
F1.8 is a 'reserve' aperture on the FE55, a sop to lens speed fans, it's far stronger one stop down and peaks early - see PZ test. You can expect an APO 'macro' lens of 65mm to be a little stronger in any case wide open. These are wide open, Fred? Wording was not quite clear to me. Would be good to see f2.2 and f2.8 results. But two very sound lenses, however only one has AF and scales at 280g not 625g. CV is 10/8 compared with 7/5, FE uses asph heavily, like many Sony lenses. Different use cases too, only one can be a great street shooter, fast and manoeuvrable. And the Loxia 85mm and Batis 135mm are lighter/same as the CV.
Sony might look at a Leica approach for 'v2' of the 55mm - more high end glass and one (one) asph element, same as the CV and most top tier new lenses these days. But the guys most likely are Zeiss, agree for a Batis 55/2. ...Show more →
Yes, both wide open (f/1.8 and f/2). Because their maximum aperture difference, they should have pretty much identical 'blur' when the 55mm is cropped to 65mm. (I posted the calculation on my previous post)
I agree that the 55/1.8 is stronger at f/2.8, so you wonder which lens improves more...Right? I am not sure but the CV will also look better at f/3.2. (equiv. to f/2.8 when the 55mm is cropped to 65mm)
In my opinion, a worthy native competitor would be the 50/1.4 ZA. I'm not putting the 55/1.8 ZA down as its one of my favorite travel lenses but these lenses (50/1.4 and CV 65/2) are a step above regarding IQ.
GMPhotography wrote:
You would have thought it would be closer given the 55 reputation. I love it when the game just keeps getting better
I confess that I'm surprised the 55/1.8 ZA's OOF rendering was not much smoother in comparison. That says great things in favor of the CV 65 which looks just as good, perhaps with slight higher contrast. You won't see fringing or bright ring outlines on the CV images either.
To my eyes, the CV 65/2 samples have more presence because of the higher global and micro-contrast wide open. Focusing is so easy with the CV because the focusing ring feedback is so precise, it's very easy to nail focus at first try.
Manual focusing the 55/1.8 is doable but frustrating. I need at least 3 tries (best of 3) to make sure I have the sharpest image possible. Of course I could try AF but it would not be as accurate as the CV's manual focus. I consider the 55/1.8 ZA an 'AF only' lens and it's awesome in this regard.
I took these samples after sunset and contrast was very low. LoCA is still very noticeable on the 55/1.8 crops. The CV crops are not 100% aberration free but I would consider it one of the best corrected lens out there.
I remember testing the 55/1.8 ZA vs 50/1.4 ZA and the former had much smoother OOF rendering which didn't happen against the CV.
It was also almost just as sharp as the 50/1.4 ZA. (both wide open). From that, I suspect the CV 65/2 will have smoother bokeh and will be sharper at f/2 compared to the 50/1.4 wide open, which is expected. I will compare them tomorrow if the weather permits.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I sold my Loxia 50/2 and ZM 85/4 for it.
I'm still keeping my 55/1.8 ZA (Because it's AF, a super copy, light/small with great IQ and smooth bokeh) and 50/1.4 ZA (step above the 55/1.8ZA , pretty much APO, f/1.4 and IMO, the best Sony ZA produced so far)
My focus is on the 135mm range and I just got the Batis! I got spoiled and can't stand LoCA anymore.
I'm sure you'll love the B135! Optically it's impeccable.
The only question is whether "make it f2.8 for compactness, while making it optically no-compromise so it's not that compact" formula is what you want. I think it's right for me; but I can easily imagine someone thinking it'd be better either to be bigger and f2, or smaller and not as good in the outer field wide open.
