Joined the club today and so far I am delighted. Crazy sharp and contrasty, colors, sunstars and handling as allways in CV lenses perfect. It works with extention macro tubes, great against the light... Just delightful
Unfortunately, it fell out of my backpack during a mountain tour and now has to go to Japan for repairs. Apparently the Voigtlander lenses withstand less than these modern polycarbonate lenses from Sony and Canon. The Voigtlander fell only 20 cm deep and yet the sharpness was not the same after the fall ...
weirdo021 wrote:
Anyone tried both Batis 18 and this one? Currently using Batis 18 myself but is very tempted by this lens. Would you switch and why?
I had the Batis 18 twice, just couldn't get over the unnecessarily fat size, the lack of a AF/MF switch and the manual focus feel. The CV 21 has better sunstar, if that's your thing. The CV 21 has beautiful colors and rendering too. Weight could be something to consider too, the CV feel very dense and solid, which means heavy, but it's F1.4.
weirdo021 wrote:
Anyone tried both Batis 18 and this one? Currently using Batis 18 myself but is very tempted by this lens. Would you switch and why?
I own both and will be keeping both: apart from the obvious speed and focal length difference (aside: apparently the Voigt is closer to 22mm by the way), I find there is enough differences to justify having both.
Both lenses have high macro and micro contrast and are very sharp, so no difference there.
The Batis is better behaved when it comes to field curvature - being relatively flat field, whereas the Voigt has a more wavy W-shape - and requires more careful placement of the focal point, although overall, the Voigt has a much better manual focus experience of course.
I think the biggest difference between the two probably comes down to colour and overall rendering: the Batis has the classic, gorgeous, accurate Zeiss colours - rich and saturated but still neutral in colour balance, albiet with a slightly more modern look vs say the Loxia's; this makes it the best for scenes with greens and blues (no one does blues as well as Zeiss IMO). The Voigt colours have a warmer colour balance to them, which is great in certain scenes, but can 'contaminate' the blues a bit, and make greens a bit yellow vs the more accurate Zeiss.
The overall rendering of the Batis is classic Zeiss, although as I said above, with a slightly more modern look to it; the Voigt has quite a unique rendering (in a good way!) - I'm not articulate enough to exactly put my finger on it - you'll have to look at the sample images and decide for yourself, but personally, I love it; in fact I would say that for deep depth-of-field scenes (which don't often get talked about enough on this site), the rendering or overall image gestalt, is class-leading.
Petegh wrote:
I own both and will be keeping both: apart from the obvious speed and focal length difference (aside: apparently the Voigt is closer to 22mm by the way), I find there is enough differences to justify having both.
Both lenses have high macro and micro contrast and are very sharp, so no difference there.
The Batis is better behaved when it comes to field curvature - being relatively flat field, whereas the Voigt has a more wavy W-shape - and requires more careful placement of the focal point, although overall, the Voigt has a much better manual focus experience of course.
I think the biggest difference between the two probably comes down to colour and overall rendering: the Batis has the classic, gorgeous, accurate Zeiss colours - rich and saturated but still neutral in colour balance, albiet with a slightly more modern look vs say the Loxia's; this makes it the best for scenes with greens and blues (no one does blues as well as Zeiss IMO). The Voigt colours have a warmer colour balance to them, which is great in certain scenes, but can 'contaminate' the blues a bit, and make greens a bit yellow vs the more accurate Zeiss.
The overall rendering of the Batis is classic Zeiss, although as I said above, with a slightly more modern look to it; the Voigt has quite a unique rendering (in a good way!) - I'm not articulate enough to exactly put my finger on it - you'll have to look at the sample images and decide for yourself, but personally, I love it; in fact I would say that for deep depth-of-field scenes (which don't often get talked about enough on this site), the rendering or overall image gestalt, is class-leading. ...Show more →
This ^^^^^
I owned them both and agree 100%. Still have the Batis 18/2.8. Traded out the CV Nokton 21/1.4 for the smaller and lighter Loxia 21/2.8 since I almost never shoot the 21mm focal length wide open.
Jan 20, 2021 at 09:03 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
I owned them both and agree 100%. Still have the Batis 18/2.8. Traded out the CV Nokton 21/1.4 for the smaller and lighter Loxia 21/2.8 since I almost never shoot the 21mm focal length wide open.
I have had both lenses and generally agree as well. In the end, I swapped out both the Batis 18 and the Voigt 21 and I went with the Voigtlander 15 f/4.5 III and the Loxia 21 f/2.8 mostly because of their smaller size, but the Batis 18 and Voigt 21 are lovely lenses. I still have some shots with those lenses that are among my favorites. I posted a couple below.
Very nice answers to the differences between those wide-angle lenses.
I pretty much agree, especially with what Petegh wrote.
I also had the Batis 18mm and the Loxia 21mm too.
I sold the Batis because I found it unnecessarily bulky and because manual focusing was painful.
Manual focus is essential for me with wide-angle lenses. I find the autofocus on my A7 cameras to be unreliable, and wide-angle lenses are generally quite tricky to focus for perfect and as uniform sharpness as possible. I found the results with the Batis great, but very inconsistent for that reason and because of the poor implementation of the manual focus, it was not possible for me to simply test the perfect focus setting for every distance and to learn it by heart (e.g. turn the focus ring to the hard stop and put a hair tip back on many manual lenses) and apply that quickly in the field.
After using the Zeiss lenses for a long time, I decided to switch to the Voigtländer because my Nokton copy on my A7RIII is stopped down from about f4 onwards a bit sharper than the Batis and the Loxia were.
I also learned to love f1.4. I didn't miss it with the Zeiss lenses, but since I've had the Voigtlander, I don't know how I could live without it in the past. This is particularly helpful at sunset or in the blue hour in the mountains while climbing, skiing,...
Interestingly, the images with all three lenses are very different. OOC I like the Zeiss colors even more, because maybe they are more saturated/contrastier and especially with the Batis these great blue tones ... But when I edit the pictures in Lightroom, it is usually easier for me with the Voigtlander lenses and in the end I like the result a bit more. But that is certainly very subjective.
All three lenses can produce great, very three-dimensional images. From my point of view, the two Zeiss lenses stopped down a little more than the Nokton. On the other hand, I sometimes find the clarity of the nocton's images even higher.
Thanks for all the replies regarding the differences.
I have som of my favorite photos taken with Batis 18 and have the 25, 40 and 85 as well. Tempted though by the VM for the 1.4..
Fred Miranda wrote:
I went through some changes in my kit as well. We are really lacking superb 28mm and 35mm MF E-mount lenses. (Voigtlander or Zeiss).
Strictly for landscapes though, I'm currently shooting CV 15/4.5 III, CV 21/1.4, Loxia 35/2, CV 65/2 and 100-400 GM. I find these 5 lenses do everything I need for any scene.
As far as resolution, my weakest lenses are the CV 15 and Loxia 35 but both have great qualities I appreciate like color rendering, sunstar rendering, flare resistance and low distortion.
I am very happy with my AF kit as well and it's similar to yours: 24/1.4, 50/1.4 ZA, 85/1.4 and 135/1.8 GM lenses. I recently added the Sigma 45/2.8 as a compact and light walk-around lens for the daytime. For low light and when only carrying one small/fast lens, I love the CV 40/1.2 Nokton....Show more →
Fred, this was back in 2019, whats is todays present lineup looking like using MF lenses
