cxpics wrote:
I've been shooting both the nokton and the thypoch this year(both e-mount), here are some random snaps this year from both lenses, can anyone tell which were shot on which lens? I wouldn't worry too much about IQ from either lens. The exif data and smaller size of the nokton are tough to beat even if I might prefer the very slightly smoother draw of the thypoch a bit.
Great shots!
My guess is 1,2,7, and 8 were taken with the Thypoch.
I think it's interesting, both lenses in my opinion can look rough given the distances to the subject and the background. Sometimes both lenses can produces images I really dont like as a result. On average though I'd say the thypoch is smoother, I like the warmer colors, and I've had a few more images that wowed me from it - but I also think in all those situations the Nokton would've been great too had it been on my camera instead. I think fast 28's wow when you hit that subject and background distance just right.
With the price of $360 new, selling the thypoch seems silly as I do prefer the IQ slightly. But the size, build and the exif data from the nokton are much preferable to me. The difference in IQ when casually looking through my shots from both lenses seems rather trivial, and as a result I may list both on my local FB marketplace and sell whichever lens gets sold first. I might still be looking for a keeper small lens in this focal length, I mostly want my 24gm in a small MF lens.
All were shot on the A7CR (e-shutter), often using an old cobalt flat ektachrome profile or the lightroom's sony camera FL profile - which has great colors but if you have a lot of sky or water in the image the teal blues can overwhelm.
Well, they are all very different compositions, and you over-exposed all but 1-2 of them and they have had what looks like some post-work, and then profiles on top of that. It all degrades the value of the 'comparison'. The Simeras are not designed to be used with 'profiles', that's why CA and distortion are very low.
In this state of instilled confusion, to make an informed assessment, people need to be aware and very familiar with both lenses. It ends up being a dog's dinner, with confounding elements everywhere.
If you ever want to do it right for yourself, try to normalise as many of these issues as possible - only then will you be able to declare which lens does it well. Leave it all to the lens, and expose well, use a model that is good at being still for the session. No optics will survive photographic abuse! Grab bags don't work, unfortunately. You are not really interested in them, either. Still, thanks.
Yikes dude. This was just me sharing a few images from both lenses that I've taken this year. My only point was both lenses can make fine images. I'm not particularly interested in conducting scientific lens tests. I just shoot and decide if I like the images and the feel of the lens. Sorry I've offended your elitist sensibilities.
And since you have such a keen interest in optics, where are your detailed scientific comparison shots that support such verbose mythical optical descriptions of all the lenses you continue to ramble on about endlessly? I only saw one post once where you where claimed something was so much better on a thypoch after posting 3 images from different scenes of stair railing with different focal lengths.
philip_pj wrote:
Well, they are all very different compositions, and you over-exposed all but 1-2 of them and they have had what looks like some post-work, and then profiles on top of that. It all degrades the value of the 'comparison'. The Simeras are not designed to be used with 'profiles', that's why CA and distortion are very low.
In this state of instilled confusion, to make an informed assessment, people need to be aware and very familiar with both lenses. It ends up being a dog's dinner, with confounding elements everywhere.
If you ever want to do it right for yourself, try to normalise as many of these issues as possible - only then will you be able to declare which lens does it well. Leave it all to the lens, and expose well, use a model that is good at being still for the session. No optics will survive photographic abuse! Grab bags don't work, unfortunately. You are not really interested in them, either. Still, thanks. ...Show more →
Don't be put off. You're cool. People look at this kind of thing to learn about the lenses. It's not Flickr, it's a gear forum, and lenses are the big thing, as all cameras are so good nowadays. I'm dispensing advice if you ever want to do it this right. And that is very enjoyable by the way, because you get to learn what is going on, as it shows itself in images! It is 'image analysis', both useful and insightful. See, I read the cine sites and see how they go about it. It's 1-2 tiers up dealing with the actual imagery.
The best way is to work from images, the scientific material is about how a lens gets there, rather dry and often distant from the character of them, their signature, if you will. To see things well, we have to remove other possible explanations, and use a well realised image or set to tease out the essence of each lens.
I used the railing fade images to illustrate that different lenses exhbit quite different rates of focus fade. That was all. I mean, if someone else did that, I'd say 'right, well that looks like something to know about'. cheers.
philip_pj wrote:
Well, they are all very different compositions, and you over-exposed all but 1-2 of them and they have had what looks like some post-work, and then profiles on top of that. It all degrades the value of the 'comparison'. The Simeras are not designed to be used with 'profiles', that's why CA and distortion are very low.
In this state of instilled confusion, to make an informed assessment, people need to be aware and very familiar with both lenses. It ends up being a dog's dinner, with confounding elements everywhere.
If you ever want to do it right for yourself, try to normalise as many of these issues as possible - only then will you be able to declare which lens does it well. Leave it all to the lens, and expose well, use a model that is good at being still for the session. No optics will survive photographic abuse! Grab bags don't work, unfortunately. You are not really interested in them, either. Still, thanks. ...Show more →
They do not look overexposed on my 14" MBP (except maybe the foam on the one of the ocean). Not sure what display you are viewing these on, but that may be the issue.
Also processing is not over-the-top or unusual. It's a rather high contrast style for sure, but also high contrast lighting scenarios in many of them. Higher contrast will make harshness in the bokeh more apparent and it's clear that both lenses can struggle with complex backgrounds. Subject distance and background-to-subject distance also play into this in some of the more problematic images (2, 3, 4) - e.g. image 3 is a very similar scene to image 2, but has the subject farther away than in image 2 and thus the relative background-to-subject distance is smaller, contributing to less smooth OOF rendering.
Imo they are very good and useful example images to assess what these lenses can do in the real world. I much prefer them to endless waffling about mythical qualities that some lenses supposedly have.
cxpics wrote:
Yikes dude. This was just me sharing a few images from both lenses that I've taken this year. My only point was both lenses can make fine images. I'm not particularly interested in conducting scientific lens tests. I just shoot and decide if I like the images and the feel of the lens. Sorry I've offended your elitist sensibilities.
And since you have such a keen interest in optics, where are your detailed scientific comparison shots that support such verbose mythical optical descriptions of all the lenses you continue to ramble on about endlessly? I only saw one post once where you where claimed something was so much better on a thypoch after posting 3 images from different scenes of stair railing with different focal lengths.
Thanks for doing this. I always enjoy blind test.Usually I do controlled A/B testing, but this is wonderful too because we don’t shoot photos to only compare crops in the most controlled way possible. Both approaches are warranted IMO. And complimentary.
I saw this thread too late to post guesses before answers were shared but it was fun.
Usually, when I have lenses that have different draws, color and contrast, I tend to edit the files in a different way to accent the lens rendering. So it’s interesting to see the different draws being processed in a very similar way.
Yogifi wrote:
Thank you Kevner, I'd appreciate that a lot! I haven't been able to get much strong sunlight here since the first day when I got it to compare with other lenses to rule out the camera itself.
Greetings Yogifi,
I did a bunch of test shots yesterday and wasn't able to replicate the effect you've shown in your images, however, I did go back and look at some images shot on my A7RIVa when I first got the lens and did see some color fringing. Here is the overall image. Processed in Capture One Pro.
FWIW, I don't see the fringing until I've zoomed in to about 800%. Image was shot at F8, 100 ISO. There is also no lens correction for this lens in C1 so I was working through some adjustments with this image.
I did a bunch of test shots yesterday and wasn't able to replicate the effect you've shown in your images, however, I did go back and look at some images shot on my A7RIVa when I first got the lens and did see some color fringing. Here is the overall image. Processed in Capture One Pro.
FWIW, I don't see the fringing until I've zoomed in to about 800%. Image was shot at F8, 100 ISO. There is also no lens correction for this lens in C1 so I was working through some adjustments with this image.
Thank you kindly, Kevner, appreciate checking through the old files with the previous sensor too!
I don't think it's the lens. Another user in the apo-lanthar thread, where it also appeared when using the a7cii, mentioned it could be moire.
I haven't heard from a user using the higher resolution sensor mentioning it yet (with any lens). And I read a random comment from last year from a user about preferring the 60 megapixel sensor because it doesn't show as much artefacts, even though he doesn't need the resolution, but he didn't specify which and could have been referring to something else but I suspect it's this.
So perhaps it is more about the sensor but I do like the smaller filesizes and working on my laptop with them so not in a rush to ugprade.. only to possibly find out it's there too. In most other examples I've seen (not many) you do have to zoom in a lot to see it, with mine though I could see it at 100% which is what set me off.
Anyway, I've been growing quite fond of the lens and think it pairs nicely with the other noktons.
Left this lens on my camera for a short hike along Donner Creek (Donner Park, Truckee CA. Shot at F8, processed in C1, if that matters to you. This is the native E-mount version.
Ripolini wrote:
This image shows why I sent back my 28/1.5 Nokton
Yet, you read somewhere at least three times a day that CA is not a problem because it can be removed with a single click.😇
I'm still a little surprised by this, because chromatic aberration is almost never that extreme directly in the focal plane.
Nov 10, 2025 at 07:45 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
Nifty Fifty wrote:
Yet, you read somewhere at least three times a day that CA is not a problem because it can be removed with a single click.😇
That is because people don't understand there are different types of CA. This is purple fringing, a type of axial CA, and it cannot be removed easily. Lateral CA generally can be removed in post pretty easily but axial CA is a lot harder. For this image with this lens, stopping down to f/2.8 probably would have removed the CA, but of course reduced the background blur. Axial CA does diminish significantly when you stop down. Lateral CA, which fortunately can be reduced pretty easily in post-processing, does not diminish when you stop down.
For such auto photography with strong light and lots of shiny metal, it is really helpful to have an APO lens that doesn't have much axial CA. For this particular shot, I would have wanted the new CV 28 f/2 APO, that has very little axial CA. If I shot more cars as I used to do, then I would be getting that lens for sure. Since I don't shoot cars as often any more I am not sure that I will.
Steve Spencer wrote:
For such auto photography with strong light and lots of shiny metal, it is really helpful to have an APO lens that doesn't have much axial CA. For this particular shot, I would have wanted the new CV 28 f/2 APO, that has very little axial CA. If I shot more cars as I used to do, then I would be getting that lens for sure. Since I don't shoot cars as often any more I am not sure that I will.
I find it remarkable that nowadays even very inexpensive, small, and lightweight AF lenses from China sometimes deliver almost apochromatic results in this regard. Take a look at the image taken with the 2.0 50 Air (p. 7 #1). Zero chromatic aberration in the chrome parts. https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1898039/6
Nov 10, 2025 at 08:06 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
Nifty Fifty wrote:
I find it remarkable that nowadays even very inexpensive, small, and lightweight AF lenses from China sometimes deliver almost apochromatic results in this regard. Take a look at the image taken with the 2.0 50 Air (p. 7 #1). Zero chromatic aberration in the chrome parts. https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1898039/6
Yes, a lens with low axial CA does not need to be expensive if it is f/2 or slower. People sometimes equate APO with low axial CA, but that is not what defines APO even if it is in practice what many people including me want from an APO lens. I think lenses like the Viltrox 50 f/2 air are a fantastic bargain and you can do a lot with them, but they are not without their weaknesses (in particular I don't like the bokeh that much from that lens, but that is just my very subjective point of view).
I think we will see going forward that keeping axial CA in check at f/2 and narrower apertures will be expected for a lot of lenses. What I think people won't appreciate is that it is a lot harder controlling axial CA at wider apertures. I also think people won't appreciate that controlling axial CA is also harder at wider focal lengths. Personally, I can live with axial CA at wider apertures and focal lengths if I know how the lens will perform and can shoot to avoid it. That said I think the Voigtlander 28 f/2 APO is a fantastic lens and is breaking some new ground. Making a 50mm f/2 lens without axial CA seems to be a lot easier than making a 28mm f/2 lens without axial CA.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
I find it remarkable that nowadays even very inexpensive, small, and lightweight AF lenses from China sometimes deliver almost apochromatic results in this regard. Take a look at the image taken with the 2.0 50 Air (p. 7 #1). Zero chromatic aberration in the chrome parts. https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1898039/6
Designing a lens that's one stop faster is a much bigger challenge than it sounds. That extra stop may seem small, but it changes everything. There's a reason most APO lenses top out at f/2 instead of f/1.4...it's extremely difficult to control CA at those wider apertures. Only a handful of lenses manage it, and none of them are wide-angle.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Designing a lens that's one stop faster is a much bigger challenge than it sounds. That extra stop may seem small, but it changes everything. There's a reason most APO lenses top out at f/2 instead of f/1.4...it's extremely difficult to control CA at those wider apertures. Only a handful of lenses manage it, and none of them are wide-angle.
However, I had quoted what I was referring to. The aforementioned 2.0 28 APO.
