Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 III on A7 for architecture/interiors?

[Guillermo Luijk]

I have been looking for information about this ultra wide angle FF lens specially designed for digital mirrorless bodies, and it seems a very good performer in every aspect: end to end sharpness at any aperture, low CA, very low rectilinear distortion, no colour smearing, not prone to flare, compact size, build quality, reasonable price.

The only drawbacks seem to be a bit more than desired vignetting, no AF and relatively slow (f/4,5).

Does anyone have any experience or opinion on how good this lens could be as "the ultra wide angle" for arquitectura/interiors, also landscape, when used on an A7 body? or there are better options?.





Regards!

[EinstStein]

Any comment how much difference between 17mm and 15mm for such apps?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Any comment how much difference between 17mm and 15mm for such apps?

15 mm has an angle of view:   h:99.9° × v:76.9°, d:110°, or
11.90  x 7.944 m (39.04 x 26.06 ft) subject size at 5 m (16.4 ft) focus distance.

17 mm has an angle of view:  h:92.8° × v:70.0°, d:103°, or
10.49  x 7.006 m (34.43 x 22.98 ft) subject size at 5 m (16.4 ft) focus distance.

Cheers,
Bart

[mcbroomf]

It's just an excellent lens for landscapes (although I'm using it on an A7r2).  I prefer T/S lenses for architecture but if not needed then it's fine there as well

[Guillermo Luijk]

It's just an excellent lens for landscapes (although I'm using it on an A7r2).  I prefer T/S lenses for architecture but if not needed then it's fine there as well

Thanks for your appreciation. I have a 24mm TS from Canon and thought this Heliar 15mm could be a good complement when 24mm doesn't suffice. Do you think they make a good combo for architecture and interiors?.

Regards




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[mcbroomf]

That is the exact combination for UWA that I took to the UK over the Holiday.  Next was a 35mm Canon FD T/S lens.  I occasionally pined for a 21 or 28 but I don't think I missed any images because of it.  Having said that I have the 21mm Loxia on order 

A few more from the 15mm VC III but the 2nd shot taken with the A7r

[Guillermo Luijk]

Thanks for your samples!. You seem to be slicing the 16-35 range with primes. Don't you think a zoom would save you a lot of money?

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[David Eichler]

Thanks for your samples!. You seem to be slicing the 16-35 range with primes. Don't you think a zoom would save you a lot of money?

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Depends upon what your needs are. There are some terrific ultrawide zooms now, such as the Nikon 14-24mm and the Canon 16-35mm F:4. However, when maximum image quality is needed, a top quality prime lens will still usually beat a zoom, especially at the ultrawide end, where it seems to become much more difficult to design a lens that will have minimum distortion and aberrations and still be sharp across the frame, at least at any sort of reasonable price. for architecture and interiors, it is usually necessary to correct for barrel and pincushion distortion, and that always takes a little bit of quality out, even if pretty minimal for most purposes. Plus, distortion correction profiles for ultrawide zooms are seldom perfect, so it can still take some manual work to fine tune the corrections, especially if the lens has a wavy distortion characteristic.

[adriantyler]

i use this lens on the sony a7rii and it's great, for critical work i use the canon 17 ts\e too.
stopped down there is not much between them.
the issue is the size which goes for the 16-35mm sony zoom too, i don't have that, but this may be interesting for you:
https://www.talkemount.com/threads/voigtlander-super-wide-heliar-15mm-f-4-5-iii-vs-sony-zeiss-vario-tessar-t-fe-16-35mm-f-4-za-oss.13736/

regarding the 15 voight and the 17 canon the real trick is knowing how to use them, for interiors with the canon 17 ts\e i find i don't use much movement, maybe 1 or 2mm sometimes unless it is a vast interior with a very high ceiling, therefore for normal 3-4m high interiors you can just lift the camera up a bit when using the 15mm and then line up your verticals.

[Guillermo Luijk]

https://www.talkemount.com/threads/voigtlander-super-wide-heliar-15mm-f-4-5-iii-vs-sony-zeiss-vario-tessar-t-fe-16-35mm-f-4-za-oss.13736/

regarding the 15 voight and the 17 canon the real trick is knowing how to use them, for interiors with the canon 17 ts\e i find i don't use much movement, maybe 1 or 2mm sometimes unless it is a vast interior with a very high ceiling, therefore for normal 3-4m high interiors you can just lift the camera up a bit when using the 15mm and then line up your verticals.

Thanks for the link Adrian, greatly illustrative. I used to feel comfortable using the Canon 10-22 (16-35 eq.) shooting interiors on my APS-C camera, and I can remember I mostly used the lowest end (10-12 mm) with vertical alignment to eliminate the need for perspective correction. So I think I'll definitively give the 15mm Heliar a try. I value a lot the very low barrel distortion and good edge sharpness vs field curvature. Size and price also favour the Heliar.

Regards!

[mcbroomf]

Thanks for your samples!. You seem to be slicing the 16-35 range with primes. Don't you think a zoom would save you a lot of money?

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Probably I've had many of my primes for a very long time (well before there were any decent zooms) so I just stick with them and as a result tend to think about new primes vs zooms (example being the 21mm Loxia).

Adrian, good link to the VC vs Zony comparison .. thanks.