Testing Voigtlander 40mm f2 sharpness

[jedy]

I recently purchased a Voigtlander 40mm and have been testing it for sharpness and focus confirmation accuracy. I am on my second copy as the first one was very soft with my 6D camera. The problem I have with the second copy is the optical quality seems no better than a Canon 50mm 1.8 I have (both lenses tested on a tripod). I find it hard to know what I'm supposed to expect from this lens. Photo samples online are no good as they are usually compressed jpegs and may have added sharpening from software like Lightroom. As far as I'm aware photos from this lens and the 50mm 1.8 are only recognisable by the different focal lengths. The sharpness and colour look exactly the same. I've tried adjusting the micro focus to compensate for front focus when using focus confirmation and find different settings work at different distances. 0 seems to be the best compromise. I still have until later this month to return the Voigtlander. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd appreciate it.

Here are a couple of sample images in case this helps to illustrate the issue (focus is on the top front edge of the piano keys halfway down in the middle of the photos):

Voigtlander 40mm @ 2.8


Canon 50mm @ 2.8

[Telecaster]

Your post doesn't explain why you bought the Voigtländer lens. What is/are your intended use(s) for it? What precisely are you expecting from it image-quality-wise?

-Dave-

[HarperPhotos]

Hello,

If you want a ultra sharp lens then get the new Sigma 50mm F1.4 Art lens.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/02/28/first-test-pics-of-sigma-50mm-f-1.4-put-it-on-par-with-zeiss-otus-55mm-f1.4

Cheers

Simon

[jedy]

I would like to use this lens mainly for street photography and in terms of image quality, I was hoping it would at least be sharper than the Canon 50mm 1.8.

[stever]

from my experience and research (I think Photozone may have tested the Voigtlander once upon a time) I don't think you should expect the Voigtlander to be sharper (or probably better otherwise) than the Canon.  my Voigtlander 20 isn't any sharper than my 17-40.

[NancyP]

I can think of one good reason to consider the Voigtlander 40mm over the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art : 615 grams, approximately 1.4 pounds. That's the difference in weight between the Sigma and the 200 gram Voigtlander. If you don't need f/1.4 and do need to get multiple primes up a mountain foot trail, that could be a HUGE advantage. Of course, we in Canon-land have the very good 40mm f/2.8 STM (130 grams!!!), which is annoying to manually focus (focus-by-wire) and thus not as esthetically pleasant to handle as a lens designed for manual focus.

I point out the weight issue, having proven myself out of shape on a 450 foot base to peak elevation in  0.7 miles hike this weekend, carrying a mere 6 pounds of primes, one 2 pound camera with L bracket, a pound of filters, holders, lens microfiber cloth, plus wired shutter release, and a 3 pound tripod plus head. Only 12 pounds! Even considering that I "added" elevation by going up and down the last 50 feet a zillion times to check views, that's waaay out of shape. Next purchase: weight vest  

[jedy]

@stever I've read quite a few reviews for this lens that mention how sharp it is. Obviously there's nothing like testing a lens yourself and variations in lens copies can be an issue. Also the barrel distortion seems harsher than the Photozone review suggests so I'll have a go removing it in Lightroom.

Btw, there are a number of reasons I went for the Voigtlander such as focal length, size and price the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art might be sharp but not the lens for me.

[Misirlou]

The Canon 1.8 is actually a pretty sharp lens to begin with. It has its problems, but past f/2.8 or so, sharpness is not one of them. There are of course sharper lenses out there, but all the ones I can think of are far more expensive, far larger, or both.

In this range, a more natural competitor would be the Canon 40 STM. It's very sharp, and so light and tiny that it feels like nothing more than a lens cap on a 6D. And it costs almost nothing. The only negatives are that it's relatively slow ( f/2.8 ), only manually focuses when the camera is turned on, and has zero snob appeal.

[graeme]

I've had a Canon 50mm 1.8 and now I have the Voigtlander 40mm. The Canon is an outrageously sharp lens for the price. It's also a POS in terms of build quality and I wouldn't want to rely on one. I bought the Voigtlander because I manually focus using live view and it's great to use for this. ( The focus ring has a really long travel which aids accurate manual focus ). The Canon would be a nightmare to focus manually since it doesn't even have a proper focus ring.

I find images from the Voigtlander 40mm to be very nearly as sharp as my Canon 70 - 200 f4 and better than a couple of mid range zooms I have.

However, I'm using the Voigt at f8 - f10 on an 18mp crop frame so my experience may be fifferent from yours.

Good luck

Graeme

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I would like to use this lens mainly for street photography and in terms of image quality, I was hoping it would at least be sharper than the Canon 50mm 1.8.

It seems to me that one of the least important qualities of a lens for street photography is sharpness. I would rate focus speed (or easy manual focus) and bokeh much higher than sharpness. Other aspects would be size, weight, and unobtrusiveness. All of the above satisfied quite easily with the Canon 50/1.8.

[JeanMichel]

I happen to have both the 20 and 40 mm VC lenses for my Canon. The 40 is as good or better than my 24-105 set at 40; and the 20 does not have any of the distortions of the 24-105 when set to 24. Both are easy to focus (I use the centre point to assist my focusing). Any "lack of sharpness" may possibly be due to shakiness  when hand-held as the lenses do not have any IS feature. I originally purchased the 40 mm to try and make my 5d, 5d2 to be a pretend Leica with my 35 lens (I now have a M9) and it kind of worked pretty well for that purpose.
Jean-Michel

[graeme]

It seems to me that one of the least important qualities of a lens for street photography is sharpness. I would rate focus speed (or easy manual focus) and bokeh much higher than sharpness. Other aspects would be size, weight, and unobtrusiveness. All of the above satisfied quite easily with the Canon 50/1.8.

The focus confirmation on my 60D works OK with the Voigtlander except for closer ( less than 1.5metres away ) subjects. The bokeh is a bit frantic with busier backgrounds.

If I were Jedy I'd save some cash and get the Canon 40mm pancake & enjoy the benefits of autofocus.

Re: 'unobtrusiveness'. The Canon 50mm 1.8 is a noisy little bugger ( none USM focussing ).

Regards

Graeme

[Misirlou]

Strangely, I never had a mechanical problem with my Canon 50 1.8, but my 50 1.4 needed a focus motor replacement a few months ago. I'd still buy the 1.4 over the 1.8, but the 40 STM would be my first choice of the 3 for most situations.

Not something I'd want to manually focus though. Happily, FoCal measures mine as one of the most consistent lenses in terms of autofocus.

[JeanMichel]

Hi again,
Forgot to add this: with all my lenses, I needed to adjust the auto-focus with the micro-adjust feature. Even for the manual-focus VC's I had to adjust the micro-adjust in order to ensure that the focus and focusing marks in the viewfinder are correct (my 40 mm VC needs a +15 adjustment). I made a 'LenAlign' type of device to check and adjust the focus.
Jean-Michel