Anyone using the Rodenstock 23mm?

[peterm10]

I have an IQ3 100 I am using with a Cambo tech cam and the Rodenstock 32mm HR and 90mm APO Sinaron lenses.  The 32mm is amazing and I am intrigued by the 23mm because I love shooting wide, although I hear that it tends to flare and needs the center filter.  Anyone out there using this lens and would be willing to share their thoughts on it (good, bad and ugly?).

Thanks!

Peter

[Vieri Bottazzini]

Hello Peter,

as you know, I just got the PhaseOne XT with the 23, 32 and a couple more lenses - my first, informal tests tells me that the lens is optically amazing, as Paul said. Shift is limited, but you knew that already; if you are OK with the small amount of shift, and considering you'll get more room for shift according to the crop you intend to use (i.e. 1:1 allows for a little more, 2:1 as well, and so on), then limited shift it's a non-issue. Vignette is definitely there, no way around that. However, since vignette is a very personal thing, I would say that you can use it without center filter if you do love vignette and are OK with correcting some of it in post, either via LCC or manually (harder to do but possible). With your back, probably you'll need a LCC anyway to correct for colour cast, so that would take care of vignette as well. Obviously, a center filter would be the ideal solution, without any penalty in noise coming from the LCC raising light levels in shadows areas; the shutter speed penalty is probably something you can easily live with, considering the kind of work you do.

Hope this helps! The 23mm will be the first lens that I will put to my in-depth tests, so if you can wait a couple of weeks I'll have more answers for you

Best regards,

Vieri

[Christopher Arnoldi]

Hello Peter,

I had tested the 23 HR with my IQ3100 on a Cambo against the Sony A7R M3 with Voigtländer 10 mm lens.
Then I decided to buy the XT camera with IQ4150 and Rodenstock 23 HR lens.

I searched for some pictures I took with the 23 HR and loaded them in a gallery:
https://www.picdrop.com/arnoldidesign/9ECdYkHWEk
I found 300 pictures that I took in 2020 with the 23 HR but I could only find 1 picture with flare (Hardthöhe-Aug-2020-2687-Raw-Shift.jpg).
On my test I took a picture from my studio wall with the 23 HR + 2 pictures with horizontal shift and stichting. I took the pictures with 23 HR and 10 mm Voigtländer on different days, so the lighting of the scene is not the same.
The other pictures I took with shift and you see red lines in the upper corners. But I could easily retouch them so it works for me.

My resume is that the combination of 23 HR with XT camera and IQ4150 is the best combination when you need high resolution. When 61 MP are enough, a Sony with the Voigländer 10 mm is much cheaper, has a wider angle and there is a profile in Capture One for this lens.

Best regards,
Christopher

[peterm10]

Thanks both.  I have decided to hold off on the 23mm for now but eventually it may find its way into my bag.  It's unfortunate that the center filter for this lens is so hard to find (although that's not the reason I am holding off - the 32mm will meet my wide angle needs for the time being).

Happy new year!

Peter