The Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4 II Lens performance

[VidThreeNorth]

I ran across this YouTube clip posted by Steve Huff 2018-06-18 about the Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4 II lens and at first it was fairly straight forward, but towards the end, he compared the results between the lens on a Leica SL against a Sony A7RIII. The results on the Leica seemed to be significantly better, and particularly in vignetting. That was a big surprise because the Sony has a modern state of the art sensor, and light gathering characteristics should have been about as good as any other camera. Moreover, 58mm F1.4 is just not a particularly unusual lens. Does anyone have any ideas about what is happening here?

"The Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4 II on the Leica SL! Modern Day Dream Lens!"

 

[Derrel]

Check out the new 58/1.4 SLIIS ,aka the "newest version", aka the 2016 version, at $599.
Voigtlander SL II Lenses

 

[Designer]

That was a big surprise because the Sony has a modern state of the art sensor, and light gathering characteristics should have been about as good as any other camera. Moreover, 58mm F1.4 is just not a particularly unusual lens. Does anyone have any ideas about what is happening here?

Besides the differences in the respective sensors, a camera is an image processor. Each model of camera has the firmware designed to process whatever is captured into the image that you will eventually see. I would surmise that the biggest difference is the image processor in each camera because the lens is the same.

I have this lens, and use it on my Nikon D7100. I think the Nikon image processor compares favorably with what you see coming out of the Leica examples.

 

[VidThreeNorth]

I have checked the comments about the video and there area two points that are being made lately. Both seem plausible:

"David Kieltyka3 weeks ago
Re. the vignetting on the Sony: make sure you have an adapter made explicitly for the FE mount. Some E adapters go back to when Sony's entire mirrorless lineup used APS-C sensors. I've run into this with Voigtländer's own Contax rangefinder mount adapter. There are two different ones, the first for E (APS-C) cameras and a later second one for "full frame" cameras."

"Toni Palmén3 weeks ago (edited)
Do you shoot with EFCS turned on with Sony (it is usually on by default)? That usually can ruin the image and bokeh when shooting in bright light at faster than 1/500s shutter values. The efcs can make other side of the image darker than the other and the bokeh tends to "cut in half", fading away towards the bottom of the image (on landscape oriented image). Please try it out again with either all-electronic shutter or the mechanical shutter (efcs turned off). "

About the shutter issues:

In one of Panasonics recent M4:3 cameras I remember reading that apparently, it switches off the mechanical shutter by itself sometimes -- I think for higher speed exposures. That is to say, it has mechanical shutter mode(s) and electronic (silent) shutter modes with user selection, but in some cases it overrides the user selection and skips the mechanical shutter. There has been speculation that eventually, (some?) mirror-less cameras that currently have shutters will get rid of them, because the mechanical shutters will no longer have any advantages. We have had cameras, even interchangeable lens cameras, without shutters before (most of the Nikon 1 series except for the top line models, and the Pentax Q series). Lately the argument has been that when "global shutter" sensors becomes available for general photography then mechanical shutters will go away.

 

[Derrel]

It could be that the lens adapter he used on the Sony does caused some slight mechanical vignetting. Or it could be the electronic shutter. Or it could be the way the Sony sensor's micro-lenses handle light rays at the outer periphery of the 58mm's image circle...or perhaps the Leica SL corrects somewhat for fall-off, and the Sony SHOWS any light fall-off the lens has. We're looking at a sample of two images from each camera, all shot wide-open...it's very possible that the Voigtlander 58 suffers from some fall-off wide-open...

The question could be reversed from the way Huff sees it: what if the Leica SL is correcting its out of camera images for fall-off, and the Sony is showing the actual fall-off?

One of the biggest issues is this: in the modern era, lens defects/issues can be,and many times actually are, corrected by the camera! Leica uses its "dot" system to identify and correct lens issues on its new digital cameras...Panasonic does a huge amount of correcting of lens problems in software by the camera...Leica is a HUGE "lens company"...perhaps there is some undocumented type of issue going on with the Leica SL?

The fact that SOOC images look different is interesting, but countering that is the way Lightroom and other apps can easily,with one click, correct MANY lens issues...Nikon just released a bunch of new lens profiles for Lightroom when used with OLD, famous Nikkor lenses...I'm using them, and they correct a LOT of the issues some of my older lenses have. Yippie!

I think the Sony is an excellent camera with Sony lenses; I have seen some FANTASTIC image made with the A7R-III and Sony glass. It sounds like perhaps the electronic shutter might be the culprit. Still, a bit of vignetting, and slight under-exposure of the SOOC JPEGs from the Sony: perhaps the actual ISO base line is different between the two cameras? Maybe the Leica SL is actually more-sensitive at a given ISO than is the Sony sensor? How would the Sony images look given +0.7 EV brightening?

Again...a sample of two images from each camera, with an off-brand lens, adapted, shot wide-open.