Leica Voigtlander 21/4

William Lewis

All-Pro
Location
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Name
William Lewis
So after a long wait (worth it to snag it for only $245 ;) ) I have the 21/4 and finder (another $140 though) in hand.

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A couple of test images. This is going to take some serious getting used to.

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Whee! Of the 5 lenses in my EDC setup, three are Voigtlander (21/4, 35/1.7, 50/1.5) one FSU (50/3.5) and on Leica (90/4). Funny in it's way :)
 
A few more test images
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Going to need lots of practice to get to know this one.
... I'm pretty sure this lens doesn't behave like my M mount version - the corners in the last image are ... wild? I hope the lens really is in good working order.

I'm not sure if I said this before, but with an M 240, using a 21mm lens profile *will* help against magenta corners; I use the pre-ASPH. settings on the M 262.

M.
 
Going to need lots of practice to get to know this one
That’s where I find the rangefinder patch and OVF to be so crucial, forcing you to focus on a particular aspect/ object within the composition frame - for me, this vastly improves the resulting image compared to just looking through a normal dslr/ mirrorless viewfinder and snapshotting away.
 
That’s where I find the rangefinder patch and OVF to be so crucial, forcing you to focus on a particular aspect/ object within the composition frame - for me, this vastly improves the resulting image compared to just looking through a normal dslr/ mirrorless viewfinder and snapshotting away.
+1 - however, I don't think that any lack of knowledge or practice causes those wonky corners ... William knows what he's doing; I suspect the lens to be out of adjustment to some degree. Mine's much, much sharper.

I've mounted it on the M 262 and will take it out today to sort of check (I like shooting it anyway and haven't done so in quite a while, so the main reason is that I want to use it).

M.
 
Thank you for the comments gentlemen. I have no experience, really, with ultrawides so I thought it was just supposed to be that way. I was standing very near the plants along the edge of a road to take that last image and focused on the build a ways back in the property. I'll find another image of it when I get a chance to show another look at it.

I will definitely use the 21 pre-asph definition the next time I go out with it.
 
I know that feeling ... I almost sold my 50mm Summicron-M because it would do what I wanted; turned out all it needed was a CLA ... and more careful handling.

Your 21mm seems to work okay stopped down; this points to maybe some focus issues, but some of it may also be due to subject/framing or a change in the optical formula (better correction of field curvature in the new lens - Voigtländer are known to have done just that). We'll see. It's a bit hard to judge the wide-open rendering this way, though.

M.
 
William knows what he's doing
I don’t doubt that; I was just pointing out how useful the ovf was to me in terms of how it made me compose better. I’m currently out on a costal walk with a 21mm too so might chip in later too once I have a look at the files. I can’t remember what if any difference it made applying a coding to the lens but will have a look at that too.
 
Okay, I'll state here that I found that on the M 262 (which has the same profiles as the M 240 as far as I can fathom) the Elmarit 21mm f/2.8 (pre-ASPH.) is indeed the "best" profile but will not entirely remove the magenta corners; this is kind of a worst case:

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However, my lens preforms very reliably wide open. I tried to emulate the situation you decribed, @William Lewis, but failed (the image ended overexposed - my oversight), so I had to use a different example; I still think it's obvious that the Voigtländer 21mm f/4 for M mount is a solid performer at its maximum aperture, even towards the edges and corners.

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M.
 
Ok, just got back from a jaunt to the grocery store with a short side trek to a couple of usual suspects. 1) using the 21 pre-Asph definition 2) all were at F/8 3) every shot came out underexposed. I added 1 stop to all in post.

Focus point on the sign at the edge of the dam
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Focus point on the left corner of the handrail

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Focus of both of these is the electric meter box in between the doors.

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Focus point on the red water thing at my feet.

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Really still not sure of what to make of this.
 
I'd say that there's something wrong with infinity focus - the farther the distance, the less accurate it seems and the more extreme the unevenness in field shaprness becomes; in the third shot, it seems to backfocus heavily, but in the second shot, there appears to be front focus (it's sharpest on the right side of the tree trunk). However, the really strange thing is the enormous field curvature - it appears excessive except for the last shot, and it's bad enough there. I'm no expert on that particular lens, but it appears completely different from mine - and as far as I know, optics should be fairly similar.

Sorry to say so, but you may have got a dud ... or a lens that's in serious need of adjustment. But I have no idea about how to do that - or if you could do it yourself or not.

M.
 
FWIW, here are 2 random files from yesterday, focused through the eternal OVF on 1) the white cliff and 2) the sign and loaded into PS uncoded. Unfortunately I didn’t code the lens to a 21mm profile in the camera, so instead what you’re seeing with the second image of each file is the applied PS profile for the lens, which is a Biogon. You’ll see the first of each image is closed down whilst the second is wide open (wide open being F2.8 which I mention as I reckon before uploading, the metadata won’t say that, a common thing with RF cameras). You can see that without coding, there’s vignetting on both images, more so obviously on the wide open image, which is mostly/ all cleared up by using the PS profile.
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Whilst it might not solve the magenta issue, I am still curious to see how the Voigt files come out after applying the PS profile, there is one for the 21mm F4 Skopar (btw the selection of Voigt profiles on PS are much more impressive than Leica or Zeiss and date back to the LTM models). You can try that if you have PS or if you don't, PM me the raw files and I can have a go.
 
Does the lens show any signs of having been opened?

I'm thinking either an internal element has come loose, or was inserted backwards. My LTM 50/1.5 Nokton had an internal element come loose.

I would contact Youxin Ye, see if he can work on it. Or return it.
 
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