Author: bt

Came across this site (www.honlphoto.com) which sells highly rated photo wraps and flash accessories. Prices seems reasonable, and they ship worldwide using USPS (instead of sometimes very expensive UPS/DHL combo). I’ve just ordered a medium sized wrap for my camera or lens when I need to dump them into smaller backpacks, and a regular sized speed snoot for directing the light into a smaller beam for easier targeting on one of my Nikon SB800s. Ran up a US$60 bill, which is quite reasonable including shipping.
Should arrive in, say, a week or two, and we’ll see if its really as good as people say it is. Treat it as a birthday gift to myself! Although I would have loved another Voigtlander anytime.

Just for the fun of it, I did a test of my 3 prime lenses, shooting someold buildings out my apartment window on a clear day in Shanghai. The 3
suspects are:

• Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS
• Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron SL Aspherical
• Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AIS

Nothing too scientific. A D2H mounts those lenses, and bolted down to a
Kirk BH3 ballhead and a Manfrotto aluminium tripod and triggered via
cabled release. All major aperture stops are tested. Half stops on the
Voigtlander are avoided as far as possible since they are not registered
on the EXIF. File format is RAW of course.

Nikkor 35mm f1.4:
f1.4 has the hazy look to it. Worse off when the subject is in the
distance, and a little less so nearer. But image is soft, and probably
only useful when you REALLY need to use f1.4. Definitely not something I
want to use when I can avoid.
f2.0, the hazy look starts the clear up, and photo starts to get
sharper, both for corner and center of image. Sharpness improves as you
move to f2.8.
f4.0, peak sharpness for center seems to start from here and remains up
to f11.
f5.6, peak sharpness for corner for my sample seems to be at f5.6 onwards.
f16, sharpness starts to deteriorate compared to f11, both at center and
corner.

Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron:
Nothing much to report here, all apertures seems to return same
sharpness, but f2.8 seems to be a little sharper than f2.0 but that’s
very very minor. Could even be of vibration from wind. Sharpness from
center to edge is excellent. At f2 and 2.8 it seems to beat the 35mm
f1.4, but at f4 nothing can touch the 35mm Nikkor, which seems to be in
a class of its own. However contrast from this lens seems to be slightly
better than the Nikkor. Could be because of the intermittent cloud
cover, but I’ll trust my eyes on this one.

Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AIS:
f2.5: Sharpness in centre is quite good. Wanted to say the same amount
of detail as the Ultron, but its not comparable due to very differing
magnification. Still, very usable wide open.
f2.8: A little improvement in the level of detail in the photo. Like
going from very good to excellent.
f4.0: Looks like the peak sharpness and level of detail in the photo at
this aperture. Sharpness looks maintained up to f11.
f16: Reduction in sharpness due to refraction can be seen at this
aperture. Reduction continues to f22, which is a little worse off than
f2.5. Somehow the corner and center seems to perform equally for this
lens, unlike the 35mm.

Had the chance to test out this lens as my primary lens during an outing yesterday to Hangzhou. It fits nicely on a D2H, and like the look where the camera body is much bigger than the lens that’s mounted on it. The 40mm is about a cm shorter than the popular Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AFD. But feels a lot heavier since its made fully of metal, reminding me of the AIS lenses of yesteryears. The clicks on the aperture ring is tight and assuring. You get half-stops in lower aperture stops (didn’t notice others since I was using >f8 the whole day). Focus ring is nicely dampened, feels just like a good condition AIS lens. If you look into the lens there’s a 9 blade aperture, which I’ve not seen for some time.
The result coming off the lens is quite good, once I sort out the misfocused photos (manual lenses!! Arrghh!), which forms quite a few of my total shots. Usually I will use the focus indicator on the D2H, but sometimes when I need to take it quick, I use the eye, and this is where most of the problem is. The shots are reasonably sharp, doesn’t look as sharp as my 70-180mm micro lens which I brought with me as well. There were some shots that was very nice looking, and others were purely misfocused.

So as a conclusion, I think handling wise, I dont think there is another lens that’s better than it. At least nothing I’ve used yet so far. Image quality wise, it is definitely capable of a good picture. The aspherical glass in the lens keeps distortion to a minimum. What I need to do soon is to perform some test on the performance on all aperture stops to find the optimum stop. Will need to check the bokeh blur effects as well. Heard from some websites that the bokeh is harsh, whatever that means, because of the aspherical lens. I agree its not as smooth as other lenses I’ve seen, but I think its still not too bad. The 9 aperture blade should allow for nice rounded blurs.