Mr Gill from 35mmc has a very compleat review of the Zeiss Sonnar C F1.5 50mm. It is not known for field plane of focus flatness or absolute sharpness. Mr. Gill loves its soft sharpness combined with 3D dimensionality and colour rendering. He comments it has focus shift, colour aberrations and field curvature but forgives all that for its wonderful virtues. He also really likes the Jupiter -8.
Zeiss has a 50mm f1.50 Sonnnar for m-mount. I think it is still sold new. Can be calibrated in-factory for f1.5 or f2.8 focus shift. Btw, which 7artisans 35mm is a Sonnar design? There are several 35mm in their range.
Issues with focus of Sonnar lenses is called "focus shift" and it means that the lens is calibrated for accurate focus at wide open aperture or at closed apertures
Well, there is also canon in ltm with leica specs and nikon ltm. Also voigtlander in ltm and m mounts. The last one does not offer sonnar type lens. They like their heliars and skopar-tessar derivates. Try the nikkor H.C. 50 f2 ltm version... ideally the black belt. It is also sonnar type lens.
i find real world examples to be a little deceiving. a focus paper like this is perfect because I could focus with the lens directly (instead of a rangefinder) and assess how the image looks. maybe a digital comparison with real life images would be good yes. I will do it with an upcoming Late Jupiter 8 vs Jupiter 8 Red P video
I bought the 7 artisan 50 1.1. Worst lens purchase ever. Paint start chipping off after a few use, 'sandy' feel at the focus ring at certain distance. 1.1 is soft and flat and if that is the 'character' you are after, this is it. The worst part is when I talk to the support about the focus ring issue, their suggestion is for me to get a new one and give me a little discount on it! It's so poorly made they don't even bother to fix it and just give me a discount on my next purchase on the same lens. Garbage lens
I have to say I do agree with you a bit, they suck at customer service. And some earlier production units were really not good. It really depends on the camera you use it on. If you are using digital it will probably have issues with the sensor stack. On film it is a different story. But I have to say it is the better of the sonnars, and these lenses are known to be really nice. I have some bad 7artisans lenses too, no support whatsoever so I use them only rarely nowadays. about paint chipping: its anodized aluminum so it will get damaged. Same thing happens to older leica lenses as well, it will take some time for them to get better at production
@@Bbarm97 Appreciate your reply. No offense to your channel, infact I love it. It's the lens and their poor customer service that gets me. On a different note, I tried the lens on my SL2S and it damage the metal frame around the sensor when I try to focus to 'infinity' since the back of the lens protrudes so far out , it's only cosmetic but it's still annoying. Don't try it.
@@cctc788 I agree with you on that. and yeah id not recommend this lens on digital , have some bad experiences myself with it which led me to sell it eventually
Your list of options is severly suboptimal since you neglected to mention the most affordable (by Leica Standards) and well-built Sonnar clones, the Japanese entries. The Nikkor (Nikon) 50/1.4 S.C. and 50/2.0 H.C. lenses and the Canon 50/1.5. All are widely available and frankly better-built than contemporary Leitz lenses. They are completely compatible with Leica ltm standards and easily usable on an M with LTM to M adapters. Plus being ltm lenses they are perfectly usable on earlier Barnack Leicas, and on the best LTM cameras, the Canon V, VI, and 7 Series; all of which are available for a fraction the cost of any Leica M.
Hey man I live inin Europe and those lenses are not so common here (other than the nikon ones but not for ltm). Ordering from Japan is not a good option as I have never received a camera without fungus from Japan and the income tax makes it expensive to get them. It is cheaper to get a Barnack Leica than most Japanese cams here in Austria/Germany. Same goes for lenses, you can find German or Russian lenses easily but the Japanese ones are rare.
It is not at all clear where you are located from the video, maybe a disclaimer was in order. Maybe your experience is atypical as I have several friends in the DBR who have had no problem getting photo equipment from Japan. Even with VAT or whatever they will still cost less than that Chinese lens, which BTW is not "a direct copy of Sonnar design", the Nikkor f2 and Canon are direct copies of Zeiss prewar originals.
@@monjue4459 Patronizing? No, since there are many people with limited knowledge in this field who might take this video as Gospel, I was merely pointing out that there are other options available if one wants a "Sonnar look", so a reference to his locations and concerns would have been useful. I personally have purchased maybe a dozen lenses from Japan, all were as meticulously described. Camera bodies seem to be priced on the basis of cosmetics rather than function, so it is possible to get a good user at a reasonable price if one is diligent, patient and able to wade through the idiosyncrasies of automated translations (e.g., I recently acquired a cosmetically challenged but mechanically and optically perfect Canon VL2 body for US $82 including all shipping and taxes. I had placed a low initial bid to keep track of what it sold for and was very surprised that no one topped my bid). I thought Sammlung's review was very good, as far as it went.
6:32 That test chart is a good few mm off-plane at top left. An f/1.1 lens is going to register that given the extremely narrow dof.
Mr Gill from 35mmc has a very compleat review of the Zeiss Sonnar C F1.5 50mm.
It is not known for field plane of focus flatness or absolute sharpness. Mr. Gill loves its soft sharpness combined with 3D dimensionality and colour rendering. He comments it has focus shift, colour aberrations and field curvature but forgives all that for its wonderful virtues. He also really likes the Jupiter -8.
Zeiss has a 50mm f1.50 Sonnnar for m-mount. I think it is still sold new. Can be calibrated in-factory for f1.5 or f2.8 focus shift.
Btw, which 7artisans 35mm is a Sonnar design? There are several 35mm in their range.
Issues with focus of Sonnar lenses is called "focus shift" and it means that the lens is calibrated for accurate focus at wide open aperture or at closed apertures
Well, there is also canon in ltm with leica specs and nikon ltm. Also voigtlander in ltm and m mounts. The last one does not offer sonnar type lens. They like their heliars and skopar-tessar derivates.
Try the nikkor H.C. 50 f2 ltm version... ideally the black belt. It is also sonnar type lens.
I have read that the 7 artisans 75mm f1.25 is a sonnar design.
Would have been great if you had some examples
i find real world examples to be a little deceiving. a focus paper like this is perfect because I could focus with the lens directly (instead of a rangefinder) and assess how the image looks. maybe a digital comparison with real life images would be good yes. I will do it with an upcoming Late Jupiter 8 vs Jupiter 8 Red P video
very simple and accurate explanation about focusing issues of sonnar lenses on leica cameras
Very interesting analysis. I love the Sonnar designs. The old Tessars are great, too.
From practical use I know that an Jupiter 8 or 3 is not the same like a Contax Sonnar 1:2 and 1:1.5
I bought the 7 artisan 50 1.1. Worst lens purchase ever. Paint start chipping off after a few use, 'sandy' feel at the focus ring at certain distance. 1.1 is soft and flat and if that is the 'character' you are after, this is it. The worst part is when I talk to the support about the focus ring issue, their suggestion is for me to get a new one and give me a little discount on it! It's so poorly made they don't even bother to fix it and just give me a discount on my next purchase on the same lens. Garbage lens
I have to say I do agree with you a bit, they suck at customer service. And some earlier production units were really not good. It really depends on the camera you use it on. If you are using digital it will probably have issues with the sensor stack. On film it is a different story. But I have to say it is the better of the sonnars, and these lenses are known to be really nice. I have some bad 7artisans lenses too, no support whatsoever so I use them only rarely nowadays. about paint chipping: its anodized aluminum so it will get damaged. Same thing happens to older leica lenses as well, it will take some time for them to get better at production
@@Bbarm97 Appreciate your reply. No offense to your channel, infact I love it. It's the lens and their poor customer service that gets me. On a different note, I tried the lens on my SL2S and it damage the metal frame around the sensor when I try to focus to 'infinity' since the back of the lens protrudes so far out , it's only cosmetic but it's still annoying. Don't try it.
@@cctc788 I agree with you on that. and yeah id not recommend this lens on digital , have some bad experiences myself with it which led me to sell it eventually
Your list of options is severly suboptimal since you neglected to mention the most affordable (by Leica Standards) and well-built Sonnar clones, the Japanese entries. The Nikkor (Nikon) 50/1.4 S.C. and 50/2.0 H.C. lenses and the Canon 50/1.5. All are widely available and frankly better-built than contemporary Leitz lenses. They are completely compatible with Leica ltm standards and easily usable on an M with LTM to M adapters. Plus being ltm lenses they are perfectly usable on earlier Barnack Leicas, and on the best LTM cameras, the Canon V, VI, and 7 Series; all of which are available for a fraction the cost of any Leica M.
Hey man I live inin Europe and those lenses are not so common here (other than the nikon ones but not for ltm). Ordering from Japan is not a good option as I have never received a camera without fungus from Japan and the income tax makes it expensive to get them. It is cheaper to get a Barnack Leica than most Japanese cams here in Austria/Germany. Same goes for lenses, you can find German or Russian lenses easily but the Japanese ones are rare.
It is not at all clear where you are located from the video, maybe a disclaimer was in order. Maybe your experience is atypical as I have several friends in the DBR who have had no problem getting photo equipment from Japan. Even with VAT or whatever they will still cost less than that Chinese lens, which BTW is not "a direct copy of Sonnar design", the Nikkor f2 and Canon are direct copies of Zeiss prewar originals.
@@AGL93311 dude your'e a prick and stop being so patronising.
@@monjue4459 Patronizing? No, since there are many people with limited knowledge in this field who might take this video as Gospel, I was merely pointing out that there are other options available if one wants a "Sonnar look", so a reference to his locations and concerns would have been useful. I personally have purchased maybe a dozen lenses from Japan, all were as meticulously described. Camera bodies seem to be priced on the basis of cosmetics rather than function, so it is possible to get a good user at a reasonable price if one is diligent, patient and able to wade through the idiosyncrasies of automated translations (e.g., I recently acquired a cosmetically challenged but mechanically and optically perfect Canon VL2 body for US $82 including all shipping and taxes. I had placed a low initial bid to keep track of what it sold for and was very surprised that no one topped my bid).
I thought Sammlung's review was very good, as far as it went.