Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar f2.5 125mm SL - well I jumped!!

[kds315*]

After these excellent results of the f3.5 90mm. I discovered after a long search a Voigtländer Macro-Apo-Lanthar f2.5 125mm SL in Japan and just managed to agree at a way too high, much more than the original recommended store price. Well I guess it is worth it...if I look at the prices this lens now fetches on ebay, since there is no supply anymore. [Yes, I know some would recommend the Zeiss Macro Planar 2/100mm of course ... but I wanted to try it out and there is still some price difference in favour of that one]

Have a look at my soon to be here beauty...

[F16SUNSHINE]

Congrats Klaus!
I hope you will love it.

[kds315*]

Thanks Andy, I hope so too!

[Spotmatic]

A great purchase of the lens I wish to buy ever since I saw the samples from it. I'm green from envy!

[tango]

How much?

Seems to be much.

Yahoo for my 135 triotar!

[poilu]

wow! congrats for this rare lens; APO and no CA is great
don't forget to put the lens hood, I read that this lens flare

[kds315*]

Sure, no photo w/o lens hood for me!!

[koji]

Congrats Klaus, I want to try it too.

[trifox]

wow -- this is a beauty -- I have seen some samples taken by this lens

And hope that yours will be perfect as well, Klaus!

congrats

tf

[no-X]

Here are some photos taken by this lens. If anybody has other links, please share

http://simedarby.multiply.com/photos/album/16/Voigtlander_Macro-APO_Lanthar_125_F2.5_Photo_Sample#
http://my.reset.jp/~cat.y/mapo125mm/125mm.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/825863@N22/
http://www.pbase.com/felinda/voigtlander_
http://www.pbase.com/piotreks/vls125

[poilu]

thanks no-x for the samples, indeed a great lens!

[Farside]

[ChrisLilley]

[LucisPictor]

Wow! Congratulations, Klaus! Very nice!

[kds315*]

Thanks guys! I'll promise to show some pics here once I have it!

[Wormhandler]

Congratulations, Klaus!

This was the shot that blew me away and made me buy this lovely lens.

http://www.pzimages.com/8Reviews/lenses/voigtlander_lanthar_125_25/samples/326V9409_acr3.jpg

That was before it was sold out fortunately.

/Jan

[thePiRaTE!!]

Some samples from mine (before I sold it, moved from Pentax to Sony).

http://kellysereda.zenfolio.com/?search=125mm



Kelly.

[huhging]

It's a wonderful lens...
I've had it about a year, and let it go...because I wanted the C/Y Planar 100/2.0 so bad......

[kds315*]

[no-X]

My Lanthar arrived on Friday. Because it seems that nobody ever saw M42 version, I had too take Pentax version and prey for conversibility to Sigma. I have two good news:

1. The first one is for Sigma users - the lens can be converted, there are no issues, it fits SA body precisely and clicks.

2. The second one is for Atilla: The conversion is not destructible and it's fully reversible (!)





I took the lens to my repairman, explained the situation. It took him about 3 minutes to do what I needed. And he did it for free



These parts were removed - nothing more was needed to achieve full compatibility. The rear part of the lens is a bit more opened, so my repairman asked me to reconsider, if I want to use the lens in this condition, or if he should modify the original ring and return it back into the lens, or if he should create a new one.

[Attila]

Congrats! I look forward samples!

[no-X]

Probably later. The weather get worse. Rain, tempertare 10°C lower than yesterday and overcast sky.

[no-X]

I made a quick (unscientific) test of axial CA.

I used these 4 lenses:

1. Spiratone 135/1.8 - the most significant A-CA 135mm lens*
2. Jupiter 37AM 135/3.5 - the lowest A-CA 135mm lens*
3. Trioplan V 100/2.8 - the lowes A-CA of all tested tele-lenses*
4. Lanthar APO 125/2.5

*according to the previous testing of my lenses

I set the contrast a bit higher in RAW convertor to make the situation even more difficult and make even slight color tint clearly visible (you can compare new results with the previous test)


Here are results at f/4:



I sampled color of the same line for each lens and computed percentual abberation from solid gray for each channel. Here are average results at f/4:

Spiratone 135/1.8: 48,7%
Jupiter 37AM 135/3.5: 9,3%
Trioplan V 100/2.8: 5,3%
Lanthar APO 125/2.5: 2,7%

This results can't be taken as anything super-exact, but they are good as an objective view of the difference.

Results at f/8 (differences are much subtle):



Trioplan results are really stunning, it's at the same level as the apochromatic lanthar. However, the Lanthar is generally the best not only because of low CA (axial CA) but it's also sharper even than Jupiter 37AM.

[Orio]

Spiratone looks really bad even at f/8. Who made that lens?

Jupiter-37 performs very well acutance-wise. It's not perfect colour wise but hey - I paid 7 Euros for it.

Trioplan is stunning - it is only limited by low contrast but this can be partly improved in PP - the way it controls colour aberrations is incredible for a B&W era lens.

Apo-Lanthar, well, it's contemporary technology. Obviously it wins hands down. To tell the truth it's also a bit unfair to the other lenses to put it in direct comparison.

[no-X]

I think Trioplan is good because of the symmetrical triplet design. I can be wrong of course However, I was really surprised, that there were no purple fringes on the water droplets:

http://img3.abload.de/img/sdim7285hr9cqz.jpg

As for the Spiratone - my version is not the one with YS mount, but it has fixed M42 mount. The lens ring stands: "SPIRATONE PLURA-COAT By Mitake". I have no idea, if the lens is made by Mitake, or the coating is made by Mitake. Serial number is 53****