The VM 35mm APO is making me come around to really liking the 35mm focal length.
I'd never been a big fan of the 35mm focal length for lenses used on full frame (35mm) cameras. In the early days I thought it was wider than my preferred length and it seemed difficult for me to compose within its frame. More recently, and after settling in for decades with a 50mm as my preference I came back to the 35mm only to think that it wasn't wide enough to provide a step away from the normal lens. Which led me to concentrate more, when I needed a wider look, on using the 28 and 24mm lenses.
About three years ago I bought a VM 50mm APO to use (with an adapter) on my 47 megapixel SL2. Even on a day with blurry vision I could tell that lens was a step above the other 50mm lenses I had in my inventory. It was and is essentially a lens with no flaws. Not actually zero because at its widest aperture it does vignette a bit... But it quickly became a daily carry sort of lens. A jack of all trades. And when the tripod came out and the flashes flashed it showed off a resolution that is enviable. Its 35mm sibling wasn't even on my radar until very recently. I made due quite well with a Sigma Contemporary 35mm f2.0 and the same focal length on a Leica wide-to-short tele zoom lens. I thought my desire for additional 35mm lenses of medium aperture was totally resolved....
But then a friend called and wanted to know if I had any interest in the 35mm APO. He knew I had been happily shooting with the 50mm version for quite a while. Might I want to try out a shorter version? Sure, when have I ever said "no" to the possibility of tossing away more money on a redundant piece of gear?
We met for coffee and my friend handed over a boxed, like new VM 35APO lens. It looked gorgeous. The focusing ring was amazing. The aperture ring? Like clicked butter. I've been using it for a couple months now and I've come to the conclusion that this might be one of the three or four best lenses I have ever used. Ever. I called back and we settled on a reasonable price. I now own the lens. And my use of it is ever more frequent.
While it certainly shines when used with a Leica M to L adapter on an SL series mirrorless camera my favorite way to use the lens is on an M240 body with a Zeiss 35mm bright line finder plugged into the hot shoe of that camera. While the lens is really exceptional at f2 it gets even better up to f4, which is also a more practical aperture for shooting scenes outside in the streets or at events.
The lens came to me with a VM branded lens hood; one with the slots to allow for the widest view when using the rangefinder window on an M camera. The lens is the perfect fit and balance for the M240 camera and basically the use of everything configured this way makes the camera and lens very transparent. Very fluid.
While I am not nearly as price conscious or spending averse as so many photographers seem to be I do understand what a bargain this $1100 lens is when compared to the Leica version of the same focal length and speed lens in their catalog. Who doesn't want to get as good a product for five or six thousand dollars less?
Few photographers will ever end up buying this lens. Older dudes will demure with the excuse that their eyes aren't what they used to be and manual focusing has become difficult. I get it. AF can be a nice advantage when our previously perfect vision ghosts us. Another segment will decline the thrill of ownership because they understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They will find a $195 Chinese lens of the same focal length and maybe even greater speed and count themselves lucky that they can be so frugal. And then there is the contingent that NEVER grew up with manual focusing lenses and who, for the life of them, can't understand why anyone would want a lens that couldn't focus itself. So, a couple thousand people in a world of eight billion will consider the lens to be a perfectly weighted value. An astute and reasonable compromise between price, performance and usability. I think I fall somewhere in that Venn diagram of users.
Maybe you do too.
This is the LBJ Library. I was there on Wednesday to hear Ed Kashi speak and show
his photographic work. I've written about my take on modern photojournalism previous to this but I wanted to show what a lovely job the 35mm VM APO did with this building. And the sky.
Ioving that bright line finder in the hot shoe. Works well for a guy who wears glasses.
Fence art.
This is a business that is all in on the concept of beef being a good and important part of
everyone's diet. Don't know about that but love the graphics painted on their wall.
Naked women riding buffalos. As strained a marketing message as I could imagine.
5 comments:
I have the 50mm version for my two Leica Ms. And I have the 35mm version in Z mount that I use on my NIkon Zf. Perhaps my eyes aren’t what they were 20 or more years ago but I still get a lot of enjoyment out of both these pieces of glass. I’ve thought about picking up the 35mm lens in M mount as well. But maybe I should just look for a Z-to-M mount adaptor.
Please excuse my ignorance, but how does Cosina (Voightlander), which makes lenses for several different camera systems, exceed the performance of native OEM lenses designed for specific camera systems? Like, eg., the Nikon Z lenses. Granted the Voightlander lenses are good looking and may be great in the hand. I don't mean to argue; I'd really like to know.
Um. They have a rich history of actually making some of those OEM lenses under contract. Plus, not having to deal with AF is a technical plus. Finally, they aren't competing by making complex zooms but at the same time OEMs don't really offer many manual focus, prime focal length lenses either. Check out reviews of the two VM APO lenses I mention. They are at least as good as the offerings (optically) from the camera makers. Often better. Objectively. The trade off that I see is....no AF.
This is a short story about bad brain chemicals. For years I thought that I did not like the 35 mm lens pov and that I preferred 28 mm. Turned out that the reason I thought this is because of how much I enjoyed the Olympus Stylus Epic in the late film era, whose lens I thought (for years) was a 28 mm. At one point, many of the prints hanging on my walls were taken with it. A few years ago I was reading about the Stylus Epic's resurgence in the used market and I discovered that my memory was in error. Despite this, my brain still wants me to say that I don't like 35 mm (equiv) lenses. I think that what may happen is that when you walk around with a prime lens, you just start using it. The preconceptions in your brain may be illusory.
I have a relatively tight budget to work within. Every once in a while I splurge when buying a lens. But I usually stretch the budget by buying used lenses and/or ones that are known to “punch above their weight class”. For a number of years, my brand (Nikon) has been making budget-friendly “kit” lenses that perform surprisingly well compared to their more expensive glass. I have been very happy with the images I get from them. They have the added benefit of also being relatively compact and lighweight. I’m no fan of the expensive f/1.2 behemoths that are popular in some circles. My experience has shown me that it is very possible to get good glass and be frugal at the same time.
Post a Comment