NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: John Geerts on February 08, 2022, 14:12:09
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The Voigtländer Lanthar 50mm f/2.8 was the lens of the Voigtländer Vitoret, a very successful Camera in the sixties of last century. When the color film became more popular, Voigtländer changed the name of the lens later to the Voigtländer Color-Lanthar 50mm f/2.8, apparantly only for commercial reasons.
The lens has been removed from the original camera and reconstructed with a M39 mount. With the appropriate adapter it now fits the Z-camera's.
The results are not bad. Central sharpness is very good at f/2.8, only the borders are a bit soft.
As the close focus is only 1 meter, there is a special close focus lens, developed by Voigtländer those days, the Focal. With the number 2 the close focus distance is around 30-50 cm
Posted earlier in Februari 2022
(https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=10305.0;attach=52559;image)
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It is interesting that the 3 lens Lanthar has that center sharpness at 2.8. The 50/2.8 Lanthar was the cheaper lens options. Next was Color-Skopar and then the Ultron.
I think the 50/2.8 Color-Skorpar is softer at 2.8 but very sharp stopped down a bit.
Some years back I made a small test with 50/2.8 Color-Skopar and Nikkor 45/2.8 P lens.
45/2.8 was a lot sharper at 2.8 but Color-Skopar performed better stopped down a bit with no CA.
No doubt that classic/vintage Voigtländer glass is very good.
The 50/3.5 Color-Skopar for the classic Prominent camera is very nice.
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Thanks for the additional information.
My interest for this lens is also sentimental. My father used this camera when I was a kid. He used the Voigtlander for many slides with pretty good results.
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Same here. I used my fathers Vitomatic IIa with 50/2.8 Color-Skopar. I have still have it. Laster I also got it with 50/2 Ultron.
I just tried a 50/2.8 Color-Skopar X which was for the Bessamatic (DKL mount) and it is quite sharp at 2.8.
CA is under good control. Some images shot with the lens here:
http://oldlenses.blogspot.com/2015/04/voigtlander-color-skopar-x-50mm-f28.html (http://oldlenses.blogspot.com/2015/04/voigtlander-color-skopar-x-50mm-f28.html)
There are many other examples out there. This was the entry-level lens for the Bessamatic.
I always avoided the Lanthar 50/2.8 because it was the entry-level for the Vito's etc. They used "Lanthar glass" to be able to get about same performance with three lens elements insted of four in Color-Skopar.
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Here the Voigtländer Lanthar on the Nikon Z9
And the petit close-up lens: Focar 2 (Shot with the Z6 24-70/2.8S)
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Here the Voigtländer Lanthar on the Nikon Z9
And the petit close-up lens: Focar 2 (Shot with the Z6 24-70/2.8S)
John, how did you get the Lanthar free from the old camera?
I was just to day given a Voigtlander Vito with the same lens, but with a Prontor-magic 125
Be Bent
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John, how did you get the Lanthar free from the old camera?
I was just to day given a Voigtlander Vito with the same lens, but with a Prontor-magic 125
Be Bent
I found an engineer who is specialized in 3d printing of new mounts on the lenses from old (rangefinder) camera's. He made a Leica/ M39 mount for my Lanthar so with an adapter it will fit the Nikon Z-camera's. (On Nikon F-camera's the Voigtländer Lanthar will not reach infinity)