Voigtlander 125mm f/2.5 APO Lanthar

[rosko]

Haven't been using the Voigtlander 125mm much of late, but took it out on a cool day-off hiking San Dimas Canyon.

Beautiful series, Jack !

Here  butterflies called Zygeania fausta :

[Akira]

Stunning images, Francis!  I especially like the second one.  It is simple (I love simplicity) and beautiful also as a color composition.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The Voigtländer 125 mm f/2.5 APO-Lanthar is an all-round lens with distinction. Not perfect, as it although engraved 'Macro' by the makers, it is in fact better performing at more distance. Thus I use this lens equally well for landscapes as for details. However, this is not a first-choice lens for portraits of female subjects.

[JJChan]

After the rain

[Fons Baerken]

D700

[Bjørn Rørslett]

These flower portraits are all very nice, probably taken a bit before 1:2?. The onset of blue fringing in close-ups starts to appear around 1:2 and gets worse at 1:1. That is why I think the APO 125 is less optimised for 'macro' than its designation might indicate. We are talking about a detail in the performance of an otherwise superlative optic, though.

[Fons Baerken]

Yes dont take the voigtlander up to close, i have seen blue fringing and even complete blue colour shifts .

[John Koerner]

Stellar lens and stellar images, nice work!

Thank you.

[John Koerner]

Beautiful series, Jack !

[John Koerner]

After the rain

Beautiful.

[John Koerner]

D700

Beautiful.

[John Koerner]

Not perfect, as it although engraved 'Macro' by the makers, it is in fact better performing at more distance.

Yes dont take the voigtlander up to close, i have seen blue fringing and even complete blue colour shifts .

Your opinions are contrary to most.

Most people believe the Voightlander 125mm APO macro has almost no color fringing, including this review.

Can you show me the color-fringing in this 1:1 image I just shot a couple of days ago?:

My opinion is, if you're getting color-fringing at 1:1, it is only because you're shooting in unsuitable light.

A picture's worth a thousand words: show me your color-fringed 1:1 images, and I will bet in every case the images were in harsh light conditions, not optimal ones.

Jack

[charlie]

My opinion is, if you're getting color-fringing at 1:1, it is only because you're shooting in unsuitable light.

A picture's worth a thousand words: show me your color-fringed 1:1 images, and I will bet in every case the images were in harsh light conditions, not optimal ones.

Jack

Isn't that one of the reasons a lens is optimized for a particular task, that it works seamlessly under a variety of different lighting conditions?

[Andrea B.]

Mostly the Voigt 125 APO also does work well in harsher light. After all, we do not always get the choice to shoot in optimal light. The occasional tot of violet fringe in harsh light is dealt with easily enough.

This thread has reminded me to retrieve my 125 APO from its case and get out outdoors with it.  I've neglected it recently.

Added Later:  Here is an MTF test which shows only 1/4 of a pixel of Lateral CA at f/2.5, f/4 and f/5.6.
It's probably hard to get much better than that. 
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/267-voigtlander-sl-125mm-f25-apo-lanthar-test-report--review?start=1
 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The image magnification is  not mentioned. The independent observations of slight blue lateral fringing are from near 1:1. Otherwise the APO-Lanthar is as clean as a whistle.

What made me discard a newly acquired AFS 105 mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor VR G and let the AO-Lanthar take its position many years ago was the near total lack of longitudinal chromatic aberration ('axial colour') of the Voigtländer. This imparts a special clarity to the images that very few other lenses can match.