The Voigtlander 110mm and 65mm APO Macros on the Nikon Z7 Camera
I’m a big fan of the Voigtlander APO lenses and have been for years. I was sad that Zeiss forbid them to keep making the Voigtlander 125mm APO Lanthar when they moved to Japan. It looks like that stricture is breaking up or at least bending with the advent of the Voigtlander 110mm and 65mm APO Macros in Sony E-Mount.
With my first look at the TZE-01 adapter from TechArt, I find the TZE-01 adapter easy to take on and off, so no “frozen-on” that some adapters show, where I have to take a pair of wide-pliers to gently get the adapter off.
I tested the TZE-01 with both the Voigtlander 65mm APO Macro and the Voigtlander 110mm APO Macro. The reviews I have read on these lenses praise the 110mm more than the 65mm, but I’m funny in what I like. First, I like a slightly wider macro lens and 65mm suits me fine.
They say the focus throw for both lenses is comparable, but I am only (or mostly) interested in the close-up and near macro range. For that, the 65mm macro has a focus throw of about 325 degrees, taking perhaps the last 50 degrees for the 2-meter distance and out.
As for the 110mm lens, it has about 250 degrees for the distance from 1:1 to 1:2, so for my purposes it has a more limited focus throw and it shows. I am used to a long focus through like the Voigtlander 125mm APO-Lanthar (630-degrees) and the Leical 100mm Elmarit-R (720 degrees) lenses. Compared to these classic lenses, the focus throw of new Voigtlander 110mm and 65mm APO lenses are a bit shorter than I like. Of the two new ones, the 65mm focus-throw does not bother me, but the 110mm is just enough shorter to make life more difficult than they would have had to. For close-up work I need a longer focus throw, although I try to make do.
Both lenses have 10-blades, not the best, but for me not a real problem. The 110mm lens goes 1:1, while the 65mm lens goes 1:2. I seldom work 1:1, so the wider range of the 65mm is just fine with me.
Neither of these lenses is up to what if find as the best for my work, lenses like:
APO EL Nikkor 105mm f/5.6
Schneider Macro-Varon 85mm f/4.5
Printing Nikkors (95mm, 105mm, and 150mm)
Nikkor “O” CRT lens 55mm f/1.2
Hartblei Superrotator Macro 120mm f/4 T/S
and others.
These new Voigtlanders are in the category of the Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 125mm f/2.5, but I prefer the 9-blades of the CV-125 to the new 65mm and 110mm with their 10-blades. The CV-125 APO Lanthar is a magic lens, IMO. These three Voigtlanders (like the CV-125) produce more artifacts when stacked than I like, but they clean up pretty well. I see the two new Voigtlanders (110mm and 65mm) as a good bet for non-studio work, shooting outside in the field, etc.
Right now, I am being a little hard on the 110mm and the 65mm APOs, to see if I will really use them. I probably will. The TZE-01 is so small that it’s almost like they were made for the Nikon Z7. I have a TZE-01 for each of them, so I won’t be doing a lot of taking the adapters on and off.
I may find I want to use these two lenses on a focus rail to get a smoother result when stacking focus, as I do.
I hate to do that because the focus rail is not the best for the stacking software, but will check it out anyway.
Here are a few quick images taken with the CV-65 APO Macro. Still not happy with the 100mm... yet.
