hi guys..

I was offered USD 270 for this with viewfinder and maybe a m-mount adapter.

anyone tested this or had this....comments on price and performance?

thx..

-- Travis koh (teckyy@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002

Answers

I love mine, it's a stunning lens reguardless of the price

Brian

http://www.briandavidstevens.com

-- brian (briandavidstevens@talk21.com), March 21, 2002.

i have it in nikon rf mount (they made 500 of the 21, 25, 35P in the sc mount), and really love it. sadly, the LTM version is not rf coupled (the nikon version is coupled) but this is not a BIG deal considering the DOF of the lens (it is, however, a little deal -- scale focusing only gets you so far). i really think it (and maybe the 75mm) are the best lenses of the voigt lot. all the shots have a wonderful quality. and hey, you can't buy an m polarizer for $270!!

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), March 21, 2002.

not coupled? oh dear...shoot eveything in f4 focussed at 5 metres and more?

-- Travis koh (teckyy@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

Travis, the lack of RF coupling is not a big deal. The VC 21 is coupled, but I hardly ever utilize the coupling. You get very large DOF on super wides and you quickly learn how to guess distance.

Brian, so the naked protest photos on your site were shot with this lens?

-- Richard (rvle@yahoo.com), March 21, 2002.

This is a wonderful lens, especially for the money. The rangefinder not being coupled is not a problem because of the wide depth of field it gives you. It handles distortion very well as you can see from the lady and the dog shot. I obviously was very close but looks as it could of been shot with a 35 or 50mm lens.

-- Gerry Widen (gwiden@alliancepartners.org), March 21, 2002.

gerry, no distortion i can see..great..looks like from a 35mm

-- Travis koh (teckyy@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

Richard some were shot with this lens, others with the nikon set up. The scale focusing is no problem with this lens BTW

B

http://www.briandavidstevens.com

-- brian (briandavidstevens@talk21.com), March 21, 2002.

But if you want that wide angle look it can produce it.

-- Gerry Widen (gwiden@alliancepartners.org), March 21, 2002.

I just bought this lens and it should be arriving today. I got a good deal. I was contemplating the Leica 24 but that would have been $1300 more! Brian and Gerry's photos confirm that I made the right decision.

-- Richard (rvle@yahoo.com), March 21, 2002.

I mentioned a close focusing trick with this lens a while back. Set the lens at .85 meters, and move in until your split image lines up for perfectly focused close ups. Just a quirk but the lens couples with the Leica rangefinder at exactly .85 meters. Nice lens and very compact, sharp, with good distortion controll.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), March 21, 2002.

even though scale focus works pretty well with wides (a) 25mm is not all that wide (a LONG way from 21mm), and (b) your pics will be sharper if the lens is actually focused on the subject (assuming you have a single subject). just because something is within the DOF of the lens at a particular aperture doesn't mean it will be sharp, just acceptibly unsharp (according to someone else's idea of what constitutes acceptibly unsharp). you see the phrase "everything will be IN FOCUS from 5 meters to infinity at fX focused to Y with Zmm lens" so often that some people actually start to believe it. what is actually IN FOCUS is the SPOT that the lens is focused on; everything else is out of focus to some degree. and while we're at it, remember that wide angle lenses don't have inherent higher depth of field. dof is just a factor of magnification. wides magnify less than normals or teles, and so give the APPEARANCE of greater DOF. enlarge a section of a shot taken with a 25mm lens to equal the enlargement factor of the same picture section shot full frame with a 50mm lens and the dof will be identical. but you guys already knew all that!!

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), March 21, 2002.

Sure, I bet it's a great lens, but relying on depth of field and guessing of focusing distance is enough to scare me me away. I'd prefer the 21mm f/4 for that reason- my next lens! (maybe after the 28/1.9).

And at 25mm, I don't believe there is enough depth of field to guess, especially when shooting at close distances in lower light (around f/4 f/5.6). Some may have the skill, but I'm not gain to try.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

Kristian, I had the same reservation about guess-focusing when I got the Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4. It turned out to be a non-issue, and I haven't got a *single picture* that's out of focus from this lens-- that's how easy guess-focusing is with a wide-angle lens, once you're used to it.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 22, 2002.

I had the same experience as Hoyan above-the results with the 25mm have been sharp pictures. The only time I was uncomfortable scale focusing was for when I wanted to take a wide angle close ups,and the little .85 meter focus trick I mentioned above solved that. The funny thing is that I borrowed a coupled Konica 28mm M lens, and I found for most of the shots I took it was more practical and faster to scale focus it than to try and use the double image. On the wide angles, the double image does not move very much when fine focussing and you just end up fussing with it more than needed. The 3 focus position click stops on the 25 make it a great shoot from the hip lens as well.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), March 22, 2002.