Three faulty lenses in a row
Thursday, 3 October 2024 10:30
Voigtlander’s announcement of the Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.2 had me quite excited and I pre-ordered it as soon as I could. It arrived in the first few days of August. The lens build gave a super impression. Small, great focus feel, a very nice focus tab, and in silver I thought it looked fairly good. At the first opportunity on a sunny day, I went out to take some rudimentary test images. It was instantly obvious the lens had a slight back focus, which extended a little past infinity, even though the rangefinder lined up perfectly with infinity. On inspection of the images in Lightroom, I noticed that the left side mid-zone had more astigmatism than the right, even still at f/5.6. This gave that area of focus a slight double sided harshness, which the symmetrically opposite didn’t have. In general, the entire optical symmetry of this lens wasn’t optimal, where the top-left/ bottom-right and top-right/ bottom-left were just not producing the same results.
Very disappointed, there wasn’t much I could do. I got a quote from UPS to return the lens, since that was how it shipped to me from the UK. For the same service that cost me £45 to ship it from the UK, I was quoted £201 to send it back. With that, I packed the lens away and forgot about it. Extremely frustrating.
A month goes by, and I decide to pre-order the new APO-Lanthar 50mm f/3.5 lenses. I really liked the look of the Silver Type II lens, but the matt finish of the Type I lens also intrigued me. I personally found that the design choices for both lenses are a little weird and unnecessary. The non-collapsing collapsable-look of the Type I is annoying, but the 34mm filter thread felt unnecessary. That could have been 39mm. The Type II single barrel focus design, that rotates the entire optical assembly including the aperture assembly, was also a questionable design choice. The skinny focus ring was so small that it dwarfs the already tiny M mount.
The Silver APO Type II was my favourite of the two, despite its usability quirks. As mentioned, rotating the focus ring would rotate the aperture mechanism with it, so at certain points of focus the aperture in use would be obscured. Secondly, it was impossible to adjust the aperture ring without inevitably adjusting the focus.
The Matt Black APO Type I, had a great paint finish that matched that of my M11 very well, but the design of the lens was just not to my liking, and the focus and general feel of the lens was not quite as smooth as the Type II. It even had a tiny amount of focus play when changing focus directions back and forth. Ergonomically, the lens needed some getting used to, since I often fumbled to find the focus ring, and I felt it a little too thin and close to the camera. I’m sure this would have just taken a little time to get used to.
The problem was that both lenses were lemons. Both lenses front focused to varying degrees. They seemed to be fairly accurate at infinity hard stop, but front focused at anything closer than 30m or there about. It was really hard to say for sure, since the centre depth of focus is rather large at infinity. It is an f/3.5 lens after all.
The Silver Type II lens, at infinity focus, had symmetrical performance between its left and right edges. However, the top and bottom performance wasn’t symmetrical, showing that the top back focused in relation to the bottom. The point of focus of the top of the frame would also show a harshness the likes of higher astigmatism. A double edge to all fine detail. I noticed this in my vertical shots (holding the camera right side up), where the left of the image would just not render cleanly. The problem with the Type II, this asymmetry will change with the rotation of the focus, since the whole optical unit turns with the focus ring.
Below you can see left and right crops from the focus plane of a vertical image shot at f/5.6.
The crops below represent the same portion of the frame taken from two images; One shot in normal orientation, the other with the camera rotated 180º to match the same framing. The left represents the top of the frame, while the right represents the bottom. The image was shot at f/5.6.
The Matt Black APO Type I, was something else again. Its performance off-centre was generally a little better than the Silver Type II. However, it too had a tilt, but in the opposite direction, where the top would front focus in relation to the bottom of the frame. In addition, it showed a slight swing to the left, where the right edge focused behind that of the left.
The crops below represent the same left portion of the frame taken from two images; One shot in normal orientation, the other with the camera rotated 180º to match the same framing. The left representing the left of the frame and the right representing the right side of the frame. The image was shot at f/5.6.
Now to show the mid-frame differences of the Color-Skopar 50mm.
The crops below represent the same left portion of the frame taken from two images; One shot in normal orientation, the other with the camera rotated 180º to match the same framing. The left representing the left mid-frame and the right representing the right-mid frame. The image was shot at f/4. This isn’t a question of focus. The left mid-zone always rendered like this at the plane of focus.
Next I want to show the asymmetry differences between the bottom left and top right performance of the Color-Skopar 50mm.
The crops below represent the same left portion of the frame taken from two images; One shot in normal orientation, the other with the camera rotated 180º to match the same framing. The left representing the bottom left of the frame and the right representing the top tight of the frame. The image was shot at f/5.6.
It's understandably very frustrating and depressing to receive three faulty new lenses. I don’t live in a country with a distributer near by. Returning a lens is often uneconomical, as mentioned above. Warrantees are essentially useless. I would pay more for a lens that has been thoroughly checked by the manufacturer. At this point I was rather lost for words, and I wrote the supplier from where I purchased the lenses. They too were thoroughly surprised. They’ve told me on more than one occasion that it’s almost impossible to get a faulty lens from Cosina. Well, there it is.
The suppliers stepped up though, and managed to send me a FedEx label for the return of the lenses after which they would issue me a refund. FedEx here is fairly inept, and I had to deliver the parcel to a depot 40km away, because they didn’t have any drivers. No big issue, the cost benefit made it worth the inconvenience. Not soon after, the parcel arrived back in the UK, and I was issued a refund. So with that the story ended on a positive note. Although I have lost the Tax and Duties paid on these lenses, I’m grateful that I’m not sitting with three expensive paperweights.