Photography News | Issue 62 | photographynews.co.uk
46
First tests
Voigtlander 110mm f/2.5MACROAPO-Lanthar £875
Autofocusing accuracy, speed and versatility are better than ever, yet interest in manual focus prime lenses is on the up and up. Voigtlander’s latest lens is a 110mm f/2.5 MACRO APO-Lanthar and its price tag puts it up against Sony’s own 90mm f/2.8 macro AF lens that sells at around the same price. The APO-Lanthar focuses as close as 37cm to give life-size magnification without any extra accessories. The longer focal length allows a comfortable working distance when shooting close up and also gives a flattering perspective for portrait and general work. This lens is a quality piece of engineering with an all metal body, 14 lens elements and an aperture ring with 0.3EV step click-stops. Add classic styling and you have a lens that impresses straight out of the box. I tried the lens on a full-frame Sony A7R and on this body the lens is very much the senior partner. The combination is clearly front heavy. The lens has the circuitry to work with Sony’s five-axis image stabilisation system in cameras with that feature. This is a handy benefit especially shooting handheld extreme close-ups, because camera shake can potentially ruin your shots. Circuitry in the lens also means you get EXIF data recorded by the camera for post-shoot reference. The lens’s profile gets slimmer as you get closer to the camera body and this does make getting at the aperture ring a tad fiddly. Get used to it and it works fine and the ring’s smooth-yet-positive action makes up for the minor niggle. The focusing barrel is smooth and nicely taut so no feel of sloppiness and it stays put if you take your hand off the barrel. The focus barrel does have a long travel, taking about one and a half full turns to cover from infinity down to the 37cm minimum focusing distance. To be fair, the travel to cover from infinity to 1m is about of a rotation, so most of the barrel’s travel takes place when you venture into the territory of close-up shooting. For example, from 45cm to 38cm takes one quarter of a turn but given how
Specs
Price
£875
Format Full-frame Mount Sony E
Autofocus No, manual only Construction
14 elements in 12 groups Special lens elements Abnormal partial dispersion lens Coatings Not specified Filter size 58mm Aperture range F/2.5-22 Diaphragm 10 blades Internal focus No Manual focus Yes Minimum focus 35cm Focus limiter No Maximummagnification 1:1 Distance scale Yes Depth-of-field scale Yes Image stabilizer No, integral distance encoder enables support for five-axis in-body image stabilisation with bodies with that feature Tripod collar No Lens hood Supplied Weather-sealed No Dimensions (dxl) 7.8x9.9cm Weight 771g Contact flaghead.co.uk
Left The Voigtlander lens features quality engineering and classic styling. Here, it's at its maximum extension give to 1:1 magnification.
centre and acceptable at the edges, but then macro workers usually frequent mid to small apertures to get some depth-of-field in their shots so this isn’t too much of an issue. Stop down to f/5.6 and beyond and you start to appreciate this lens’s skills because pictures are crisp across the frame. And it just gets better from this point with f/11 being the best aperture delivering contrasty, very sharp shots. If you do want to explore the wider apertures, then the ten-blade iris diaphragm will give some eye- catching bokeh in your portraits. WC
critical focus with close-up subjects is, the long travel makes critical fine-tuning simple. On the camera, you do get the benefit of focus peaking and magnifying focus check to help achieve critical focus. Optically, the 110mm lens performed with credit. We tested it at all apertures with normal outdoors subjects, but also at 1:1 (images shown here) to see how it fared in its specialist area. With extreme close-ups, open aperture quality was decent in the
Original image
F/2.5
F/4
Verdict
F/5.6
F/8
While manual focusing is not everyone’s cup of tea the Voigtlander 110mm f/2.5 MACRO APO-Lanthar has plenty going for it, including a fine optical performance at its optimum apertures. Pros Optical quality, metal body, smooth focusing barrel Cons Access to the aperture ring could be better, long focus travel with close subjects
F/11
F/16
Images Lens was set to its minimum focus to give shots of a £10 note at 1:1. The shutter was fired using a 10-second self-timer.
F/22
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