I've been enjoying the A7. I've been shooting a lot with the Voigtländer 40mm Nokton Classic f/1.4. There's just something about the feel of the lens, the focal length (50mm feels too tight sometimes, and 35mm feels too wide), and the way it renders that I love. Here are a few black and whites from the A7 & Nokton 40mm combo: {} Let's not trespass here by ALXPhotog, on Flickr {} Winter by ALXPhotog, on Flickr {} Lakefront minimalism by ALXPhotog, on Flickr
It's quickly becoming my favorite focal length! I find it useful for landscape (at least, how I shoot landscape), street, portrait, etc. It's a very versatile lens.
For me it has always been my favorite focal length. The 20mm on my GH2 had the same angle of view and now the Voigtländer 40/1.4 is the default lens on the A7 and I get most of my keepers with it. Once, when I had Nikon F3's and many lenses but not a 40mm, I was seriously trying to lay my hands on an Olympus OM 40/2 and an Olympus body once I got the lens. Never succeeded, although I've had an Olympus 35SP rangefinder camera with a fixed 42/1.7 lens but it was a bit flat even stopped down. These days the Olympus OM 40/2 fetches very high prices, around € 300 and then I'm not even talking about Buy-It-Now prices ranging mostly between € 400-500. My used Voigtländer 40/1.4 cost me less, a little over € 300 and that's for a current and faster lens. However, the Voigtländer 40/1.4 is not without its flaws. For starters, its closed focusing distance is only 0.7m which annoys me sometimes. And it needs stopping down to f/8 to get sharp across the frame. At larger apertures (smaller f-numbers) it gets progressively more unsharp outside the center until only a relatively small center circle is sharp at f/2 or f/1.4. If you want something in focus near the edge, you'll have to seriously stop down. Bokeh can be a bit busy in the background and swirly near the corners, foreground bokeh is beautiful. And yet despite all this, I just love the Voigtländer 40mm because of its field of view. It's the widest standard lens as I see it. With a 35mm I feel I have to start to pay attention to the foreground so that's wide-angle in my book. And at 50mm I start to lose the all-inclusive feeling I get with shorter lenses. Maybe I could get by with a Minolta 45/2 but I loathe the feeling of that cheap, plasticky, non-smooth focussing piece of cr*p; optically it's not bad BTW. A low-price alternative is the Konica Hexanon 40mm 1:1.8. Buy-It-Now prices are mostly € 99; I won an auction for it paired with a Konica Autoreflex TC and Sun zoomlens 85-205/4.5 for € 43.50, which is about normal. This lens is mostly sold together with a body for very reasonable prices. I'm still waiting for the Konica set as well as for the Konica AR -> E-mount adapter. If the Hexanon 40mm is sharp across the frame at f/8 it may become my landscape lens because it focusses closer. Eventually one of the two 40mm lenses will probably go.
I use a Heliod adapter that allows for closer focus. Since you like this lens so much, you really should try one. It makes a world of difference.
Thanks for the tip. I'm a bit weary of introducing of another variable in the path that can lead to misalignment, so I might go for the Voigtländer product, hoping it has low tolerances. Its price suggests as much! :eek_old:
I use this one from Hawk's Factory. It's very well built and not cheap either. I have version 2, I think there is a version 3 now. Totally recommend it. {} My Vöigtlander Nokton 40mm looks like this on the NEX-7 with the adapter {}
I bought cheap chinese copy of this origo adapter and it wobbles too much... What about original, is it hard-wearing enough to pay extra money???
Yes. I only have one lens I use it on so it stays on the lens and it's just as well built as the Vöightlander. I don't even think of it as separate anymore. No wobbles, just solid. it's like having 2 focus rings on the lens.
