Voigtlander MFT vs Contax Zeiss FF

[kye]

14 hours ago, anonim said:

Both lines are equally exceptional - just matter of taste and actual task which to prefer: milky and smoother Leica R's, or touch sharper and cotrastier Contax's. (And what is more interesting, their color characteristic are so deeply inner, that no matter how long I tried, for me it is impossible to achieve exactly the same character in grading process.) When I say "exceptional", I mean mostly mechanic quality and manual focusing precision. After 20 or so year, there's no rule which is better in that regard. When they were both young, I'd say that in general Leica's are tad better. But, contrary, I'd see more Contax's in well shape than Leica's. Also Contax has 60mm 1:1 macro, Leica R not, but Leica R has beautiful and not so expensive 28-70, while Contax has those exceptional and bulky push-pull zooms. Ah, indeed not to much lucky with zooms for m43 users!

But, Vogitlanders for m43 IMO have traits of both character at different f values. (Some sort of m43 Cooks I'd even say.) Voigts rendering is also bit or two cleaner than Leica R and Contax which I had (you always have to calculate and age). In fact, as FF Voigtlanders are competitive both to Leica M and modern Zeiss lenses, it seems that these m43 variants have extremely successful combination of both know-how origin of competitiveness - besides it that actually the same factory Cosina products them and modern Zeiss.

Of course, It's easy to understand question and worry about reselling value - but, once I understood that I'm working now, and that nothing better with tasks that I may encounter in near future doesn't need anything "better' or, to be truth, "more impressive to client" ... I choose to invest and keep those wonderful Voigts as best tools for me now.

You know, lenses are more as human with character - when you find real one friend, than it's not so nice to think how to resell them later

Their 0.95 for movies are better than Leicas and Zeiss 1.4 or 2 with speedbooster. People who point to 0.95 softness just don't use them correctly: there are always curvature to which have to pay attention. Their construction is well thought to achieve completely effective image at one zone of focusing. Better is impossible. Actually they are better than Leica Noctilux.

I also conceived that, actually, I didn't like more optics and more complication with adapters.

What people maybe often tend to forget is that - f0.95 is really T1.1 in the light gathering, but in depth of field it is not THAT uncontrolled shallow for video. So, having lenses that gather T1 and has depth of field of FF 1.8 value is fantastic and simple not existing in FF lenses world. Sigma Art's with speedbooster and some Milvus may be close - but I had also 18-35 twice and resell them because of sterile-and-oversharpening-undersmoothness in character (although unbeatable as run/gun tools), and Milvus have double price of Voigts.

Furthermore, Voigts with, say, GH5 (especially with Sage's lut),  mostly  diminished importance of GH5s for low light, still keeping stabilization.   

Shortly - maybe the main point is mine decision: living in afraid and permament recalculation of reselling and re-usage regarding money values, or learn inside-out best tools for my tasks. And I think there's no dilema: Voigts and Pocket and GHx series and probably Olympus or JVC etc. - at the moment produce image so competent that approach maximum level that human eyes can perceive, nothing to say about even more importancy of content, of inner beauty and aesthetic of respectable works.

The same goes with Fuji or Sony - but for reason that is needless to repeat, my choice is m43 and Voigtlanders as lenses that IMO squeeze every drop of know-how and a la cameleon exchangeable artistic qualities

In relation to the Voigts being soft at f0.95, that's definitely true, but I would still choose to have them be able to do f0.95 rather than only be something like f1.4 but remain sharp.  The advantage of the extra aperture is useful for multiple reasons.

I shoot in completely uncontrolled conditions, and so have to make do with whatever lighting is available, and in low-light there's many times I looked into the viewfinder and saw a dark image with muddy lifeless colours and the focus peaking highlighting the auto-ISO noise in the shadows, but then I start opening the aperture dial and the ISO noise goes away, the image lightens up, the colours clean up, and by the time that I hit the limit at 0.95 I am so happy that the lens can gather that much light that I don't care that the focal plane will be a little soft.

I like to be able to use aperture to control the attention of the viewer by focusing on what is important in the shot and to slightly blur the things that aren't important in the shot.  This is a fundamental of composition I think.  It also helps to create some depth in the image and escape that flat video look that people don't like (otherwise we'd all be using handicams and this forum wouldn't exist). Any lens is capable of blurring the background if the subject is quite close to the camera and the background is much further away, but in my travels I sometimes want to blur the background a bit when the subject is a bit farther away from the camera and closer to the background.  In normal circumstances you might just ask people to move, you might move the camera closer, or you might put on a longer focal length lens, but often I don't have the luxury of being able to do any of these, but I can just move the lens past the 1.7 or 1.4 maximum aperture of other lenses and get the job done with a simple adjustment.

There are also rare occasions where you want a greater than normal background blur for artistic effect.  This goes beyond the blur you would want just to control attention or to add some depth to the scene.  This could be used for highly emotional scenes, scenes depicting a POV with altered perception (half-asleep, drugged, the view of a baby, etc), but normally this is a night shot where you want to have pretty lights in the background.

This shot that I took a few weeks ago is a combination of all of the above - low-light, subject further away, no time to change lenses or move closer, and I wanted the background Christmas lights to look wonderful.  It's basically ungraded, but illustrates the points I think.

[anonim]

Thanks for explanation - yes, exactly.

[IronFilm]

On 12/28/2018 at 10:36 PM, 1Ale82 said:

I would try to guess about your future needs and what would be of m43 system (since Panasonic went full frame with Leica and Sigma in the joint venture, will there be a gh6 in the future?).

There 110% will be a GH6 in the future. 

A better question to ask would be "is there going to be a GH8??"
 

[kye]

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

A better question to ask would be "is there going to be a GH8??"

And can we afford the disk space and memory card requirements of the All-I codec??