Partner lens for 40/2 SL

Hi all,

I have a Voigtlander 40/2 SL II which I use with my Canon EOS 3. I love the lens, love the weight, rendering (which I know lots of people don't, particularly the bokeh) and the sharpness wide open. I'm looking for something a bit longer in the 50-85mm range, f/2 or faster. I had a Zeiss 50/1.4 in the past which I found outstanding so this is certainly an option as it has loads of character but I'm thinking it is maybe a bit too close to the 40 (even though I see the overall difference when comparing shots between the two)

So...looking at my options I have dismissed the standard Canon options as bland, the Ls are too expensive and the Sigmas look like they are sharp but don't have much character going for them, which leaves me with...

1 Zeiss 50/1.4 again
2 Voigtlander 58/1.4 but that means I need to use an adapter and stop down metering which is probably not such a big deal since I'll be shooting f/1.4-2.8
3 Zeiss 85/1.4 but that's probably getting a bit over the budget as I'd rather keep it under £600 though I could stretch it a bit if lucky on ebay...

Should I be looking at anything else? I guess all the other Olympus/Pentax/etc stuff is there but not sure what to look for. I want the lens for portraits mainly, full body and tight portraits. I do like tight portraits with 50mm lenses just as I also do like 85mm tight shots (had a Nikon 85/1.4 in the past, fantastic lens).

If anyone has any suggestions on a lens that matches the Voigtlander 40/2 look that would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Go another 5mm and check out the 90 Lanthar too.

Richard Sintchak (rich815) said:

Go another 5mm and check out the 90 Lanthar too.

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That's a bit too slow for my liking at f/3.5.

That's a pretty tight set of constraints and I can't immediately think of anything that fits them in EOS mount. If you're OK with an adapter, you should be able to get the FD 85/1.2L within your budget, I would think.

Failing that, there are all those Exakta lenses, but I don't know much about the options in the range you're looking at. Picking the brains of the Exaktaphiles would be a good direction to look in, though. (And I'd be interested in what comes up; I've got a Topcon that could use an interesting portrait lens.)

-NT

It's been suggested to me to look at maybe some Leica R glass. The 50 and 90 summicrons look quite interesting!

The Zeiss 85/1.4 is an outstanding lens, as close as you'll get to the look of a classic large format portrait lens for a 35mm camera. That includes some field curvature at wide apertures, which some would regard as a liability, but I regard it as a feature. If you want a super-sharp flat field lens in that focal length range, the Zeiss 100mm macro serves that function.

David A. Goldfarb said:

The Zeiss 85/1.4 is an outstanding lens, as close as you'll get to the look of a classic large format portrait lens for a 35mm camera. That includes some field curvature at wide apertures, which some would regard as a liability, but I regard it as a feature.

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I have the Contax SLR version of this and concur. Perhaps one of my most amazing SLR lenses.