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Roger Cicala over at Lensrentals went on another OLAF testing spree, and this time the victim of his optical bench tests were the extremely affordable Veydra Mini Prime cinema lenses made for E-Mount and Micro Four Thirds sensors. These lenses are so inexpensive that Cicala has assumed (for some time) that they were also probably also ineffective. But as Roger put it:
[Today] we learned for the umpteenth time that doing scientific testing is a great way to shoot down Roger’s assumptions.
It turns out these lenses aren’t bad at all… in fact, Roger calls them “optically excellent.” And when he put them to the test against Zeiss CP.2 primes that cost 3x (or more) as much money, the Veydra Mini Primes (and here, again, we’re going to use his wording) “the Veydras just kick some serious resolution butt in this comparison.”
Here’s just one of those comparisons (more in the full test at Lensrentals), between the Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 85mm T2.1 (average of 10 samples) and the Veydra Mini Prime 85mm T2.2 (average of 9 samples):
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| Zeiss on the Left, Veydra on the Right |
Of course, this is a comparison on a single parameter: absolute resolution. But it’s also a comparison between a lens that costs $ 3,990 (the Zeiss CP.2) and $ 1,000 (the Veydra Mini Prime). Still, as Roger points out several times:
[These tests] won’t tell you a thing about how [the lens] focus breathes, how it handles, or whether it has that ‘film’ look. I will simply tell you how well it resolves (because you can roll your artsy eyes all you want; sometimes you have to make things look sharp).
The other factor to keep in mind is the image circle, because the Veydra Mini Primes are… well… mini. They’re only made for Micro Four Thirds and Super 35 image size and won’t cover a full-frame sensor. Still, the results of his test left Roger (and by extension, us) impressed.
Check out the full test over on Lensrentals, and if you’ve used them, drop a line in the comments about their real world performance.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)