Deep crops with the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm/1:2.0 and Sony A7R IV
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7406086_crop-1-1200x1477.jpg)
This is the first of a series of articles showcasing pictures taken with the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm/1:2.0 on the Sony A7R IV. These pictures were taken around Melbourne and demonstrate the ability to crop images from this combination heavily.
When I started using this lens I took a photograph in the State Rose Garden in Werribee, and it looked like this:
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7406086_full_context-1024x683.jpg)
I brought the image up in PhotoShop, and looked at what I had in the viewfinder while I was focusing. You can see it in the centre of the image above. Let me make it easier to see:
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7406086_crop-1-832x1024.jpg)
I liked that, so I cropped it out of the frame. That’s what I call a deep crop – I kept 1300 x 1600 pixels from the full 9504 x 6336 frame, or 2 megapixels out of 60.
Here’s a later example. I was at Werribee Open Range Zoo (it’s next to the Rose Garden), at the serval presentation. I wasn’t at the front of the audience, so I got some other people in my shot.
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7406001_full_context-1024x683.jpg)
Let’s zoom in again…
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7406001_crop-1024x623.jpg)
You can’t get too close to the meerkats at Melbourne Zoo, nor to the rhinos at Werribee Open Range Zoo.
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7407698_full_context-1024x683.jpg)
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7407698crop-1024x709.jpg)
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7408703_context-1024x683.jpg)
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7408703cc100-1024x596.jpg)
What these examples show is how much detail this lens can capture. The cropped images are pixel-for-pixel what I captured with this lens. I have scaled the full frame shots so this page doesn’t take ages to load – they are there to give context for the crops.
I am not saying that we have to crop every image this deeply, but I generally do some cropping to get rid of distractions, or to change the shape of the image. Here’s a much less savage crop:
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7408093_context-1024x683.jpg)
![](https://staging.visualvoyager.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A7408093crop-1024x1024.jpg)
Here are those images again, in more detail, so you can see what detail hides in the full frame shots.