Ahhh, it is nice to be reviewing another Voigtländer lens! My last Voigtländer review was back in 2020, and it was actually a review of the APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 that a subscriber had personally loaned me because I had no access to Voigtländer products here in Canada because of their not having a Canadian distributor (at least that I was aware of) and a complication with sending their products across the border from the US. Fortunately that has all changed for the better, and early this year I received an email that I was very happy to get – a “hello” from JCL Sales Group, the distributor for Voigtländer in Canada. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing more Voigtländer reviews, to which I responded, “absolutely!”

I’ve got a bit of soft spot for Voigtländer lenses, having owned three of them and currently using one that I do own (APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro) on a regular basis. That has only grown since Zeiss has seemingly transitioned away from producing non-cine camera lenses, leaving Voigtländer as the only company filling that unique niche of premium manual focus lenses. Voigtländer is actually the oldest surviving lens maker, and is a company that traces its roots to Vienna, Austria, in the mid 1700s. Like Zeiss (a German company), the more modern lenses have been produced in Japan by Cosina, and there is just something special about their optical glass that produces gorgeous colors. Today’s review is of one of their newest lenses – the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0. I’m reviewing it on Sony E-mount, and while there are similar lenses for Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts, Voigtländer says that this new lens was exclusively developed for Sony. This is the most expensive lens currently made by Voigtländer, and the reason is all about that F1.0 maximum aperture. It’s extreme in every way, and I’ve reviewed very few lenses that match the light gathering potential of the Nokton F1 (as I’ll call it for brevity here). If you want my full thoughts on this lovely new lens, you can either watch my video review below, read the text review…or just keep reading.

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Thanks to JCL Sales Group for sending me a review loaner of this lens.   As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.

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Voigtländer lenses follow a tried and true formula that has been true across the four different mounts that I’ve tested them on. This includes a premium build that is all metal and glass, well executed aperture and focus rings, electronic contacts to communicate EXIF data and to enable more manual focus aids, but no weather sealing. Their lenses tend to be more like classic Zeiss lenses in build but typically smaller and less extreme in size. All of this is true here, and while the Nokton 50mm isn’t a small lens, it is only moderately sized. It has that stubby profile that looks really great mounted on your camera.

There are two aspects of Voigtländer lenses that I enjoy: 1) the beautiful manual focus action and 2) the uniquely beautiful rendering and image quality. That F1.0 aperture allows for extremely shallow depth of field and a lot of lovely, creamy bokeh.

So is the new Nokton 50mm F1.0 worth the roughly $1900 USD price tag? That’s going to depend a lot on your priorities.

Build and Handling

Images taken with the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

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Purchase the Sony a7RV @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Sony Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

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Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Sony Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

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