0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my standard review of the Voigtlander
0:14
Nocton 40mm f1.2. This is a fully manual lens that is designed for Sony FE, full frame mirrorless
0:23
and in many ways it handles and behaves like a classic Zeiss lens. Not surprising since
0:29
both classic Zeiss lenses and modern Voigtlander lenses are produced by Kosina in Japan and so
0:37
you know there's a lot of carryover between the two lenses however with the Voigtlander lenses
0:42
in many ways you get a more competitive price than what you did with a lot of the Zeiss lenses
0:47
Now if you want all of the nitty-gritty of this particular lens and all the details particularly
0:52
if you're considering purchasing one I'd recommend that you take a look at the definitive review
0:56
where I dive deeper into the details of the build, but also of the image quality and really break that down in detail for you
1:03
and give you a nuanced reporting as to the performance of this little baby
1:08
And so, however, if you're looking for a quicker review, you don't have as much time, you're in the right place
1:13
So let's jump in and let's take a look at this lens that in many ways reminds me of the character of the classic Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4
1:22
And I'll detail a little bit more why in just a moment. So first of all, let's talk about the build and the handling
1:28
This is a beautifully made lens that, as I said, is very much
1:31
if you're familiar at all with classic Zeiss lenses, it is very much like that
1:36
in that this is a manual focus lens, has a beautiful black anodized finish
1:41
a knurled metal focus ring. I know that some of you who are kind of Zeiss aficionados
1:47
some of you lament the transition to rubberized focus rings. And so if you like the old knurled metal focus ring
1:54
This will take you right back to your sweet place there. And of course, it focuses with that beautiful damping that is unique to well-engineered manual focus lenses
2:05
It also has a manual aperture ring. And so the aperture ring has one-third stop detents
2:11
It's nice and nicely defined. Now, in both of these cases, these manual functions are offset by the fact that the lens is electronically enabled
2:21
And so what that means is that when you start to focus, you will get Sony's focus assist
2:25
which means that the active portion of the frame is going to be automatically magnified if you have that setting enabled in either the viewfinder or the lcd screen and so i find that that really helps to nail focus by visually confirming firming focus
2:40
and so that's a very welcome thing to me and of course then you can use other things like focus
2:44
overlays etc to further help with your focus acquisition and so that is a nice thing likewise
2:51
with aperture while you control the aperture from the lens itself that information is shown on screen
2:57
And so I find that also useful because if you have your eye up to the viewfinder and, you know, you're familiar with the lens and you reach up and adjust aperture just by feel
3:06
you'll be able to have a visual confirmation of what your selected aperture is, which, of course, is very, very useful
3:12
Up front, you have that beautiful facade that is unique to these Voigtlander lenses and, again, like classic Zeiss lenses
3:19
Now, the lens hood itself is included. It's metal. It's tightly ribbed inside. It's the same anodized finish on the outside
3:27
it is a thread on or screw on rather than a bayoneting lens hood
3:32
So the downside of that is that you can't reverse it for storage. Now, in this case, it's not really all that big a deal
3:37
The lens hood itself, as you can see, is fairly shallow. And the lens itself is short enough that, for me
3:43
I would just put it on there and forget about it. Just treat it as part of the design
3:48
It'll help to protect that front element. And it's threaded on the inside
3:52
so you can still use filters in a 58-millimeter filter thread. And so beyond that, as noted at the back, it is electronically enabled
4:00
It is not weather sealed, however. So that's the one thing that you will miss. As far as the overall dimensions here, you can see that the weight is moderate
4:09
I believe it's 420 grams, and I'll put that spec up here right now
4:14
And it's also nice, and the length is nice and short. For an f1.2 lens, this is actually a very compact lens
4:22
And so certainly as someone that values that, And I will say my experience with Voigtlander in general is that they're not gratuitous in their sizing
4:29
They tend to at least consider the fact that people have to carry these lenses around
4:33
And so they keep them relatively compact, which I appreciate. It's a little bit heavier than what you might expect
4:39
And it has that kind of unique density that's much like a Zeiss lens in that it's all metal and glass
4:45
And so it feels a little heavier than what the size suggests if you're accustomed to the typical plastic fantastics of other lenses
4:54
So beautifully made overall and handles very nicely. The focus throw travels about 130 degrees by my estimation
5:01
enough to have precision at a variety of different focus points And so no complaints about that It beautifully damped very very smooth and so the focus action is nice Now when it comes to the image quality from this
5:14
lens it is a little bit of a mixed bag and the reason why I say that is not because of any kind
5:20
of glaring deficiency but more that this lens is designed around a philosophy that's different
5:26
than modern lenses. We've seen in the last couple of years we've seen f1.2 lenses that are
5:33
amazingly sharp from corner to corner at f1.2 have amazing contrast at f1.2 it's very different
5:39
from what f1.2 lenses used to be it used to be that you'd buy an f1.2 lens be it uh you know a
5:45
canon ef 50 millimeter f1.2 and you would expect it to be a little bit what we called dreamy wide
5:52
open a little bit lower contrast um not quite as sharp you know like pixel peeping sharp at f1.2
6:00
That's true of this lens in that there's actually a fair amount of sharpness there
6:05
but there's a kind of a surface blur, as you can see here, that kind of obscures textures from popping
6:11
It's low contrast at a pixel level. However, as you'll see from these images here
6:16
whether it being a portrait or a general purpose shot, if you look at the global contrast
6:21
the images actually look reasonably sharp and contrasty at a global level
6:26
it's only at a pixel level that you see some of that surface blur
6:30
And most of these shots are on a 42 megapixel A7R Mark III
6:35
And so, you know, don't expect it to be razor sharp, super high contrast at f1.2
6:41
f1.4, not much different. By f2, you're starting to see higher contrast, less of that blur
6:47
And then from about f2.8 on, the lens actually kind of reverses
6:51
and becomes incredibly high contrast with amazing acuity or rendering of fine details. In this shot, for example, it just, I don't know that I've hardly
6:59
seen better detail rendered at a pixel level. And if you look, you know, zoom into this shot
7:05
you can see that there is just amazing definition of all kinds of small, you know, textures and
7:12
things in the frame. And so it's actually really, really impressive on that front
7:17
And so this is a lens that, you know, is not necessarily going to appeal to everyone. It
7:22
depends on what your shooting priorities are. The bokeh, the trade-off for that is that the bokeh is
7:28
really soft and creamy. You know that often being a little bit lower contrast means that your trade-off
7:33
is the bokeh signature is really really nice And I think that that true here Not so much in maybe like with bokeh highlights with Christmas lights something like that Because very quickly the aperture blades here like on Zeiss lenses are straight
7:51
instead of curved. And so you start to see the shape of the 10 aperture blades very quickly
7:55
as you can see here in this sequence. And so I don't love it so much for that. But for other
8:00
kind of real world shooting, I think that the bokeh signature and rendering is really soft and
8:05
pleasing. And so that's kind of your trade-off for that. Really at the end of the day, this is a lens
8:11
that is designed more for people who care about the feel and the global look of images. The color
8:16
signature is gorgeous. And that's been true of all the Voigtlander lenses I've used. I think that like
8:21
Zeiss, there's some kind of special sauce there. I think it's a property of the optical glass that
8:26
they use, but really, really special. And so that I love. I love the overall look and feel of images
8:32
I don't necessarily love them at a pixel level because I am accustomed to reviewing so many lenses that I care about the fine details
8:39
But if you don't get lost in the weeds of that and you just care about the look of images
8:43
I think that this is a lens that's designed more for those whose photography trends towards being artistic, artful
8:50
rather than those that are about technical perfection. And so you know yourself better than I, what side of that coin that you land on
8:57
And so you can maybe then comprehend whether or not this is a lens you might be interested in
9:03
At $950, it's certainly not cheap. However, it is built like Zeiss lenses
9:08
It's built to be a lens that will last you for life. And so maybe there's some consolation for that
9:13
However, you're going to have to love the look of the images to make that investment
9:18
There's a lot of more expensive lenses than this, but there's certainly also cheaper lenses to hit the 40 millimeter, 45 millimeter focal length with
9:26
and so of course that at the end of the day comes down to you and your priorities but i hope that
9:31
this review has helped you to make a more informed decision if you want more detail check out that
9:36
definitive review or you can look in the description down below and i have a text review that has
9:40
lots of the nitty-gritty breaks it all down for you there's also an image gallery there if you
9:45
want to take a look at more photos than what you've been able to see in this review or see them for a
9:49
longer period of time and of course beyond that there are buying links if you'd like to purchase
9:54
one of these for yourself. There's also links to follow me on social media
9:59
to become a patron, sign up for my newsletter. If you haven't already, please click that
10:03
subscribe button right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day
