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Voigtlander Nokton 75mm F1.5 Review | Zeiss on a Budget?
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Jun 26, 2024
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a deep dive review of the beautiful Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 premium manual focus lens...on Nikon Z. | Read the Text Review: | Visit the Image Gallery: | Purchase the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3L14aV6 | Adorama https://howl.me/cmwvVlpWui2 | Amazon https://amzn.to/3xwFtwY | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3xrd9vV | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3VUzMCo Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch | Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | On the Web: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu Follow Craig @ https://www.instagram.com/craigstoffersen/ Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Adorama: https://howl.me/cjU0LKdp3LN Camera Canada: http://bit.ly/DLACameraCan Sony Canada: https://www.thesonyshop.ca/?ref=abbott Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HrY64d Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/3qG1p18 Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Into the AM Clothing: https://bit.ly/intotheAMda and use code DUSTIN10 for 10% off Make a donation via Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dustinTWI ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro and Concept 2:22 - Build and Design
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you a review, finally, of another
0:15
new Voigtlander lens. The last time I did a Voigtlander review was back in 2020, and I have not had access to
0:23
loaners for the last four years. Actually, the last Voigtlander review I did was because a subscriber actually loaned me
0:29
one of their own lenses so that I could cover it. But fortunately, recently, I was reached out to buy a new distributor, I think a new distributor
0:38
of Voigtlander here in Canada, and so they were able to hook me up with some new Voigtlander
0:43
loaners, and I hope to have an ongoing relationship with them in the future
0:48
So for those of you that are Voigtlander fans, I am back in business
0:52
It's also my first time to review a Voigtlander lens on Nikon Z mount
0:57
As many of you know, I am newer to Nikon platform, and so this is the first time I've done a
1:04
manual focus review on my new Z8 here. So I was interested to see how it handled there
1:09
At the same time, I'm also reviewing the 50mm F1, the Nocton 50mm F1 lens on Sony E-mount
1:17
So a couple of different platforms, but two new lenses from them that I'm taking a look at
1:22
So today we're taking a look at the 75mm F1.5, and this is a Voigtlander Nocton lens
1:29
So the Nocton lineup comes from the word nocturnal, and so it is those lenses that are designed
1:35
for excellent low-light performance, so typically a very wide maximum aperture. And so in this case, we've got a focal length of 75mm, just short of 85mm, obviously one
1:47
of those kind of tweener focal lengths that you either love or you hate
1:51
I do like this. It's a little bit more versatile than 85mm, while retaining a lot of the similar quality
1:57
So it's one that I actually personally enjoy. Combine that with a somewhat unique maximum aperture of F1.5, rather than F1.4, and you
2:06
have a lens that comes at about $900 US. I'm reviewing it as noted on Nikon Z, however, it is also coming on Sony E-mount as well
2:15
as Canon RF mount. And so is this a lens worth considering
2:19
Well, we're going to dive in and explore that in our review today. If you're not familiar with Voigtlander, let me just give you just a really quick overview here
2:27
This is originally an Austrian company. Actually it is the longest surviving manufacturer of lenses, basically that exist at this point
2:36
going back into the 1700s. But they are now produced in Japan by Cosina, and that is actually a similar arrangement
2:44
to what was happening with Zeiss lenses, Zeiss being a German company, but most of their
2:48
lenses in recent history have been produced in Japan. And there is a lot of similarity between these two brands, in my opinion, when it comes to
2:55
the overall look of images, the rendering from the optical glass, which is to say I
3:00
love the rendering from Voigtlander because as many of you know, I've always been a fan
3:04
of the rendering from Zeiss. They make manual focus only lenses, though these are what I might call a luxury manual
3:12
focus lens in that it does have full electronic contacts, which means that all of the typical
3:18
focus aids are going to work, it will give you XF data
3:22
Basically the only difference is that you have to control focus and you have to control
3:26
the aperture through rings. But if you've never used a true manual focus ring, you're in for a treat
3:32
This is not like the simulation of manual focus on most mirrorless lenses
3:37
You have hard stops, you have this perfectly damped, gliding along of focus that is just beautiful
3:44
You have 180 degrees of focus throw and the manual focus experience is just pretty much flawless
3:51
Now, you may have noticed, and I'll do it again so you can see, the lens does extend
3:55
about 15 millimeters in additional length when you focus. In this case, you're actually focusing towards minimum focus
4:02
The lens is fully retracted at infinity and will extend as you focus towards the minimum
4:07
focus distance. You can focus fairly closely with this lens for a focal length like this
4:13
You can focus as closely as 50 centimeters. Typical 85 millimeter lens, you're focusing down only as closely as 80 to 85 centimeters
4:22
So you can both focus more closely and you can get a higher maximum magnification, in
4:26
this case 0.21 times, which is very, very useful. Combine that with an F1.5 aperture and you have a tiny depth of field
4:34
And it's kind of fun to play with when you're able to manual focus and kind of put that
4:38
depth field exactly where you want. Now, when you go to use that focus ring, you'll find that the distance markings are etched
4:45
into the barrel. You have both feet and meters there to help with that
4:49
There's also hyperfocal markings there if you want to do kind of zone focusing or hyperfocusing
4:56
And so those aids are there as per usual. And then you have a very slim aperture ring up front
5:02
This is a clicked aperture ring. It has one third stop detents as you go throughout it
5:06
And it has a very large aperture range. You can go from as bright as F1.5, but then as small as F32, which is somewhat unusual
5:17
in my experience. And so you have a lot of range in that aperture iris
5:22
The aperture iris itself is 12 blades, however, Voigtlander always uses straight blades
5:27
They are not curved. So that means that when you stop the lens down, for example, this shot of F2.8, the
5:33
high blade count means that it's a circular looking shape, but you can certainly see the
5:38
little edges, the little points all around because those are straight aperture blades
5:43
Either you like that look or you don't, but that is the way that it is
5:48
Now the overall size of the lens is it is 74 millimeters in diameter
5:52
That's 2.9 inches and that gives us a 62 millimeter front filter thread up front
5:58
Not necessarily a highly common one, but not altogether uncommon either. The length of the lens is 75.9 millimeters or 3 inches in overall length
6:09
So it's a reasonably compact lens. However, because everything is all metal and glass, this is a beautifully crafted lens
6:16
and like classic Zeiss lenses, it has some heft to it. And so it weighs in at 530 grams or 18.7 ounces
6:24
Now it does come with a metal lens hood here, but this lens is not set up with bayonets
6:30
So that means that the actual lens hood needs to be threaded onto the front filters
6:35
It's a fairly shallow hood. You can't reverse it for storage. So I don't love this style of hood, but I will say that it's small enough that you can
6:43
probably just leave it on and forget about it. And fortunately they have redundantly put the filter threads inside the hood itself
6:50
So it doesn't mean that you can't use filters. However, I will say on a just kind of a practical basis, if you're using something that needs
6:58
to be rotated like a circular polarizer, there's not much room there to get a finger
7:02
in there and to rotate that polarizer. If you're going to actually use something like a polarizer, you're probably going to
7:07
want to remove the hood and just have access to the filter threads. And so you can get to it more easily
7:13
Now while there are electronic contacts at the rear of the lens, there is no weather
7:17
sealing here. So obviously manual focus is not for everyone, but if you like manual focus, Voigtlander
7:24
lenses are a treat to use. I kind of anticipate using those in the same way I would a Zeiss lens because everything
7:31
is just kind of done right. And so I really do enjoy the overall experience
7:36
Now a quick couple of thoughts on my experience doing manual focus on my Z8, considering this
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is my first review on Nikon here of a manual focus lens
7:46
Some things I really like include a very clear and useful EVF
7:50
And so many times when I am doing manual focus, I like to have the shutter half depressed
7:55
because that means that you're activating the VR or the in-body image stabilization here
8:01
Now on Sony, when you have to press, a lot of times the viewfinder goes a little bit squirrely
8:06
And so in this case, I appreciate that the Nikon EVF does not do that. It remains nice and clear
8:11
And the advantage of course of having the VR on is that particularly if you're shooting
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at like f1.5, depth of field is really tiny. You really come to appreciate what's being done with autofocus on wide aperture lenses
8:22
when you shoot with a lens like this. But having that viewfinder stabilized just really helps you to nail the focus to put
8:28
it exactly where you want it. So I appreciate that. Their overall manual focus aids are good on the Nikon body
8:34
I like the fact that you can have a box that is red and then when you get focus just perfect
8:41
on there, it will flash green. That is actually very useful because it is very, very accurate
8:47
You also have the ability to do overlays, color overlays. You have the ability to magnify the image to visually confirm focus
8:54
Though I will say I prefer the magnification process on say Sony
8:58
On a Sony E-mount Voigtlander lens, as soon as you start to rotate that focus ring, it
9:04
will magnify the focus area that you have active. And so it allows you to visually confirm focus
9:10
But then when you go ahead and you have to press the shutter, it will go back out and
9:14
give you the typical normal framing. And so you can make sure your composition is right
9:19
In this case, you have to manually magnify if that's going to be your chosen process
9:23
But then you also have to manually come back out of that
9:27
And so you can just make sure that your composition is correct. It's a little bit more clunky process, so I do prefer Sony's approach to that
9:34
But overall, I've actually enjoyed the overall manual focus process on Nikon
9:39
Something that I think that they've done well. So back to the lens performance itself, let's talk about the optics here
9:45
There are seven elements in six groups. And so you have one aspherical lens there, and then also you have several partial dispersion
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lenses as a part of the optical design. The signature here is somewhat typical to what I've seen on the Noctan lenses
10:01
Now if you're looking at, say, the Lanthar series, I own the Apo Lanthar, and that's
10:07
an apochromatic lens, and it is just perfectly sharp and contrasty at f2, which is the maximum
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aperture on that lens. On the Noctan lenses, I find that they have somewhat of a dual personality
10:18
What I mean by that is that at very large apertures, they have a slight bloomy, dreamy
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effect to them that gives a really unique look to images. And then as you stop it down a bit, it sharpens up and becomes much like the Lanthar lenses
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It becomes very sharp, very high contrast. Now in this case, that effect is less extreme
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And so I actually find that it's less dreamy, it's a little bit dreamy, but far less dreamy
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than, say, a lens like the Noctan 40mm f1.2. And it is extremely sharp at smaller apertures, like f5.6
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For example, this shot that I took out on the lake, what I could actually see in the
10:59
image itself without magnifying was just a little bit of a dot in the distance
11:03
And you can see here that when I actually zoomed deeply into the image, like nearly
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300%, I could see very clearly it was a kayaker, I could see the oars going
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The fact that that much detail held up is really, really impressive. And I've always been impressed with Voigtlander's performance at small apertures
11:21
The ability to resolve really, really fine details is very impressive. And that's certainly the case here as well
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One thing I will say that is an absolute strength of Voigtlander glass in general, and very
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true of this Noctan 75mm, is that the images right out of camera are just beautiful
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There's something about, like Zeiss, there's something about that unique blend of color
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and even the vignette that gives a very unique signature to the lenses
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It's a special look that I think most people are just going to instinctively love
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I've shot with really good lenses side by side, along with a Voigtlander lens, and I
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find that very often I instinctively just like the Voigtlander images, even in a blind test
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I choose them, because they have such a beautiful look to it. Now as far as the actual technical side of things, when it comes to distortion, there's
12:10
almost no distortion, like a fraction of a percent of pincushion distortion
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It's not even worth correcting. There's about two stops of vignette, and in some cases you might want to correct that
12:20
but as I've said, in other cases it's going to be part of the look. And you'll probably really like the images with some of that vignette there, because
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it is a, there's a look to the vignette that is hard to kind of recreate just through software
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I also find that there is very minimal fringing in terms of longitudinal chromatic aberrations
12:38
Now as noted, there is a little bit of blooming on textures at f1.5, which is what produces
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that slightly dreamy effect. And so it's not like an apochromatic lens at, you know, at f1.5 when it comes to the contrast
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By f2, it starts to sharpen up very nicely. By f2.8, it is pretty much perfect all across the frame
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And you'll be basically, from f2.8 through f11, that is going to continue to be the case
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Landscape images are gorgeous. All of those great attributes plus just amazing, amazing detail, easily resolving the 45 megapixels
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of the Z8 here. After f11, you'll start to see diffraction. As noted, this lens goes down to an extremely small f32 maximum aperture
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You're going to really notice softening due to diffraction by that minimum aperture of f32
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The bokeh is really gorgeous from this lens, in large parts because of the colors
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The way that the colors blend together creates something that is very, very artistic, I would say
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And so in many cases, I just love the overall look of the rendering in the background defocused area
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Now as noted before, the specular highlights are not going to be perfectly round. So that might be the fly in the ointment for some of you that are really, you really, really
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want very circular specular highlights, bokeh balls. That's not going to happen here precisely
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Flare assistance is a little bit of a mixed bag in that I found that when I was actually
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composing for photography, it was very easy to compose to where flare was no problem
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However, as I pan here back and forth across the sun, either wide open or then stop down
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you'll see that there are some various things that happen. Some loss of contrast, some ghosting, even a little bit of just kind of light burst if
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the sun's in a very particular spot. So you're only going to see those things if you try to create them
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But at the same time, I do want to note that the coatings aren't doing a perfect job of dealing with that kind of light, direct light like that
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So my conclusion is this. If you like manual focus lenses, then Voigtlander lenses are pretty much top of the heap with
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Zeiss seemingly out of the game at this point. And I will say this about Voigtlander lenses
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The one advantage that they have relative to Zeiss lenses is that they've always been
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priced a few steps below them. And so in this case, a price of $900 for a manual focus lens may seem very expensive
15:03
by one standard, but if you're comparing it to an equivalent Zeiss Milvus lens or even
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a classic Zeiss lens, you're looking at a price that is significantly less, probably
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at least 50% less than what you would see for an equivalent Zeiss lens
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And so in that sense, it feels like a solid value because these are the kind of lenses
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that you could use for a long, long time and just learn to love them
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75 millimeters is a bit of a unique focal length, but this lens does produce gorgeous
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images and that dual nature does give you some options in the kind of images that you
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can produce. I would say that this lens is perfect for the kind of person whose photography style
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is a little bit more deliberate. You don't mind taking a little bit of time
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And I would say it's also great for those of you who don't really like to do post-processing
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You want to be able to just take images that you're ready to share and use right out of camera
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These lenses are definitely assets for doing that because the colors are so beautiful
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The overall rendering and look of images just is special already without having to kind
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of hype it up in post-processing. And so you're basically getting a Zeiss lens on a budget and you know, that's a pretty
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special place to be, I would say. So I really enjoyed my time with the Voigtlander Noctan 75 millimeter f1.5
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And if 75 millimeters works for you and a manual focus lens works, by all means consider
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this lens. It produces gorgeous images. Now if you want a deeper dive into the optical performance, stay tuned right now and we'll
16:34
jump into it. Or if you want to look at a written review, it's linked in the description down below
16:40
along with links to an image gallery and buying links if you'd like to purchase one
16:45
Now if you want that deep dive in the optics, let's jump in together. So to start off with, we'll take a look at our vignette and distortion
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You can see here, distortion is pretty much non-existent. Here you can see I did correct a minus one, but you probably don't notice much of a difference there
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Vignette is fairly obviously located in the corners and you can see here that I have done
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a manual correction with a plus 58 that has eliminated all of that
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No big deal there. Now when it comes to longitudinal chromatic aberrations, there's actually very little
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fringing here. You can see a tiny bit of magenta before, a little bit of green after the plane of focus
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nothing significant there. In a shot like this, where there's lots of high contrast edges, we can see that in these
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places where there's a lot of potential for fringing, it is pretty minimal
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There is some there, but nothing that's strong or pronounced. What you will see however, is a little bit of blooming on the textures you can see in
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these areas that rather than always having a distinct kind of hard edge of delineation
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between the bright area and the background, there's just a little bit of that kind of
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dreamy effect that I mentioned there, and that is part of the signature of the lens
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So in a shot like this, you can almost see a little bit of a glow effect around that
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It's not bad as you can see, just a little bit there and there is detail there, but it's
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just part of the look at large apertures for the lens. Now when it comes to lateral climatic aberrations, zero issues here
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You can see actually really, really nice contrast between the black and the white without any
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kind of bleeding effect, no fringing anywhere that I can see. This is without correction
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Impressive result there. Now when it comes to the testing of contrast and resolution, here's my test chart
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I'm shooting at 45 megapixels on the Nikon Z8 body, and I'm going to show you these results
18:34
at 200% magnification. So here at 200% center of the frame, you can see good results, good contrast, good detail
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Contrast isn't like off the charts here, but it's sharp enough that you can make out all
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of that information without issue. Mid frame, also there's a decent amount of resolution there, but you can see a bit of
18:53
that blooming effect where contrast isn't intense. You can see here there is a difference in the contrast from this corner to this corner
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but it's not falling apart by any stretch. Somewhat surprisingly to me, the corner performance, if anything, is probably the strongest, relative
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to what I would expect, is probably the strongest performance here across the frame
19:13
So if we take that to a real world image, we can see that if you look here, there's
19:17
plenty of detail there, but that slightly lower contrast, a little bit of that dreamy
19:23
effect there is there. It's a nice blend though, I think, to where it gives the images a nice kind of glow look
19:29
but there is still plenty of detail there as well. This shot actually stood out to me as being impressive at F1.5, and I was able to easily
19:37
nail focus on this due to the focus aids, this turkey here. But you can see if we look into this image, even at a pixel level, it really holds up
19:45
quite nicely, and it allowed me to have some subject isolation, even in this very complex
19:51
busy scene. Now if we stop down to F2, you can see that there is definitely a marked improvement in
19:57
the contrast in the center of the frame. Likewise, in the mid-frame, it's getting there, it's not 100% there, but you can see it's
20:04
significantly higher contrast. And then if we look down into the corners, the corners are already pretty impressive
20:11
but they look even more so still due to having better contrast
20:15
Stopping down to F2.8 means that the center results are fantastically sharp
20:20
You can see now that the mid-frame results are very, very sharp
20:23
We'll pan down into a different corner and take a look there. You can see that at F2.8, even this corner is looking very good
20:30
Upper left corner looks great. Upper right corner also looking good. And so overall, we've got a nice, even result all across the frame
20:40
So by the time you get to something like F5.6, this becomes a really gorgeous lens for shooting landscapes
20:47
For one thing, again, colors are really, really special here. You can see that there is just a really fine resolution of details deep into the frame
20:56
And that's something I've noticed with Voigtlander lenses in the past that stands out to me as
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being impressive, just how good they are at small apertures. And that's certainly the case here
21:05
You can see as we look all across the frame, come back in there again, you can see that
21:10
just the detail holds up really nicely and the draw distance is really nice from the lens
21:17
Here's that shot that I referenced earlier. So you can see what it looks like just a spec up here
21:21
If we jump in at 100% magnification, it's still pretty distant, but you can see that
21:27
just all the fine details are rendered so nicely that I could really deeply magnify
21:33
In fact, let's just jump into 200% level, come back out here
21:38
You can see that you can make out the detail of what the fishermen are doing there
21:43
Coming back here, you can see that kayaker and you can see the paddles out, the details
21:47
on this beach. All of that is very small in the scale of the overall image
21:52
You can take a look at this island, see the details here, the bird flying
21:56
These are all at 200% levels of magnification. It stays really strong through F11 as we can see here on the left, but after that, diffraction
22:04
is going to really start to punish the contrast from the image. So you can see by the minimum aperture of F32, the image quality is quite soft
22:13
Now at the minimum focus distance, if we punch into a pixel level, you can see that
22:17
the detail is actually quite, quite good. That's not the problem, but that glow effect is just a little bit more pronounced here
22:26
And also you can see that the plane of focus is certainly not perfectly flat
22:30
You stop down to F2, you'll see that the contrast has picked up significantly there and also
22:36
more of the image is now in focus. So if you're really shooting up close, depth of field is going to be so tiny anyway that
22:43
stopping down a bit is certainly worth doing. So here at F2, for example, at minimum focus, you can see that if we take a look in there
22:50
close, it's done a good job with the textures and the details there, making for a very interesting
22:55
look at one of my vintage Bellows cameras here. So as noted, colors look pretty fantastic just in various shots, just a great blend
23:06
and I think a really healthy blend of detail and then the beautiful defocus that just looks
23:12
really great. Here's another shot here. And so you can see, yes, if you look at a pixel level, there is a little bit of that
23:17
glowing, dreamy effect. You look at the image as a whole, however, and it just looks fantastic
23:23
This is another shot here. You know, it's simple. It's just a blade of grass sticking up, but there's something about the way that this
23:28
lens renders the whole scene. This is completely unedited here. You can see it just makes for a beautiful, beautiful end result
23:36
Here's a little bit further out, taking a look at that Bellows camera. And so you can see the aperture on this old camera, the amount of detail that's there
23:44
is really quite impressive. This is at F2 here. Before I leave Bokeh, I did want to just kind of show you a little bit closer how it looks
23:51
with those straight aperture blades. So 12 different points here, because this is a 12 bladed aperture, but you can definitely
23:58
see that while the overall effect is circular, you can see the little bumps that are the
24:02
result of the aperture blades. Finally, a look at flare. Here we're just looking at stills
24:07
You can see what the composition with it right in the frame, wide open
24:11
There's a little bit of a ghosting artifact, nothing significant. Stopping down to F11, I don't hear, see really the advantage of having those straight aperture blades
24:21
A lot of times you have straight blades because it creates a nice looking sunburst effect
24:24
That just looks kind of busy to me. And frankly, telephoto lenses are rarely exceptional in this regard anyway
24:31
And so I don't love that. But as I noted, this is at F1.5
24:34
The sun is right up here. You can see that in a typical composition, it's held up beautifully
24:40
I mean, look at the detail is really nice there. Contrast looks great
24:45
The image is held up pretty beautifully. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the feel of the images and the optical performance here
24:52
So hopefully a look at the beautiful optics from this lens has helped you to make a decision
24:57
as to whether or not it's a lens for you. As always, thanks for watching
25:01
Have a great day and let the light in
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