Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 Review

Dustin Abbott

May 12th, 2020

After reviewing a few Voigtländer lenses earlier this year (110mm Macro – review here and 40mm F1.2 – review here), I had a number of requests to cover the new Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 lens. I explained that Voigtländer reviews were limited due my not having extensive access to them, but one of my viewers (thanks, Adam) solved that by sending me his own copy of the lens to review. I’m very thankful for that, as many of you will be, I’m sure. While I think the audience for this high-priced, manual-focus-only lens will be relatively small, there are going to be some serious fans who love the beautiful color and excellent image quality from the APO50 (as I’ll refer to the lens for brevity). Let me note before going any further that yes, this lens is manual focus only, and also that it is designed solely for Sony FE (full frame mirrorless). That is likely cause for some of you to stop reading right there, but, if you have a more open mind, you might want to read on.

First, a note on manual focus in general. Whether or not the manual focus nature of the APO50 is a liability to you will depend chiefly on what you intend to do with the lens. There are those for whom manual focus is the only way to do photography, and who love the more organic process whereby focus is derived. This makes the whole process of photography more deliberate…more thoughtful. For others, of course, this is the primary liability. Manual focus is also very useful for some types of cinematography, as most mirrorless autofocus lenses have a “focus-by-wire” manual focus process that isn’t well suited to consistent focus throws and accuracy. A good manual focus lens like this one is always going to work better for that kind of application.

But there’s no question this lens has incredible optics and produces beautiful images (the lens helps turn the simple subject above into a bit of art!), so if you aren’t turned off already, read on and discover if the small but optically proud Voigtländer brand has your new lens.

Prefer to watch your reviews? I have both a standard length and more detailed “definitive” video review available:

Thanks again to Adam for the loaner of your lens! I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies.

Voigtländer APO50 Build and Handling

Voigtländer is actually the oldest continually operating camera company in the world, and there is a classic charm to their lenses. They are very, very similar to what is now called the “Classic” Zeiss series, in that construction is all metal and glass. The lenses themselves are beautiful, with a satin, anodized finish that is sleek and premium in all the right ways.

One of the most controversial aspects (at least for purists) of the newer Zeiss lenses is that they have transitioned from a knurled metal focus ring to a rubberized surface on the focus rings. Some users have reported wear-related issues with this (I haven’t seen them myself) whereas the metal focus rings last for decades (I’m still using some vintage lenses that 50+ years old). The APO50 follows the Classic pattern, with a knurled metal focus ring that looks great, has excellent grip, and moves with beautifully damped, creamy smoothness. This is manual focus done right. I’ve yet to use a Voigtländer lens (I’ve owned or used six now) that didn’t focus beautifully, and the APO50M is no exception.

The lens has a nice focus throw distance of about 120mm, which is long enough for precision but short enough for fast focus changes. The lens extends about 15mm (half an inch) when focused to infinity, though the overall length stays very compact.

There are actually a surprising amount of premium manual focus options at or near this focal length, some of which come from Zeiss, though most are from Voigtländer themselves. Here’s a look at some of those options.

The most direct competition to the AP050 in terms of size and performance is the Zeiss Loxia 50mm F2. The two lenses are within a milometer or two in diameter and length, with the Voigtländer ever-so-slightly larger and heavier. At 61.3mm (2.41″) in length, however, the lens is very compact, and weighs only 364g (12.84oz) despite having a premium build quality.

Everything here is in metal, including the beautiful front facade and the filter threads, which are a diminutive 49mm in size. The lens looks great mounted on the camera!

I’m not a huge fan of Voigtländer lens hoods. While the hood itself is a matching metal and is beautifully made with with metal ridges inside to help stop light from bouncing around, the ergonomic execution of the hood leaves a lot to be desired. First of all, it is a screw-on rather than bayonet-style, so it will occupy the 49mm filter threads on front of the lens. The front of the hood is threaded, however, so you canon screw filters in on the front of the lens hood if you are using it. The fact that the lens hood threads on rather than bayoneting on also means that it cannot be reversed for storage. It is reasonably small, so most users will probably end up just leaving it on all the time, though that does add about 30% onto the length of this otherwise very short lens. I would love to see Voigtländer evolve in this design, as it is inconvenient in just about every attribute.

The working distance on the APO50 is a very standard 45cm (1.48′), a figure shared with both the Loxia and Voigtländer Nokton 50mm lenses. The APO50 manages a better magnification than either of those lenses with a 0.15x magnification figure, though no one will be fooled into thinking this is a macro lens!

On the plus side, however, performance at MFD is very good:

A look at the rear of the lens shows two things: 1) there is electronic contacts present and 2) there is no weather sealing gasket.

The first is good news, as it means several things. First of all, while there is a manual aperture ring, aperture changes are shown in camera, which helps you to know your aperture when looking through the viewfinder and also records that information in the EXIF data, which can help with sorting and knowing your settings later in post. It also means that information is automatically transmitted for correct stabilization settings for the SteadyShot in cameras so equipped. Finally, it also means that Focus Assist is enabled, meaning that when you begin to manually focus, the active focus area will be magnified, which is very useful for visually confirming focus.

The second thing is not so good of news, as the lack of a rear gasket points to the fact that the lens (like other Voigtländers) does not have any kind of weather resistance. This is a premium lens, and it has become common for premium lenses to be equipped with this. I wish it were present.

The aperture ring is located at the front of the lens, and, while narrow, occupies a good position where it is easy to grasp and rotate. It is a true aperture ring that will physically change the aperture even when the lens is disconnected from the camera. It moves precisely and with one-third stop aperture clicks.

A peak inside the lens with the lens stopped down a bit shows a higher than average number of aperture blades (12). Voigtländer’s blades are straight rather than curved, which results in both a positive and negative.

The negative is the straight aperture blades quickly begin to show in bokeh highlights, though I find the higher aperture blade count does help retain a more circular shape on this lens opposed to others with a lower blade count.

The upside to straight aperture blades, however, is that the sunstars are more nicely defined and occur at lower apertures than with circular blades. This is a beautiful sunburst effect for a 50mm lens!

This is a premium bit of kit with a beautifully engineered fit and finish. Despite being a light lens overall, it has that uniquely dense feeling I often get from Zeiss lenses that speaks of a lot of high grade metals and premium optical glass. The APO50 is a lens designed to last for decades and will strongly appeal to those who appreciate finely made things on a visceral level. It looks great on your camera!

Voigtländer APO50 Image Quality

You might have wondered why I’ve been emphasizing the APO in this review. It is because this is one of the two most important parts of the optical performance of this lens. APO is short for Apochromatic. A lens with an Apochromatic design has better correction of chromatic and spherical aberration than the much more common achromat lenses. Put simply, most lenses struggle with the fact that colors don’t always focus at the same distance, which results in green or purple (red) fringing due to the fact that those colors aren’t focusing on the same plane of focus. Whereas most lenses are corrected for two color wavelengths (typically red and blue), an apochromatic lens is able to bring three color wavelengths into focus on the same focus plane. This produces a near absence of chromatic aberrations and allows for higher contrast and a near absence of the veiling (lack of contrast) that produces “soft” images. True apochromatic lenses tend to be very sharp and very contrasty (it’s worth noting that all of the Zeiss Otus lenses are APO designs). They also are corrected for spherical aberrations on two wavelengths rather than one. Real world translation? Look at the complete lack of longitudinal chromatic aberrations either before or after the plane of focus in test:

Typically one would see some purple fringing before the plane of focus and green afterwards. What we instead see is a near-perfect correction of aberrations. This results in extremely good contrast and definition without any bleeding. Look how inky black the “0” is above. This has real-world ramifications, as it allows incredibly good contrast and “pop” to colors. This particular image really highlighted to me how that great glass can elevate something simple and make it special. Look at how gorgeous the clarity and color is on the crop:

That is near perfect, and you can see the gorgeous microcontrast if the textures and fine details. It also highlights the secondary strength of Voigtländer lenses in general, and that is that they (like Zeiss) have very, very special optical glass that produces stunningly good color. Every Voigtländer lens that I’ve used has consistently left me very pleased with the color rendition – it is both rich and accurate without ever bleeding into garishness.

A look at vignette and distortion shows that there is a very mild amount of pincushion distortion that shouldn’t be a negative factor (and is, in fact, a positive for portraiture). I corrected this with a small -2 amount in Lightroom). Vignette is fairly strong, however, requiring a +38 and sliding the midpoint all the way to the left. This shows that the vignette penetrates fairly deep into the frame, though a long, linear vignette profile works well for portraits in many situations. Correction can be had either in camera (JPEGs and Video) or in post (RAW/ARW files).

How about sharpness? Here’s a look at my test chart (I’m using a 42Mpx a7RIII for these tests):

What follows are crops from the center, mid-frame, and corner.

What we can see is that the AP50 is very sharp even at F2, with crisp resolution in the center, mid-frame, and corner. F2 is not a very large maximum aperture, but the lens compensates by delivering excellent levels of contrast and resolution across the frame from wide open. There’s really no need to stop the lens down to achieve higher contrast or resolution.

This bears out in real-world performance, with excellent sharpness and contrast at F2:

It’s true even out at infinity, where crops show that performance between the center and edge of the frame are very consistent even at F2.

Impressive! But how does this compare to the truly excellent APO-Lanthar 65mm F2?

The two lenses perform more similarly than differently, which means that the APO50 is an exceptionally sharp lens. I think across the frame I would still give a very slight edge to the 65mm, but it’s pretty close to splitting hairs.

There is minimal improvement from F2 to F2.8, but contrast and resolution does slightly improve by F4 and F5.6:

This becomes a lovely landscape lens at smaller apertures, delivering great amounts of detail and rich colors.

Often bokeh is the area that slightly suffers with APO lenses. A bit of chromatic aberrations (and spherical aberrations) produce less contrast, which results in softer defocused areas. APO lenses banish CA, which in term can produce more contrast in the defocused regions. Some lens makers do a good job with this, however, and produce lenses that can give amazing clarity but also quite nice bokeh (the Otus series comes to mind). I think that the APO50 is actually pretty close to that standard, actually, with very nice overall rendering of the defocused areas. Here’s a sampling at a variety of focus distances.

Pretty nice, in my mind. I think the bokeh probably rivals that of the Loxia 50mm F2 while having higher sharpness and contrast, too.

Another area of general strength is flare resistance, as I didn’t find much to concern me in any of the scenarios I shot in. Even video pans across the sun showed minimal ghosting (discolored blobs of color) or veiling (loss of contrast). It’s hard to picture anything negative in stills:

These attributes combine to make this a nice portrait lens as well, though it is harder to argue for manual focus lenses for portrait work specifically when Eye AF works so well with autofocus lenses on Sony bodies. If your photography style is more deliberate, however, and you love natural colors, then the AP50 could be a nice option for you.

All told, however, this lens has beautiful image quality, and seems very worth of the APO name. If you would like to see more photos from this beautiful lens, check out the image gallery here.

Conclusion

I’ve owned the outstanding Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro for several years now, and it may be the greatest hindrance to the decision to purchase the otherwise excellent Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2. I would call the APO50 an winner in a comparison with the similar Zeiss Loxia 50mm F2 due to having similar size and strengths but better sharpness and overall image quality. The Voigtländer 65mm is not as compact and weighs nearly twice as much, but it is still a fairly compact lens overall, and adds the extra versatility of the 1:2 macro performance and arguably even better image quality (and at a slightly lower price). There will be some for whom the 50mm focal length is a must, as others for whom the compact size is a priority, but it is a lens that should at least be considered as part of one’s deliberations. But there’s no question that the additional size and weight and difference in focal length WILL be a factor for others. It’s always good to have choices.

There’s no question that this is a strong lens optically. While it has a smaller maximum aperture than many 50mm lenses, it compensates by delivering awesome image quality from wide open on. Few lenses can match the rich, contrasty color that the APO50 delivers, which is deeply saturated without being garish. There is something about the optical glass that Cosina uses in either Zeiss or Voigtländer lenses that is rarely matched by other lensmakers. That’s definitely the case here, as the colors are just gorgeous.

At the end of the day, however, this is a very expensive lens for a manual-only 50mm lens with a relatively small maximum aperture. The market for such lenses is small, though there are those for whom a lens like this represents the true heart of photography. I find the price of $1050 USD a little more palatable when I look at the lens as a mini Zeiss Otus lens. It has a smaller maximum aperture, a much smaller form factor, and a much lower price, but delivers a lot of the same attributes of those lenses. There…that might take the sting out of that price!

Pros:

Beautiful, premium design with exquisite materials
Smooth, nicely damped focus ring
Electronic communication simplifies manual operation
Wonderfully compact and light despite a premium build
Beautifully damped and precise focus ring
Stunning, accurate colors
Outstanding sharpness across the frame from wide open
APO design practically eliminates CA
Nice bokeh in most situations (bokeh circles the only weakness)
Good flare resistance

Cons:

Relatively small/slow maximum aperture
Expensive
No weather sealing
Many will find no autofocus the primary con

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Ebay

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Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, 50mm f2 Voigtlander 50mm Review, Voigtlander 50mm f2, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 50mm f/2 Nokton, Voigtländer 50mm, Voigtländer 50, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison

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Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

May 6th, 2020

After reviewing a few Voigtländer lenses earlier this year (110mm Macro – review here and 40mm F1.2 – review here), I had a number of requests to cover the new Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 lens. I explained that Voigtländer reviews were limited due my not having extensive access to them, but one of my viewers (thanks, Adam) and sent me his own copy of the lens to review. I was left with no excuse, so here is an image gallery from the lens as I work through my review process. While I think the audience for this high-priced, manual-focus-only lens will be relatively small, there are going to be some serious fans who love the beautiful color and excellent image quality from this compact lens. I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer 50mm APO-Lanthar F2 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below. Stay tuned for my ongoing coverage.

Images of the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2

Images taken with the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Ebay

Sony a9 Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7R III Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK | Ebay
Peak Design Slide Lite: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X5 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2WcYgId | Amazon https://amzn.to/3c6hwMV | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/2WEA2Wm | Ebay https://bit.ly/APO50mmDA

Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, 50mm f2 Voigtlander 50mm Review, Voigtlander 50mm f2, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 50mm f/2 Nokton, Voigtländer 50mm, Voigtländer 50, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison

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Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master OSS Review

Dustin Abbott

May 2nd, 2020

The Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master OSS is an indispensable lens if you need versatile reach for sports or wildlife photography. Other telephoto lenses that reach beyond 400mm grow exponentially, leaving the 100-400mm to often being the smallest, lightest, most convenient package to get serious reach. Probably the greatest competition to the FE 100-400mm GM is Sony’s own 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens, which is cheaper and has even more reach, though at the cost of much more size and weight. This sets up a difficult choice between convenience of packaging vs additional reach and a cheaper price. My hope is that my review will help clarify which lens is for you. The 100-400GM (as we’ll call it for brevity), does have some real advantages…and disadvantages.

I’ve reviewed a number of lenses with similar focal lengths over the years, including lenses from Canon, Sigma, and Tamron. This would the fifth lens with this zoom range that I’ve tested, though I’ve also tested at least six of the alternative lenses with focal lengths like 60-600mm, 150-600mm, and 200-600mm. This has become a much more competitive space in the past six years starting with the release of the Tamron 150-600mm VC lens in early 2014. At least ten of the competing lenses that I’ve tested have been released during that window, and, while the amount of native competition on the Sony platform remains limited at this point, there are signs that this is going to change.

So while my time with the 100-400GM led me to believe that it is a competent, well-executed package, I must also acknowledge the fact that price for the lens is on the steep side at $2500 USD. That’s an additional $500 over the 200-600G and even $300 higher than the Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS II, which is very possibly the best lens in the category at the moment. The Sony advantage, though, is in the complete package. I have found when using my Sony a9 body along with both the 100-400GM and 200-600G lenses that I’m able to more easily get action shots than I ever did with any Canon combination that I’ve used over the years.

And, to be fair, what’s available on other systems is only so relevant. The fact is that while many lenses adapt quite well to Sony bodies, the gap between the native autofocus performance of lenses like the 100-400GM and an adapted lens like the Canon is vast. So, while the Canon provides an interesting optical benchmark that I will reference (mostly because I own the lens), I will mostly focus my observations within the Sony platform. You can either read on or click on either the standard or definitive (detailed) video review thumbnails below.

Thanks to Sony Canada and Gentec for the loaner. I’ve reviewed the Sony FE 100-400mm GM on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies.

Sony 100-400GM Build, Handling, and Features

The 100-400GM is a well-executed package that delivers great performance in a relatively compact size and with light weight for the class. It weighs in at right over 3lbs (1395g) which really isn’t more than the much more “plasticky” Sigma (1160g) or Tamron (1135g) commercial grade zoom lenses. This also really undercuts the weight of the Canon 100-400LII (1640g) or the Sony 200-600G (2115g), so you are getting a professional grade lens with a premium build and feature set at a remarkably low weight overall. Here’s a quick look at some comps:

What’s interesting is that the Sony is actually a little larger physically than the Canon with a 3.7″ (93.9mm) diameter (about the same) but the length is 8.07″ (205mm) vs 193mm for the Canon. The Canon definitely has a denser, heavier feel in the hand. Sony has reduced the weight by using a modular frame and magnesium components. The 100-400GM feels tough and well made, and the lighter weight is of course a nice match for the smaller, more compact Sony bodies that it is designed for.

There is no evidence that Sony scrimped on the weather sealing components here. While the rubber gasket at the lens mount is small (typical on E-mount lenses for some reason!), it is part of 17 different seal points in the lens housing (rings, switches, buttons, etc…) and the front element has received a fluorine coating to help resist fingerprints and moisture.

The feature set of the Canon lens and the Sony lens are actually remarkably similar, with the one exception that the Canon has one additional stabilizer mode (3 vs 2) while the Sony adds the Focus Hold button in three positions to make sure it is easily accessible at any rotation. The Focus Hold button can be assigned a variety of difference functions from within the camera, and can be a quick and easy way to improve function based on your own preference.

The Canon was the first lens I’ve seen to employ a friction ring rather than a zoom lock. Sony employs a similar technique on the 100-400GM (an externally zooming lens), which allows you to choose smooth (easy rotation of the zoom ring) to tight (which increases the friction to where unintentional zoom creep will not happen). You can also choose degrees between according to your preference. The inner barrel of the lens will extend significantly when zoomed to the 400mm position.

There are four switches on the lens barrel. These include an AF/MF switch, a two-position focus limiter, an ON/OFF for the OSS, and a two position OSS Mode selector (Standard and Panning).

Also similar between the two lenses is the behavior of the tripod collar. The collar itself can be easily rotated via a well-made locking knob but is not fully removable. What is removable, however, is the tripod-foot, which can be loosened via a second tension knob and then a hidden button will release it completely. That can reduce a bit of weight, but also gets the foot out of the way if one wants to use the lens handheld. The means of removing the tripod foot are less cumbersome than what I found on the Canon.

I have only one complaint with either the Sony or Canon tripod foot itself: it is it not Arca-compatible. Some lenses come with an Arca-compatible foot that has a groove cut into it which allows it to go right onto a standard tripod head without the need of a quick-release plate. I don’t understand (at all) why a lensmaker would NOT add that simple feature, as it make a lens like this much easier to use.

Also similar to the Canon is the design of the lens hood. Both include a window on the side that can be slid up to access a circular polarizing filter (which needs to be rotated to the correct position) and also a locking mechanism with a button to release it. Sony’s hood is a little better designed, however, and includes a rubberized transition area at the front of the hood where often a lens will be set down. That’s a practical touch that I appreciate. I also prefer the way that the Sony hood matches the lens, while the Canon has a black hood on white(ish) lens.

The 100-400GM handles well, with good performance on both the zoom and focus rings. They both have a quality ribbing and are easy to operate. Up front there is a 77mm front filter thread that is shared by many other lenses.

This lens has an aperture iris with nine rounded blades. Newer Sony lenses have often moved to an eleven bladed aperture, but this one retains a circular shape fairly well when stopped down.

Also worth noting is that while the Canon and Sony lenses share a minimum focus distance of 3.22′ (0.98m), the Sony offers up a slightly higher magnification figure of 0.35x vs the 0.31x of the Canon. This is due to the fact that the Canon is guilty of some focus breathing at closer focus distances which makes it behave as slightly less than its true focal length. 0.35x is more than one third life size, and is extremely useful. You can definitely get some macro type shots with the lens, which furthers its versatility and usefulness. This is a big deal to me, personally.

There’s really not anything that I can point to that I think should be present that is missing. This is very nicely executed package.

Autofocus Performance

The 100-400GM employs a similar DDSSM focus motor assembly like that found in the 200-600G. This is a good thing.

The DDSSM is essentially two high-torque linear motors that work in conjunction with each other and drive focus on both sides of the focusing elements. Some of my favorite lenses for autofocus use a similar arrangement, and the result is fast, silent, and accurate autofocus. As I noted in the introduction, it is really here where Sony creates its greatest advantage. When viewed as a package, the combination of a good focusing body like the a9 series and one of these lenses produces an effortless package for tracking action.

It becomes mundane to track high speed movement at very high burst rates and to have little to no misses.

Add to this that the need for complex calibration of focus is unnecessary, and you have essentially a lens that you can mount on your camera, put the camera in high speed burst with AF-C enabled, and just starting holding down the shutter button. This makes the lens package incredibly accessible for photographers of a variety of skill levels.

I had a friend who breeds dogs bring some of her dogs to an open area where we could do some high speed tracking. I took hundreds and hundreds of photos of fast moving action and had near-flawless results. Effortless.

Autofocus is pretty close to perfect here. Fast, silent, and accurate. I have zero reservations on this front.

Sony 100-400GM Image Quality

We’ve seen that the 100-400GM is an attractive, well featured package with excellent autofocus, but does it deliver optically? Before I work at answering that question, I do want to offer up a small caveat that the focal range exceeds the space I have for my indoor tests, so I had to move everything out into the garage to run the tests. While I used the same lights that I typically do, there is obviously more ambient light that I have less control over. I ran tests at the same time and under the same conditions for the Canon 100-400LII, however, so that gives us a little more of a standard of comparison. I did these tests on a 42Mpx Sony a7RIII body.

The lens employs an optical formula of 22 elements in 16 groups, including 1 super ED element and 2 ED elements. This will also give you a look at Sony’s MTF charts:

A look at vignette and distortion at 100mm shows a tiny amount of pincushion distortion and a moderate amount of vignette. This being a first party lens, it receives first party profile support and is corrected essentially perfectly.

By 400mm we see another percentage point or two of pincushion distortion, though it remains very mild. Vignette is about the same, and is really fairly mild for this type of lens. The corrected sample shows perfect correction.

Correction will come either in camera for JPEG or Video, and at this point there are well distributed RAW correction profiles everywhere for the lens.

By the way, this is one area where the Sony destroys the Canon. The Canon shows much more vignette.

Sony also has an advantage at 100mm in terms of overall sharpness. Crops from across the frame at F4.5 show uniformly excellent results.

It’s a little hard to show here (which tells you that it is close), but as I look at a pixel level across the frame, I consistently see a small sharpness and contrast advantage for Sony everywhere save the extreme corners.

Stopping the lens down at 100mm (and frankly, across the focal range), produces only very, very mild improvements. There is a small amount of improved contrast, but most of the resolution is available from wide open.

It’s also worth noting that the Sony is already reaches its smallest maximum aperture of F5.6 very quickly. The Sony goes from F4.5 to F5 by 115mm, and reaches the smallest maximum aperture of F5.6 by a paltry 162mm. The Canon, by contrast, doesn’t hit F5.6 until 312mm!! Will this be big deal? Probably not, though it could make a difference if you shoot a lot in lower lighting conditions.

So, by the time we test 200mm, we are already at F5.6 on the GM, while the Canon is at F5.

There is a mild dip in contrast at 200mm compared to 100mm, though resolution remains consistently good across the frame.

Stopping down to F8 gives us a minor contrast boost, but nothing significant.

Image quality at 400mm is slightly softer, though not by any significant margin. Contrast is roughly the same as 200mm (better in a few points on the frame), but the fine details aren’t quite as finely resolved.

This is the point where the Canon shows the greatest advantage, delivering an overall brighter image with equal settings. The Sony is as good in the center of the frame, but the Canon is noticeably sharper midframe and delivers slightly better resolution and contrast in the corners. Here’s that midframe comparison:

Would you notice this without them side by side? Probably not. So, glass half full take: the Sony 100-400GM delivers very similar image quality to the lens I consider to be the best in the class. Glass half empty? The Sony costs $300 more and yet isn’t quite as good optically. Does any of this matter if you just shoot Sony? Not one bit. The 100-400GM is a very good lens optically (though not better than the 200-600G) despite having a higher price.

Here’s a shoot of the moon (deeply cropped).

Here’s another of Ferrari along with a deep crop. This is wide open at 400mm.

Detail is good, though contrast isn’t popping to my eye.

Here’s a shot of some wild turkeys roaming through my yard. You can see that, like the photo of my cat, that resolution is good in the crop but contrast isn’t exceptional.

Bokeh is an area where I’m not deeply impressed with the 100-400 GM. I saw a number of situations where I felt the bokeh tended towards busyness, like in this shot of a robin:

That’s a difficult example, as most the bokeh is in the transition zone where “nervousness” is often most obvious. But even in this shot, which I would consider an excellent opportunity for good bokeh, I see more outlining that what I would personally like to see:

This shot is better, and points to the fact that probably the nicest bokeh will come when you are close to your subject and can really make the background disappear.

One more for your consideration. I actually really like this shot overall, but if you look at the forest a good distance beyond the subject, it is definitely busier than what I would like to see.

Bokeh is a subjective measure, so I recommend that you visit the image gallery here and draw your own conclusions.

In real world shooting I saw no issues with chromatic aberrations of any kind (lateral or longitudinal). Sony has done a good job controlling for them.

Finally, let me address flare resistance. First of all, however, know that dealing with flare situations is far less common with long telephoto lenses because of their tight angle of view. There might be a rare occasion when tracking a bird in flight that you might encounter a bright light source in the frame, but it’s much rarer than when shooting with a wider angle of view. In the way that most people will shoot the lens (wide open or close to it), flare is well controlled by the coatings here. Stopped to F11 (the second and fourth shots in the series), there are more pronounced ghosting artifacts, and (in the case of 400mm) a unique shaft of light coming through the frame. For real world use, however, I don’t anticipate flare being an issue for any photographers.

All in all, the lens is very good optically, though I don’t see any area where it really distinguishes itself from the competition.

Conclusion

You might have picked up on the fact that I’m a little conflicted on this particular lens. One one hand, the Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS is a well-executed, competitive package that is great to use. On the other, the 100-400GM is priced like a premium lens – easily the most expensive lens with this focal range (or Nikon’s 80-400mm option). That’s fine, but I expect a lens that is priced above all competition to offer something that other lenses do not. And, while the 100-400GM is an excellent lens, I’m not sure that it is a superior lens.

In fact, I’m still not sure why it would be labeled a “G Master” lens while the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 is only a “G” lens, as I could not distinguish any difference between the lenses in build or performance.

But what is also true is that the Sony 100-400GM remains a very compelling option if you want reach and good performance but don’t want to carry a large, heavy lens. It delivers fantastic autofocus performance and competitive image quality while actually weighing LESS than the 70-200mm F2.8 GM lens. With a good focusing Sony camera, tracking and capturing action becomes near-effortless (and a lot of fun!) You can add a 1.4x teleconverter for even more reach, though if you regularly want to shoot beyond 400mm, I recommend just going for the 200-600G lens – it will cost you 50% less once you factor in the cost of the teleconverter. The Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS is an excellent lens, though I’m not fully convinced that it stands as a Master lens. Then again, I’m pretty delighted with the many frozen moments of action that I was able to capture with the lens…and you will almost certainly be, too.

Pros:

Relatively lightweight package
Good weather sealing throughout
Generous feature and control set
Extremely fast, accurate, silent autofocus
Great tracking capabilities
Good sharpness throughout the focal range
Low vignette and distortion
Good chromatic aberration control
OSS works seamlessly with camera IBIS

Cons:

Overpriced relative to competition
Sony 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS provides similar performance at a much lower price
Bokeh can be a little busy
Reaches smallest maximum aperture of F5.6 by only 162mm

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Sony a9 Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
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Keywords: Sony 100-400mm, 100-400mm G Master, 100-400mm GM, 100-400GM, Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master, F4.5-5.6 G Master, GM, 100-400, 100-400mm, Sony, 135GM Review, 100-400mm G Master Review, Review, Dustin Abbott,, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Tracking, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison

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Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 29th, 2020

The Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master OSS is an indispensable len if you need versatile reach for sports or wildlife photography. Other telephoto lenses that reach beyond 400mm grow exponentially, leaving the 100-400mm to often being the smallest, lightest, most convenient package to get serious reach. Probably the greatest competition to the FE 100-400mm GM is Sony’s own 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens, which is cheaper and has even more reach, though at the cost of much more size and weight. This sets up a difficult choice between convenience of packaging vs additional reach and a cheaper price. My hope is that my review will help clarify which lens is for you. In the meantime, you can check out the photos from the lens. I’ll be reviewing the Sony FE 100-400mm GM on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below. Stay tuned for my ongoing coverage.

Images of the Sony FE 100-400mm G Master

Images taken with the Sony FE 100-400mm G Master

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Sony a9 Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
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Peak Design Slide Lite: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
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Purchase your gear at:

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Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2Y6fXdJ | Amazonhttps://amzn.to/2S7acZB | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/2Y73Hti | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/2KzA643 | Ebay https://bit.ly/100_400GM

Keywords: Sony 100-400mm, 100-400mm G Master, 100-400mm GM, 100-400GM, Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master, F4.5-5.6 G Master, GM, 100-400, 100-400mm, Sony, 135GM Review, 100-400mm G Master Review, Review, Dustin Abbott,, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Tracking, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 Review

Dustin Abbott

April 20th, 2020

Years ago I reviewed the unique Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 for Canon EF. I call it unique, in that, contrary to expectations for Zeiss glass, it isn’t actually particularly sharp wide open. “Dreamy” is the euphemistic term. Yet it produces really beautiful images with lovely rendering, and becomes very sharp when stopped down. I bring that up because that was the lens that I was reminded of when reviewing the Voigtländer 40mm Nokton F1.2 for Sony full frame mirrorless (FE). It is a lens with gorgeous color, beautiful rendering, but not high levels of sharpness from F1.2-F2. My access to Voigtländer lenses in Canada is limited, so I jumped on a unique opportunity to review the 110mm (my review here) and 40mm F1.2 lenses. The 40mm F1.2 is a fully manual lens, though it does have electronic contacts and operates essentially like the Zeiss Loxia series lenses on Sony FE (full frame E-mount). This is a unique lens that in many ways is more connected to the priorities of photographers from the past rather than the present. Put simply, the Nokton (as we’ll call it for short), has a unique aesthetic that will delight some but will be of little interest to others. Which camp do you fall into? Read on to find out…

As noted, the Nokton embraces a lot of classic sensibilities, though with a few modern additions. It is a fully manual lens, including both manual focus and manual aperture. It balances this be being electronically enabled, which means that when you begin to focus the area of focus will be magnified on the LCD screen or in the viewfinder, helping you to be able to visually confirm focus much easier. Likewise with the aperture ring, as while you must make aperture changes via the ring (with one-third stop detents for more control), that information is communicated to the camera and you can see the aperture changes on screen. I find this goes a long way towards increasing the usability of a manual focus lens, and, ironically, a fully manual lens is actually more “future-proof” than a fully automatic one. I’m still using 50 year old manual focus lenses easily via adapter on modern cameras (be it Sony, Canon, etc…) because all of the control is on the lens itself.

The Nokton is an interesting dichotomy of “dreamy” rendering wide open (particularly when “pixel peeping”) while becoming very sharp and with great contrast when stopped down. The first photo I shared from the lens above lacks contrast and definition when viewed at a pixel level, but this shot (from a 42Mpx Sony a7RIII) shows incredible acuity and fine detail at a pixel level in the crop:

That’s extremely impressive, and it shows off the dual nature of the lens. We’ll explore that more thoroughly as we move ahead. If you would rather watch your reviews, then check out either my standard video review or the definitive (all the details) review by clicking the appropriate thumbnail below:

Thanks to B&H Photo for the loaner! I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies.

Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 Build and Handling

Voigtländer has a consistent formula for their lenses for Sony. They are all sleek black anodized metal lenses that are all metal and glass. They are typically relatively compact (a trait I appreciate) while being slightly heavier than typical for their dimensions because of very high grades of construction. In this sense they have a very similar “density” to classic Zeiss lenses (pre-Milvus) and are generally a delight to look at and feel because they are made at such a high grade.

In fact, modern Voigtländer (an Austrian company – the oldest continuously operating optical company in the world) are made by Cosina in Japan. Modern Zeiss (a German company) lenses are also made in Japan. In fact, Cosina produced many of the Classic Zeiss lenses under Zeiss specifications and oversight, so it’s not surprising that there is some overlap.

Here’s a look at how some of the Sony FE Voigtländer options around this focal length compare in terms of size, weight, and price.

The aberration here is the older “Nokton Classic” 35mm F1.4, but outside of that the 40mm and two 50mm options are largely similar. This is a great form factor (particularly for an F1.2 lens), as the Nokton 40mm is only 2.76″ (70.1mm) in diameter (giving us a standard 58mm front filter thread) and is only 2.33″ (59.3mm) long. Even if you mount the shallow lens hood and leave it there (which is what I recommend for reasons I’ll momentarily explain), the resulting combination is a great fit in terms of size and weight on your Sony mirrorless.

The lens hood has some of Voigtländer’s typical shortcomings, but they are reduced in this configuration. The lens hood screws onto the filter threads rather than bayoneting on, though the hood is threaded on the inside to allow for filters to continue to be used with it in place (58mm size). The major downside to a lens hood that threads on rather than bayonets is that it cannot be reversed for storage. Fortunately the lens hood itself is quite shallow, and the lens itself isn’t fairly short, so it’s not really a problem to just permanently leave it in place (this is less true with some other Voigtländer lenses). I threaded it on shortly after the lens arrived and have never removed it.

The hood itself is all metal and has a similar finish on the outside with tight metal grooves/ridges inside to help stop light from bouncing around. The shallow nature of the hood means that you probably won’t get a lot of shading from it, but it does help offer protection for the lens, takes up little additional space, and is certainly worth using.

There are two rings on the lens. The major one is the knurled metal focus ring, which occupies about half of the barrel’s length. Remember that Cosina has also manufactured Zeiss lenses, so you’ll find a very similar buttery smoothness to the focus action here. The weight is perfect, the focus action is smooth, and there is about 130 degrees of rotation to the focus throw. There is good spacing between the various focus distances which results in nice precision to the focus. There are few manual focus lenses that offer a better experience than what you’ll find on the Nokton.

The second ring is a narrow aperture ring near the front of the lens. This is a good location and is easy to find by touch even your eye is pressed up to the viewfinder. I vastly prefer this position to the one on the APO-Lanthar 110mm Macro I just reviewed. The aperture ring turns with precision and there are nicely defined detents at one-third stop positions. I prefer this as it gives you the same amount of aperture control that you typically have with autofocus lenses.

If you look at the back of the lens, you will see that it does have electronic connections as previously mentioned. What it doesn’t have is any kind of weather sealing, unfortunately. The price point and the build suggest that this is a premium lens, and I think that a premium lens should have weather sealing.

Look past the beautiful front facade of the lens and inside you’ll find 8 glass elements in 6 groups along with an aperture iris with a fairly high blade count of ten. Those blades are all straight (a Voigtländer/Zeiss thing), which unfortunately means that you will see the shape of those blades in bokeh highlights very quickly (here’s a look at wide open, F1.4, and F2).

There’s no question that you start to see that decagonal shape even by F1.4. You’ll also see the fairly typical geometric deformation in the bokeh highlights along the edges of the frame that are commonly referred to as “cat-eye” or “lemon” shapes.

Aside from these niggles, however, this is another beautifully built lens from Voigtländer that should delight those who love beautifully engineered things or classic lens design. This lens is surprisingly compact for a lens with a maximum aperture of F1.2. Sigma’s new 35mm F1.2 for Sony is 160% larger and 131% heavier (not an apples-to-apples comparison, but does give some perspective.)

Voigtländer Nokton 40mm Image Quality

It is here that I will work hard to deliver a nuanced report that reflects the nuances of the Nokton’s performance. If you are looking for a lens that is razor sharp at F1.2, this is not the lens for you. If your priority for portraits is to have a beautiful overall “look” with a slightly dreamy feel, then this just might be a lens for you. It really has a dual nature; lower contrast from F1.2-F1.8 while offering incredibly high contrast and precise detail at smaller apertures. Before getting technical, let’s take a look at a real world example or two.

First of all, here is the dreamy character at F1.2 that I referred to. The bokeh is lovely here (particularly when you consider that the focal length isn’t that long). The background just melts away in creamy goodness. But if you look at the area of focus at a pixel level, you can see that there isn’t much microcontrast and fine detail rendered. Everything is a little bit hazy.

That will help give you some perspective for our chart tests in a moment. The opposite is true if you stop the lens down, however. This is a shot taken just a few minutes prior but at F4 rather than F1.2. Look at how amazing crisp everything is, with levels of detail and contrast that jump off the screen (these were taken on a 42Mpx Sony a7RIII):

The crops here don’t do it justice. The original (on my 4K Ben-Q SW271 monitor) “pops” in a way that I rarely see.

That’s the dual character I refer to. Now the details…

First, a look at distortion and vignette. The image on the left is an uncorrected RAW; on the right is the same image after the standard Lightroom profile is applied.

Distortion is nearly non-existent, and what little bit is there is a very mild pincushion pattern. This gives the Nokton an advantage over most 35mm lenses (a point worth considering for some photographers, depending on your work). This is a good thing for portraits, as many 35mm lenses exhibit barrel distortion which is almost always unflattering for portrait work. There is definitely some vignette at F1.2, though you can see that it is very linear and moves out in a gradual pattern that will often work very well for portraits. If you don’t want it, it is easy to correct for either in camera (JPEG or Video) or in post with RAW files. The vignette doesn’t naturally clear up very fast, however, and there is only mild improvement by F4.

I find in many cases I actually like the look of uncorrected images. The vignette adds character, though there will obviously be exceptions to that rule. Here’s a shot that I prefer without corrections (at F2).

A look at a longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) test reveals some interesting things.

First of all, the actual amount of LoCA here is not particularly pronounced (at least in this lighting). What you see instead is a generalized haze (surface blur) that smears fine details and reduces contrast. Stopping down the lens dramatically improves the microcontrast (look at this comparison between F1.2 and F2.8).

This is essentially what we see in real-world situations, too. In this high contrast scene at F1.2 you can see some generalized purple and green fringing, but it is more on the surface rather than to the side of the high contrast areas. The details look a bit bit smeared as a result, as if there were some Vaseline on the front element.

That same scene at F2.8 renders very differently:

This helps us to understand the results we find on the test chart. First, here’s what the full frame looks like on a 42Mpx camera:

Now, a look at the crops from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner:

What you’ll see is that there is actually good detail in these crops, but the layer of haze over the top (low contrast) obscures them from being visible. There’s a lot of that smearing.

There’s minimal improvement at F1.4, but by F2 you can see a dramatic uptick in contrast and acuity. The details were there before, but now the reduction in haze allows them to really shine.

If you stop on down the contrast and detail continues to improve to exceptional levels. By F5.6 even the extreme corners are incredibly sharp and high contrast:

This is obviously going to give you some creative options…particularly when shooting portraits. Here’s a look at F1.2, F1.4, and F2 along with crops. Even F2 gives one a very different look to access for portraits, with high levels of detail, while the wider aperture shots give that “dreamy” look.

The trade off for lower contrast at wide apertures is a pretty delightful bokeh rendering. As noted, though the Nokton does not have a long focal length that blurs out backgrounds, the quality of the blur is beautiful in many situations. Here’s an example:

The interesting thing with a shot like this is that at a global level the contrast actually looks good (at F1.2). It is only when pixel peeping that that the hazy appears. Here’s another example of the same truth:

And this is the reason why some photographers will really be attracted to this lens. When reviewing lenses, we look at the details. In photo sharing, however, we look at photos. Often reviews “miss the forest for the trees” as one gets so caught up in the details that we miss the overall character of a lens. The character of the Nokton is quite lovely, and it has amazingly beautiful color rendering as well. Here’s a few more examples to illustrate what I mean:

The “look” or “feel” of the images are great. Some of you will prioritize high detail and sharpness at F1.2 or F1.4, and, if so, this lens is probably not for you. But if you are more about the rendering in images, the Nokton could become a favorite for you. Take a look at the image gallery here if you want to see more photos to help you make that decision.

As previously noted, the lens is a fabulous landscape option when stopped down. Great color, amazing detail, and a good focal length for many situations:

Any lens with an aperture this large is going to present an intriguing option for shooting the night sky. The results for astro are a mixed bag, though. At wide apertures the lens shows some of that smearing on star points even in the center of the frame, and there is some fairly obvious coma along the edges (those aren’t flying geese, those are stars!)

Stopping down to F2 reduces but does not eliminate the comatic aberrations.

On a positive note, the lens can suck in a lot of light, so (as is our theme), the global look of night sky images is pretty good.

In short, the Nokton is dreamy/soft at wide apertures (though with beautiful color and bokeh) and becomes very sharp from F2 onwards. It’s a lens that will appeal to a certain type of photographers, but is clearly not for everyone. That’s pretty much true of Voigtländer in general.

Conclusion

The Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 is a unique lens. It has some great strengths, some serious weaknesses (for certain people), and is most certainly a lens that is more about the feel of the images (global rendering) than it is about the kinds of details that test well in a lab. Those that just do lab tests probably won’t get this lens at all. But for those who are more about artistic feel, the Nokton is a pretty special tool.

I see this as being a lens for the more artsy types, as it has a retro, hipster feel that is great for those whose photography works something like this:

In my short time with the lens, I reached for it frequently for that style of shot. It’s a great focal length, has amazing color, and has that “it” quality when it comes to the look of images. It is certainly not a lens for the masses (that $950 price tag assures that!), but if you like more deliberate, artistic photography, it is a lens worth considering.

Pros

Beautifully built, well engineered classic design
Compact size for a lens with an F1.2 aperture
Gorgeous color rendition
Beautiful bokeh
Incredibly sharp and high contrast when stopped down
Very high acuity at smaller apertures

Cons

Low contrast and acuity at F1.2 and F1.4
Some smearing and chromatic aberrations at large apertures
No weather sealing

Purchase the Voigtländer 40mm F1.2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay

Sony a9 Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7R III Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK | Ebay
Peak Design Slide Lite: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X5 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, Nokton, 40mm f1.2, Voigtlander 40mm Review, Voigtlander 40mm f1.2, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 Nokton, Voigtländer 40mm, Voigtländer 40mm, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master Review

Dustin Abbott

April 13th, 2020

The Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master lens is one of the best lenses I’ve used. Full stop. Stop and think about that for a moment, because after spending time with hundreds of lenses, that amazes me. It also passes the 24mm F1.4 GM as my favorite of the current crop of G Master lenses. If I could choose to own any of the (non-supertele) G Master lenses, this would be the one right now. So what makes this lens so special? I’ll elaborate more in this review, but the combination of great autofocus, amazing sharpness (even at F1.8), and lovely bokeh makes this a tremendous tool to put in the hands of a portrait photographer. Like the 24mm F1.4, this is a very livable lens. If one uses the 85mm F1.4 GM and the much cheaper FE 85mm F1.8 side by side, you would have to conclude that the 85mm F1.8 focuses better. There’s no such compromise here. The focus is fantastic, smooth, and quiet on the 135GM (as we’ll call it for short), and it locks on with amazing accuracy. Depth of field with a 135mm lens and a maximum aperture of F1.8 is tiny, but I didn’t miss a portrait shot with the lens.

You might also see that the colors are both rich and accurate. The bokeh is also very nice from the lens…

…which is going to leave me very, very little to complain about in this review. My chief complaint? Well, it is expensive. At nearly $2100 USD, it may be priced out of the market for some shooters, but this is the kind of lens that if you use it for a portrait session, you’ll immediately start doing the mental calculations on what you need to sell to afford adding this lens to your kit. That’s definitely true for me.

Let’s dive in together and explore what makes this lens so very good at both the technical and the artistic. If you prefer to watch your reviews, you can watch either my standard review or my in-depth definitive video review by clicking the appropriate thumbnail below:

I want to thank Sony Canada and Gentec for arranging this loaner for me. This review of the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 has been done on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies…

Sony 135GM Build and Handling

I wouldn’t call the GM lenses beautiful (certainly not in the way that a lens like the Zeiss Milvus lineup are), but they are tough, feature rich, and highly functional. There’s a lot going on with the lens, with three switches, two buttons, and two rings vying for space on its barrel. Some of the best looking lenses are those that are very “clean” or “spare”, but often that emphasis on form comes at a cost of functionality. Sony has chosen to make the 135GM a functional tool for professional use, so the balance tips towards functionality over form.

That’s not to say the lens is ugly (it’s not), but it strikes my eye as having a different set of priorities than some lenses I’ve tested. I would call the lens large but without being gratuitous. Out of the four autofocus lenses for Sony that I’ve compared in the chart below, it is the longest (according to the specs) and the second heaviest (with the Sigma being the heaviest). The reason why I give the caveat of “according to the specs” is that Sigma has been a little disingenuous with the Sony FE adaptions of their previous DSLR lenses (this doesn’t apply to the all-new Sony FE/Leica L designs beginning in 2019). Sony has not really released updated specs for the Sony FE versions, so the listed specs are the same as the Canon EF version. The problem is that I’ve retested about four of the FE versions of ART series lenses and both measured and weighed them myself, and in every case the FE version is about an inch/25mm longer (to house the adapter that allows the autofocus system to work properly on mirrorless) and typically about 4.5 oz/130g heavier (for the same reason). Most reviewers seem to have missed this, and just cite the listed specs. So, in reality, the 135GM is both the third largest and third heaviest of these options, and the Sigma is a full one-third heavier (probably somewhere around 1260g).

This is the most apples-to-apples comparison here, as the GM and Sigma both share the same maximum aperture while the other two 135mm options have a much smaller (1.33 stop) maximum aperture. In absolute terms, the 135GM is on the large side of medium. At 5″ (127mm) long, it is a fairly large lens, but is still within the range of fitting into camera bags standing upright. And for me, the big one is that it fits fine upright (if I remove the hood) with one of my Sony bodies attached in my favorite Cecilia Tharpe leather messenger bag. This is my most commonly used day to day bag (it’s 7 liters in volume), and I was able to cram in this combination plus the Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2 (for comparison) and the smaller Voigtländer 40mm F1.2 for a portrait session. For perspective, the Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM is a crucial 9mm longer, and it didn’t fit properly in this same configuration. I don’t know about you, but I personally do consider my preferred means of transporting my gear when I am considering purchasing gear for my own kit, as I know from experience that if a lens is too large to work in my usual arrangements, it tends to get left home. The Sony 135GM clears this hurdle (at least for me personally) but with little room to spare!

The 135GM is also fairly heavy at nearly a kilogram, but, as noted, it is lighter than the serious competition. It’s also lighter than my Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2, which weighs in at 1123g BEFORE I attach an adapter to it (and since I am now shooting exclusively with either Canon or Sony mirrorless bodies, it always requires one adapter or another). The Milvus is shorter in length (see above), though it is not an internally focusing lens (the Sony and Sigma are), and thus its length extends a good 15mm longer than the Sony when fully extended. Even the manual focus Samyang 135mm F2 weighs in at 840g, so for that extra 110g to the GM you are getting autofocus, weather sealing, an aperture ring, switches and controls, and a much more robust build. So, like the overall size, I find the 135GM to be reasonable in weight for all that it offers. It’s not a light lens, but when you balance the performance and features to the size and weight, everything seems very reasonable. The body itself is made out of magnesium alloy (just like premium cameras), which is considered one of the toughest, most durable materials possible right now for photography equipment.

The 135GM has a higher than average aperture blade count (11), and the aperture blades are nicely curved to the point that you can see that the aperture shape (pictured above) retains a circular shape even near minimum aperture. You can see from the series below how that the circular shape helps keep bokeh highlights nice and round even when the aperture is stopped down.

Up front there is an 82mm filter thread (large but common) along with a fluorine coating on the front element to help protect against moisture and oils along with making it easier to clean.

There are three switches on the lens barrel. One is the standard AF/MF switch (always welcome for quick control), a focus limiter with three positions (full, 0.7-2M, and 1.5M to infinity), and, on the other side of the barrel, a switch that allows you to “declick” the aperture for smooth aperture control (without detents) mostly commonly used for video work. There are also two focus hold buttons (left side and top) that gives one easy access to a button whether shooting in horizontal or vertical positions. You can program a variety of different functions to that button in the camera.

This gives one a lot of professional controls on the lens itself, and I find the lens to be very user friendly in the field. I’m not used a nicer handling 135mm or one so feature rich.

You get a variety of options for controlling aperture. As noted, the aperture ring can operate with either detents (at one third stop intervals) or in a declicked fashion. You can also put the aperture ring into automatic (A) and either let the camera control aperture or manually control it from with the camera. I personally like using an aperture ring when I have one available, as I find it helps me to consciously think about what aperture I want for a particular shot and I often select that aperture on the ring in the second or two that I am bringing the camera up to shoot with. To me, it is the most organic process, though obviously your preferences may vary. We can all agree that it is nice that a lens like this gives us options!

The focus ring is wide and has a rubberized texture different by feel from the aperture ring. Sony has done an amazing job of emulating a mechanical focus ring here (this lens, like all true mirrorless lenses, is focus-by-wire). When you switch into DMF or MF mode, the focus ring has nice damping and precision, moves in a linear fashion (important for repeatability of focus pulls), and focus is aided by Sony’s focus assist which automatically magnifies the active focus area. You also get an electronic distance scale on screen (or viewfinder) and you can further augment this by having focus overlays. This is one of the better applications of focus by wire that I’ve seen, and outside of not having hard mechanical stops at minimum, this is actually a beautiful manual focus lens. It’s almost a sad irony, however, as the AF is so good that I never actually needed to manually focus other than just to test it!

The lens comes with a nice, padded nylon case and a well-executed lens hood. It has a rubberized transition at the front (allows you to stand everything upright in a stable position and protects against little bumps), a felt lining inside to prevent stray light from bouncing around, and has a locking mechanism to help keep the lens hood from being knocked crooked or loose. It reverses easily for storage without adding a lot of extra girth to the lens.

At the rear of the lens you’ll find a gasket at the lens mount (Sony ones are always very thin, for some reason!), a metal lens mount, and Sony shows 9 other internal seal points at the rings, switches, buttons, and transition points in the lens.

The 135GM can focus down to 2.3′ (70cm), which is closer than competing lenses and allows for a very useful 1:4 ratio (0.25x) of magnification.

Not only that, but the excellent image quality persists at MFD, so this is very useful addition to the functionality and versatility of the lens. You have a lot of additional creative options, and, as the final shot shows, you can frame faces very tightly for more portrait options. The depth of field on my eye is so shallow that just a few eyelashes are in focus at F1.8.

Put simply, this lens has everything that I could think of it possibly needing to have. It is very feature rich and has a very practical, usable design. So yes, my only criticism (and it is a really, really shallow one) is that I’ve seen prettier lenses! This is a tool for professionals and helps justify its premium price.

Sony 135mm F1.8 G Master Autofocus

I noted the excellent manual focus action of the 135GM along with its three position focus limiter, but the truth is that I didn’t really need either during my review period because the autofocus was just so good on the lens. Sony has utilized dual specialized, high-torque XD (extreme dynamic) linear motors whose function lives up to the hype.

Focus is silent, fast, and extremely precise. I was able to nail focus on really finite subjects at extremely shallow depth of field situations.

A maximum aperture of F1.8 at 135mm is very large, but these motors drive those large elements with excellent speed. If you go from minimum to infinity, you’ll get a split second lag, but otherwise more typical focus changes are pretty much instantaneous with basically no sound at all. This is a very different experience from the 85mm F1.4 GM. That lens has an effective focus system, but it doesn’t feel particularly smooth or refined by comparison.

One of my most impressive focus moments was on one of my hikes. I saw a distant squirrel (about 25 feet/8m away from me). In between he and I were a number of bare branches and other distractions that could distract focus. I quickly enabled Pet Eye AF and switched to APS-C mode on my a7RIII, which gives a slightly over 200mm angle of view. I shot at F1.8, and was so impressed to see perfect focus in a series of shots in what I could characterize as a difficult shooting environment. Take a look at that crop; is that not fantastic?

I also did a little portrait session with my wife. It was still uncomfortably cool outside, and any of you that are married know that isn’t the time to push your luck with your significant other! I needed to move fast and capture a number of different looks and angles within minutes; this wasn’t a time to be deliberate. It is thus a tribute to the lens that I got home with a variety of perfectly focused images at large apertures and with various angles of the eyes. At a pixel level it is clear that in every occasion the focus accuracy is excellent. I’m impressed…and delighted. This can be a challenging focal length to produce great results with, but the 135GM is pretty much guaranteed to make portrait photographers even better at their jobs.

Those of you who follow me know that I love to shoot shots like the one above, and I’ve rarely seen any lens do more with this very, very simple example of last year’s leftover sweet fern that was sticking up in a little patch where the snow had melted away. The lens just nailed focus…and those optics…

Sony 135GM Image Quality

If it feels like I’ve been uncharacteristically “gushy” to this point, then prepare yourself for more of the same.

This lens is good.

Very, very good.

The lens has an optical formula of 13 elements in 10 groups, with three of those being special elements (as you can see from the diagram above. If you can read an MTF chart, then you will also quickly note that this is one of the better MTFs that you have ever seen. Before we jump into the chart tests, however, let’s take a minute or two in the real world. Most of you who follow my work know that one of my signature shots is to isolate leaves out in the woods. This is a very practical signature for me, as somewhere in November (typically) until late April, almost all living plant life dies off where I live. Those lingering oak and beech leaves are a lifeline for me – giving me something to shoot when options are few. I’m testing the 135GM in one of the most challenging periods of the year – the ugly transition between winter and spring. The exotic winter weather elements are gone, the melting snow is grey and dirty, and the emerging ground looks like the dirt floor of a cabin from 1725. So thank God for those leaves! Here’s one of those shots, wide open, F1.8:

The end result is beautiful. Color, bokeh, and detail all abound, with very crisp delineation along the edges of the leaves. This helps them to really pop in the frame.

Likewise one can shoot a portrait from a distance (10-12 meters) at F1.8 and find beautifully crisp detail on their subject along with that wonderfully dramatic effect from this focal length and aperture combination. (This shot has had Lightroom’s “Warm Contrast” preset applied as I felt it really suited the look I was going for here).

Skin tones are also beautifully rendered, and though the amount of detail is impressive at a pixel level, skin tones look very natural (I used a custom color profile created with a Datacolor Checkr to get perfectly calibrated results).

So, put simply, the 135GM has a very unique and special combination of sharpness, contrast, color, and bokeh in real world applications. Let’s explore the technical side of things now.

While Sony does label the 135GM an apochromatic lens, it behaves similarly to Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2, which will serve as my reference point as it is the finest 135mm that I’ve used.

There might be the slightest bit more of green fringing beyond the plan of focus from the 135GM, but it is virtually undetectable in any kind of real world scenario that I’ve seen. Both deliver similiarly impressive levels of microcontrast here, with the zero being very inky dark and crisp. It is worth nothing that the two lenses framed a little differently here (the Milvus results look larger than the Sony). I noticed this at several stages while doing my tests. It got me thinking, so I checked the the specs. Sure enough. While both lenses have identical magnification levels (0.25x), the minimum focus distance for the Sony is 10mm closer (70 vs 80cm). This means one of two things (or some combination of the two): 1) the 135GM does some focus breathing (where it behaves as less than 135mm at close focus distances) or 2) the focal length of the Milvus is longer (or the Sony shorter) than 135mm. I suspect it is actually the former, and that the closer-than-typical minimum focus helps compensate for that. I also noted that when I did a portrait comparison (more in a moment) from about 15 feet the two lenses had similar levels of magnification.

Big picture takeaway? This is fairly meaningless, but I like to report the little oddities that I discover as a part of lens testing.

Next up is vignette and distortion. Distortion is very minimal, but what I detect is a very slight bit of pincushion distortion…just enough to be flattering for portraits if left uncorrected, but not enough to make much of a difference either way. Vignette manifests more as a general darkening of most of the frame, but it is very gradual and linear and not really extreme even in the extreme corners.

Here’s a visual comparison of a portrait shot (at F1.8) without correction (left) and with correction (right).

Not much difference, though I personally actually favor the uncorrected image. The vignette is natural in this scene, adds a bit of drama, and the tiny bit of pincushion distortion gives a little bit of slimming to the model. If you are shooting RAW, you make that decision at post. The instructions for the profile are automatically embedded in the RAW file, but you can choose to turn it off in your software (or camera). The choice to correct JPEGs or Video files are made in camera. It’s nice to have choices.

Here’s a look at the test chart globally.

Now let’s look up close. Here is crops from the center, mid-frame, and corner at F1.8:

Ummm, wow! The amount of sharpness, contrast, and acuity (rendering of fine details) is impressive everywhere you look. This is a stunningly good performance…and here’s the proof:

As hard as it might seem to imagine (to me, at least), the Sony 135GM is actually sharper at F1.8 than the Milvus at F2 essentially everywhere but the center of the frame…which means this lens is insanely sharp.

There’s more, though. In real world use, the Sony wins even more, as even an experienced manual focus shooter like myself can’t match the precision of a great autofocus system like that in the 135GM. When doing my portrait comparison, for example, I was of course careful to nail focus, but I wasn’t able to achieve quite as good results with the Milvus (subtle movement of the model between focus and capture, etc…).

It’s not night and day, obviously, but the 135GM result is clearly sharper…though a controlled test reveals that in the center of the frame it’s not actually sharper.

Let’s step back and take a look at a global portrait at F2.8 from both lenses.

My only real argument for the Milvus over the 135GM is that I think that when viewed globally the Zeiss color is a little bit richer and the defocused region is arguably a little more pleasing. But those differences are, of course, both subtle and subjective. For most all photographers most all of the time, they will get consistently better results with the GM lens. Still, both of these, when used right, are going to give portrait photographers unbelievably good results.

There is even more contrast and bit more sharpness to be had by stepping down to F2.8:

I probably don’t need to tell you that we are now at exceptional levels. This is one of the sharpest lenses I’ve had in my hands, bar none.

There’s a bit more contrast at F4, F5.6, and F8, though you only need to access these apertures if you want the additional depth of field. Stopping down further will produces slightly less contrast due to diffraction.

The typical tradeoff from such a sharp, high contrast performance is bokeh that isn’t as soft or creamy. I suspect that an argument could be made that the bokeh from the 85GM was a bit softer, but frankly I haven’t seen much of anything that turns me off. Here’s a quick look at fore and background bokeh:

Most of the bokeh that I’ve seen from the lens looks very pleasing to me. Here’s some samples to let you make your own assessments:

If there is any vulnerability here, it is a fairly typical weakness for large aperture telephoto primes when you face them into the sun. The performance straight into the sun isn’t too bad (some localized veiling and a bit of ghosting), though the ghosting gets a little more pronounced with the lens stopped down significantly (probably not a very typical way to actually use the lens, though!). Where it is most vulnerable is to side lighting with the sun or light source at the corner of the frame. You can see from the final image below that there is a lot of veiling and you could encounter a larger ghosting artifact depending on your composition.

That one misstep aside, however, this is one of the most exceptional lenses I’ve ever tested. It is optically brilliant.

If you would like to see more photo samples, please check out the image gallery here.

Conclusion

The Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master lens has really struck me as the most exceptional of the GM lenses. It has felt like there were a few tradeoffs with some of the other GM lenses. The 24-70mm F2.8 GM struck me as being unnecessarily large and wasn’t really much better optically than either the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 or Tamron 28-75mm. The 85mm F1.4 GM does not focus as well or smoothly as the much cheaper FE 85mm F1.8. The 100-400mm GM is very good, but not better (or even as good in some places) as the cheaper 200-600mm G, and definitely not better than the Canon 100-400L II equivalent optically. So far I’ve loved the 24mm F1.4 and the 135GM, though the 135 is the one I’d spend my money on, personally. But it is a lot of money at $2100 USD.

It is also the most exceptional of any of these lenses. It has no real vulnerabilities, and unseated the best 135mm lens that I have ever used previously – the Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2. It delivers really, really stunning lenses with great presence.

But there is one issue for any 135mm lens. While a 135mm lens can deliver more dramatic, exciting images for environmental portraiture than anything save a 200mm F2 lens, it is also a somewhat restrictive focal length. It can be too long/tight for indoor portrait work, and can also be too long for shooting a wedding ceremony with (a 70-200 is more accommodating). I prefer the look of images from a 135mm lens, but reach for an 85mm lens more often because of the extra versatility. As a result, fewer people will consider this lens. For those that have the basics covered, however, and are looking for something exceptional, strongly consider the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM. I know I am…

Pros:

Beautiful, feature rich build
Magnesium alloy core and thorough weather sealing
Ability to declick aperture
Amazing autofocus with brilliant speed and accuracy
Eye AF is so good that portrait work is a joy
Record-setting sharpness and contrast
Lovely bokeh and color
Great handling and performance
Truly exceptional

Cons:

Expensive
Somewhat flare prone in certain situations

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Sony 135mm F1.8 G Master Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 11th, 2020

The Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master lens is one of the best lenses I’ve used. Full stop. It also passes the 24mm F1.4 GM as my favorite of the current crop of G Master lenses. If I could choose to own any of the (non-supertele) G Master lenses, this would be the one right now. So what makes this lens so special? I’ll be exploring the reasons as a part of my review coverage, but the combination of great autofocus, amazing sharpness (even at F1.8), and lovely bokeh makes this a tremendous tool to put in the hands of a portrait photographer. I hope the images below give a sense of how special the image quality is even though I’m shooting in the “lean season” between winter and spring. I’ll be reviewing the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below.

Long term update: I liked the 135GM well enough that I purchased one myself shortly after my initial review in April of 2020. The final gallery below is my long-term gallery taken with my own copy of the lens with the cameras mentioned above along with the even higher resolution Sony Alpha 1. You can watch my long term video review below:

Images of the Sony 135mm G Master

Images taken with the Sony 135mm G Master

Long Term Sony 135GM Gallery

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Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 5th, 2020

Years ago I reviewed the unique Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 for Canon EF. I call it unique, in that, contrary to expectations for Zeiss glass, it isn’t actually particularly sharp wide open. “Dreamy” is the euphemistic term. Yet it produces really beautiful images with lovely rendering, and becomes very sharp when stopped down. I bring that up because that was the lens that I was reminded of when reviewing the Voigtländer 40mm Nokton F1.2 for Sony full frame mirrorless (FE). It is a lens with gorgeous color, beautiful rendering, but not high levels of sharpness from F1.2-F2. My access to Voigtländer lenses in Canada is limited, so I jumped on a unique opportunity to review the 110mm (my review here) and 40mm F1.2 lenses. The 40mm F1.2 is a fully manual lens, though it does have electronic contacts and operates essentially like the Zeiss Loxia series lenses on Sony FE (full frame E-mount). This is a unique lens, and I hope to deliver a nuanced review for you that covers its shortcomings while highlighting it’s unique strengths. I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer 40mm F1.2 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below. Stay tuned for my ongoing coverage.

Images of the Voigtländer 40mm F1.2

Images taken with the Voigtländer 40mm F1.2

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Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 Review

Dustin Abbott

May 12th, 2020

Voigtländer APO50 Build and Handling

Voigtländer APO50 Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

May 6th, 2020

Images of the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2

Images taken with the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Purchase the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2WcYgId | Amazon https://amzn.to/3c6hwMV | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/2WEA2Wm | Ebay https://bit.ly/APO50mmDA

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Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master OSS Review

Dustin Abbott

May 2nd, 2020

Sony 100-400GM Build, Handling, and Features

Autofocus Performance

Sony 100-400GM Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 29th, 2020

Images of the Sony FE 100-400mm G Master

Images taken with the Sony FE 100-400mm G Master

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Purchase the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2Y6fXdJ | Amazonhttps://amzn.to/2S7acZB | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/2Y73Hti | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/2KzA643 | Ebay https://bit.ly/100_400GM

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Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 Review

Dustin Abbott

April 20th, 2020

Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 Build and Handling

Voigtländer Nokton 40mm Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros

Cons

Purchase the Voigtländer 40mm F1.2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master Review

Dustin Abbott

April 13th, 2020

Sony 135GM Build and Handling

Sony 135mm F1.8 G Master Autofocus

Sony 135GM Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase the Sony 135mm F1.8 G Master @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay

Purchase your gear at:

B&H Photo | Amazon | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Sony 135mm F1.8 G Master Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 11th, 2020

Images of the Sony 135mm G Master

Sony a9 Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay