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

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

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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

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 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

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 110mm F2.5 APO-LANTHAR Macro Review

Dustin Abbott

March 30th, 2020

I’ve owned the outstanding Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro for several years now, and was intrigued with Voigtländer announced the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 110mm F2.5 Macro lens. My access to Voigtländer lenses in Canada is limited, so I jumped on a unique opportunity to review the 110mm and 40mm F1.2 lenses. Unlike the 65mm (which is just a 1:2 or “half-size” macro), the 110mm F2.5 is a full 1:1 Macro. If it shows the incredible sharpness, contrast, and color of the 65mm, it will be a truly special lens. The 110mm F2.5 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). So is it a usable lens despite being manual focus? Does the APO 110M (as we’ll call it for brevity in the review) have the superb optical performance of the 65mm? These are among the other questions we will attempt to address in this review.

First, a note on manual focus in general. Whether or not the manual focus nature of the APO 110M is a liability to you will depend chiefly on what you intend to do with the lens. Many macro shooters prefer manual focus (even when using AF lenses) because manual focus gives you precision over just where you want focus to be. The razor-thin depth of field at macro distances often make it difficult to put a focus point exactly where you want, so manual focus often gives you more precision. A good manual focus lens (like this one) makes that process easier because the focus ring is smoother and often has more focus “throw”. If you want the focal length for general purpose, however, you will be less satisfied, though for portraits the lens is still good because the fully retracted position (the barrel extends as you focus towards macro) is actually at infinity, and the focus throw is relatively small and simple at portrait distances (more on the optical quality for portraits in the image quality segment).

Where the APO 110M’s long focus throw can be a little exasperating is in either general purpose shooting that includes both close and distant focus (it takes nearly four rotations of the ring to get from macro to infinity territory) or when trying to do video focus pulls. The focus throw is just too long to do serious focus pulls even though the focus ring moves very smoothly.

But there’s no question this lens has incredible optics and produces beautiful images, 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 to B&H Photo for the loaner copy of the lens! I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies.

Voigtländer APO 100M 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 APO 100M follows the Classic pattern, with a knurled metal focus ring that looks great, has excellent grip, and moves with beautifully damped, creamy smoothness. It’s a world away from the feel of the Zeiss Makro-Planar lenses (pre-Milvus), that had unnecessarily heavy damping. I’ve yet to use a Voigtländer lens (I’ve owned or used five now) that didn’t focus beautifully, and the APO 110M is no exception.

What I’m less crazy about is how long the focus throw ends up being on a 1:1 manual focus lens like this. By my estimation there is about 450 degrees of rotation in the focus ring, which takes about 4 1/2 standard wrist rotations to go from one extreme to another. As mentioned previously, the long focus throw is a positive if you are doing macro and are already in that range, as you have a lot of precision. It’s also not bad when shooting infinity or portrait length shots, as the focus throw in that range is adequate without being gratuitous. But in the 1:2 range (half a meter/2 feet) range, you are going to have to do quite a bit of focus rotation from either extreme, so it is hard to get there quickly. The same is obviously true if you are going to make any kind of significant focus change. This is not a “fast” lens to operate.

It’s worth noting that the APO 100M extends much further when focused towards minimum than does the APO 65M. The photo above shows that when the two lenses are in their fully retracted position, they are quite similar in size. They are within a fraction of a millimeter in diameter and about 8mm different in length (roughly a quarter of an inch). But when they are fully extended (at minimum focus), they APO 100M extends significantly more.

Fully extended, the length grows from essentially 100mm to 160mm, and if you add the lens hood into the equation, that length grows to about 210mm. The Sony 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS is probably the chief competitor to this lens, and, as the chart below shows, it is about 31mm longer when the Voigtländer is retracted, but is roughly 30mm shorter when the APO 100M is extended.

Part of the reason for the difference in extension between the two Voigtländer lenses is that the 65mm has only 1:2 macro capabilities, which achieves this degree of magnification:

The APO 110M is a 1:1 macro, however, which gives this degree of magnification:

And that goes a long way to defining the respective role of these two lenses. I view the APO 65M as a Zeiss Makro-Planar 50mm F2 type lens – an optically impressive general purpose prime that also does macro(ish) work. It is for those whose macro is more like product or food photographer, and not for those wanting to do high levels of magnification work. The APO 110M is really for those for whom macro is the priority and might do other types of work with the lens less frequently.

The working distance on the APO 110M is pretty good (35cm/13.78″ MFD), but remember that more than half of that will be taken up by the lens and hood if you have it attached.

Speaking of the lens hood: this is one of my least favorite elements of the design. 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 58mm filter threads on the bare lens. The lens actually tapers in towards the front of the lens, so while it is slightly wider in diameter than the 65mm, it actually has a smaller front filter thread (58mm vs 67mm). The lens hood continues that taper, so it actually doesn’t fit reversed at all, meaning that you cannot store the lens with it reversed on the lens. This is true with other Voigtländer lenses as well, though more obtrusive here than most because the hood is larger. The hood is threaded at the other end, so you can continue to use filters, though now the filter thread is 67mm. It ships with a second lens cap (at 67mm) that you can use instead of the 58mm pinch cap for the bare lens.

The downside of all of this is that there is a good chance the lens hood will stay home more often than not for many users. The lens is compact enough for easy storage without it, but might not fit as well in your backpack or bag with the lens hood attached. Not being able to reverse a hood for storage when it is more significantly sized is certainly a liability. I also hate to hide that front view of the lens, as it is lovely:

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.

I’ve got one other gripe, and that is related the aperture ring. The aperture ring itself moves nicely, with well defined detents at one-third stop intervals. So far so good, right? What I don’t like is the design of the ring itself, however, as, unlike just about any other such lens that I’ve used, the aperture ring is recessed rather than raised. That makes it much hard to find by feel, and I found in real world use that I tended to feel around trying to access it when my eye was up against the viewfinder. Not optimal, and I definitely prefer the placement of the aperture ring on the 65mm; it is located at the front of the lens and is raised rather than recessed.

Those criticisms aside, the lens itself is a premium bit of kit with a beautifully engineered fit and finish. 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. At 771 grams, it isn’t a light lens, nor is it prohibitively heavy. It will cause a slight front-heavy feel on Sony cameras (evidenced by the fact I had to prop the lens up for this photo):

The APOP 110M 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 APO 110M 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 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. In a head to head between this lens and another incredible APO lens (the Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2), I actually felt that the Voigtländer color was a little bit better (though the Milvus is a bit sharper). You’ll also note the 110mm is a more flattering focal length for human features (at head and shoulders distance), with less compression than the longer 135mm focal length.

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). Vignette is more pronounced, though not terribly offensive. It will work well for portraits in many situations, and, as the corrected side shows, cleans up nicely either in camera (JPEGs and Video) or in post (RAW/ARW files).

How about sharpness? Here’s a look at my test chart:

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

What we can see from the center is that even wide open at F2.5 the sharpness and contrast are impressively good. You can read the fine text on the bill even when shooting about 3 meters away. At the mid-frame, I do see a mild regression, as the upper left corner of the bill is sharper than the lower right corner. We also see some reduced contrast in the corner crop.

It’s in this metric that the 65mm both shows its worth (it is one of the best lenses I’ve tested) and also demonstrates that the 110mm can’t quite match its performance there.

That’s not the case in the center of the frame, however, as while the lenses are close, I think the 110mm has more contrast, pop, and perhaps slightly purer color.

Both lenses are extremely sharp, obviously, but the 65mm has a more even performance across the frame.

Real world performance at F2.5, however, is very impressive. Look at how great the contrast and sharpness is here even though the crop is taken from that mid-frame position.

Here’s another example where the crop is taken from the lower third of the frame. It is this type of shot that most impresses me, as I am very familiar with these kinds of conditions. Small “blossoms” like this are very hard to resolve because there are a lot of areas of fine detail with a lot of contrast points. This is exacerbated by the snow, which tends towards “hot spots” (bright areas) and transitions where chromatic aberrations often come out. I shot this same shot with the 40mm F1.2 (at F1.4), and it really struggled. The APO 110M passed this test with flying colors.

This remains true at macro distances, where the lens resolved the fine details crisply and without aberrations even at F2.5.

There is minimal improvement from F2.5 to F2.8, but the corners look significantly sharper by F4:

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 the APO 110M does a fairly good job, too, with a number of shots delivering what I consider very nice bokeh. Here’s a sampling at a variety of focus distances.

Where I’m less impressed is in a typical sore spot with either Zeiss or Voigtländer lenses: the aperture blades are straight, not curved, which means that you start to see the shape of the aperture fairly quickly as the lens is stopped down. In this case the lens has 10 aperture blades, which is a bit better as more blades equals a more circular shape. You will start to see that decagonal shape fairly soon. Here’s wide open, F4, and F5.6:

You can see from the wide open example that the bokeh is quite soft, though there is some geometric deformation at the edges of the frame.

One final area of consideration is flare resistance. Wide aperture, medium telephoto lenses are rarely great in this metric. The APO 110M falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. Wide open you will see some prismatic haze but few ghosting artifacts. Stopped down (second example below is at F11) you see a bit less veiling but more obvious ghosting particles. When panning across the sun the flaring is worse when the sun is in the corner of the frame or right out of the frame. It is those cases where using the lens hood helps a bit but doesn’t eliminate the problem.

The longer focal length means that you will rarely have a situation where you can’t avoid backlighting, however, so you will just need to creatively frame to minimize the damage.

All told, however, this lens has beautiful image quality, and that remains true if you are shooting at macro distances:

It’s worth noting that I shot this image handheld (thanks to the IBIS of my Sony a9), so that further adds to the usefulness of the lens. If you would like to see more photos from this beautiful lens, check out the image gallery here.

Conclusion

The Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 APO-LANTHAR Macro is one of the more unique lenses available on Sony. It mixes high end optical performance with old-world sensibility in lens design. It essentially is like a Zeiss Makro-Planar lens designed specifically for Sony. The APO 110M produces stunning images at any kind of focus distance, from macro to infinity.

It is also reasonably priced compared to the competition. One would pay closer to $2000 for the Milvus version of the Zeiss 100mm F2 Makro lens, but the APO 110M comes in at a more palatable $1000 USD. The Zeiss MP lenses are also only 1:2 magnification. The Sony 90mm F2.8 G OSS is going to be the primary competitor, and it will be the practical choice with both autofocus and OSS (image stabilization) and costing about $100 more.

But the Voigtländer 110mm isn’t really about practicality, ultimately. No manual focus lens in this automatic era is. It’s more about a passion for beautifully made optical instruments that can produce stunning images. It’s for those who want to be more deliberate, more in control of the process, and those who feel a sense of pride when they are more intimately involved with the image creation process. I own multiple macro lenses, so I prefer the flexibility and handling of the Voigtländer 65mm F2 Macro, myself, though if you need a 1:1 macro lens, this is the way to go. One thing is sure: I love the kinds of images you can produce with a lens like this, and I often enjoy the more deliberate process associated with it when I have the time. And maybe, just maybe, you feel the same.

Pros:

Beautiful, premium design with exquisite materials
Smooth, nicely damped focus ring
Electronic communication simplifies manual operation
Stunning, accurate colors
Amazing center sharpness
Great sharpness across the frame at smaller apertures
APO design practically eliminates CA
Nice bokeh in most situations
Not exorbitantly priced

Cons:

Focus throw can be prohibitively long in some applications
Corner sharpness not as good as the 65mm F2
Aperture ring hard to find by feel
No weather sealing

Purchase the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro @ 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
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Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, APO, Lanthar, Macro, 110mm f/2.5, Voigtlander 110mm Review, Voigtlander 110mm f2.5, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 110mm f/2.5 APO-Lanthar Macro, Voigtländer 110mm Macro, Voigtländer 110 Macro, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Apochromatic, 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 110mm F2.5 Macro Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

March 23rd, 2020

I’ve owned the outstanding Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro for several years now, and was intrigued with Voigtländer announced the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 110mm F2.5 Macro lens. My access to Voigtländer lenses in Canada is limited, so I jumped on a unique opportunity to review the 110mm and 40mm F1.2 lenses. Unlike the 65mm (which is just a 1:2 or “half-size” macro), the 110mm F2.5 is a full 1:1 Macro. If it shows the incredible sharpness, contrast, and color of the 65mm, it will be a truly special lens. The 110mm F2.5 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). I’m expecting great things optically from this lens, and will be reporting to you both on the optical performance and also how it handles in the real world. Is it a usable lens despite being manual focus? I’ll be reviewing the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro 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 110mm F2.5 Macro

Images taken with the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro

Purchase the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro @ 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
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Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, APO, Lanthar, Macro, 110mm f/2.5, Voigtlander 110mm Review, Voigtlander 110mm f2.5, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 110mm f/2.5 APO-Lanthar Macro, Voigtländer 110mm Macro, Voigtländer 110 Macro, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Apochromatic, 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 Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm f/2 Review

Dustin Abbott

August 14th, 2018

For many photographers Voigtländer is an unknown entity, but it is actually the oldest name in cameras, dating back to 1756 when it was founded by Johan Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna, Austria. This is a storied optical company despite its relative obscurity today; a famous unknown. If there is any more familiar comparison for modern audiences, it is to Zeiss, and in fact there was a period in the 20th century when Voigtländer was owned by Zeiss. In 1999 the Cosina lens company of Japan purchased the rights to start manufacturing lenses under the Voigtländer brand. Many Zeiss lenses are also produced at the Cosina factory, and that shared “DNA” is apparent in many of the Voigtländer lenses, including the Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm f/2 that I’m reviewing today (which I’ll refer to often as the APO65 in this review for the sake of brevity).

I discovered Voigtländer a few years ago when I reviewed the 20mm f/3.5 for Canon EF and followed that with a review of the 40mm f/2 Ultron (both of which I ended up purchasing!). Like Zeiss, Voigtländer is primarily known (for those who know them) as a maker of exquisitely built manual focus lenses with beautiful color rendition. Unfortunately, I discovered Voigtländer a little late, as they stopped new development for Canon EF about that time and even discontinued selling Canon EF mount lenses, which made it hard for me to source other interesting lenses for review.

That all changed when I added Sony to my kit, as Voigtländer has (probably wisely) focused most of its new development into Sony E mount. Why do I call this wise? Because, as I noted in my review of the Sony a7R3, I think that is the best platform out there right now for using manual focus lenses due to having a great electronic viewfinder, In-Body-Image-Stabilization (IBIS), having a plethora of manual focus aids, and the ability to customize buttons for some of the key functions that help with manual focus. As soon as I added the a7R3 to my own kit the Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm f/2 jumped to the top of my wish list of lenses to review and potentially own. Not to get ahead of myself, but both of these things have now happened.

So why was I so interested in this lens? First of all is the fact that I have reviewed the Zeiss “Makro-Planar” lenses and love the versatility of them. They have wider than average maximum apertures for a macro lens (f/2) and thus double as beautiful portrait lenses. But I had an issue with each of them. The Makro-Planar 50mm had my least-favorite focus action for a Zeiss lens (which was fixed in the Milvus version), and the Makro-Planar 100 suffered from some visible longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) that showed up when I used it for shooting a wedding (particularly with the decorations). Beyond that, of course, they are designed for Canon EF/Nikon F mounts, which are frankly not all that MF-friendly systems. The APO65 promised to provide similar versatility and maximum aperture while bypassing the shortcomings of either of the Zeiss options. The focus action on the APO65 is simply exquisite – buttery smooth and perfectly damped, though with the long focus throw that a macro lens requires. As for the LoCA issue that the MP100 showed, that leads me to the second reason that I was excited about the lens…

The APO in the lens’ name refers to the fact that this is an Apochromatic lens. An apochromat, or apochromatic lens, is a photographic or other lens that has better correction of chromatic and spherical aberration than the much more common achromat lenses. (Apochromat, n.d.) 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. They also are corrected for spherical aberrations on two wavelengths rather than one.

This designation has been used rather “loosely” by some lens makers, but true apochromatic lenses are exceptional. I happen to own one, the Zeiss Milvus Apo-Sonnar 135mm f/2, and it is a truly special lens (and one I’ll benchmark in this review). So why aren’t more lenses apochromatic? I’m not an expert on the subject, but the primary issue is simple economics; apochromatic lenses are much more expensive to produce. When the first APO-Sonnar 135mm f/2 lens from Zeiss was released, it cost more than twice as much as the Canon EF 135mm f/2L. Right now the Milvus version that I own retails at B&H for $2199 while the Canon can be had for $999. All of the Zeiss Otus lenses employ an Apochromatic design, and their prices range from $3999 to $4995 USD at the moment. If you’ve seen an inexpensive lens that uses Apo in the title (ahem, Sigma), then you know it probably isn’t a true apochromatic lens. You can read more on this subject in this more detailed article on Zeiss’ Lenspire Blog.

That is what made the Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar so interesting to me. It is an Apochromatic lens designed by people that know how to produce Apochromatic lenses (Cosina produces Zeiss lenses, including the Otus series). The APO65 also costs $999 USD, which makes it an extreme bargain for a true apochromatic lens. I doubt the profit margin on this particular lens is all that big. So the APO65 is essentially the versatility of a Makro-Planar lens with an Apochromatic design?

Yes, please.

And the APO65 has not disappointed, delivering a beautiful handling experience made better by the Sony platform and an optical performance that feels very, well, Otus-like. Sound interesting? It should…

Prefer to watch your reviews? My full video review can be seen here.

Voigtländer APO65 Build, Handling, and Focus

If you are familiar with “Classic” (pre-Milvus) Zeiss designs, then you are pretty familiar with the general design of this lens. It is made of all premium materials: glossy metals and beautifully coated glass. The only plastic to be seen is in the front and rear lens caps. It feels like a finely made Swiss watch, and if you love beautiful craftsmanship you will experience a lot of pride of ownership in this lens. Zeiss has begun to employ rubberized focus rings on their newer designs, but the Voigtländer lenses have scalloped and ribbed focus rings all in metal like the Classic Zeiss designs. The black finish on the lens is an anodized, semi-gloss that looks beautiful now and will still be beautiful in decades.

I would recommend that you watch this video episode to see the lens design close up:

This lens is only made in a Sony FE (full frame eMount). It is also compatible with Sony APS-C eMount cameras like my Sony a6500, where it provides a focal length equivalent of 97.5mm due to the 1.5x crop factor. I should note that I’ve found the 18MP APS-C mode of the a7R3 very useful with this lens, as when I’m shooting events I can switch between the full frame and crop angles of view with the press of a button (C1 is what I have that programmed to) and it is like having two focal lengths on tap. 18MP is plenty of resolution for that kind of setting, so it’s very useful…particularly when I need to quickly deliver results to clients without a post-processing stage. The nearly 100mm focal length equivalent in crop mode is very useful.

There are a couple of areas that I’ll criticize, but the general impression of the build is like a high end luxury car; it makes your typical engineered-plastic lens feel very cheap by comparison. In its fully retracted position the lens is fairly compact (only 3.59”/91.3mm long), though it has that unique density I attribute to Zeiss lenses or similarly built metal lenses. It feels heavier and “denser” than you expect, though in this case the absolute weight is moderate at 1.38lb/625g. This lens is a very nice match for the Sony mirrorless bodies that it is designed for. The lens barrel extends when you focus towards the macro range, and at the extreme position the barrel extends about 1.75” (4cm).

That should tell you that the focus throw is quite long on the lens, which is very typical for a lens that includes a macro range (a close minimum focus distance adds many different focus possibilities and depth of field is very small at those focus distances). The focus throw is roughly 325 degrees, which means that going from one extreme to the other involves a lot of rotation. If you aren’t shooting in the macro range, however, it is easy to make quick adjustments, with about 50 degrees or so of focus throw dedicated to the 2 meter to infinity range. It’s enough to be able to accurately focus while still being able to do so quickly. It is only when you shooting in the close focus range that you’ll have to do any extended focusing, as the fully retracted position for the lens (that you’ll be storing it in) is at infinity.

A wonderful focus aid included with Sony bodies and supported by this lens is that the lens communicates when you begin to input focus on the manual focus ring to the camera body and it will (if enabled) automatically magnify the center of the frame in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen so that you can accurately confirm focus. If you want to focus off-center you can move the focus area through either the touchscreen or the thumbstick (if your camera is so equipped) or choose to highlight the area you want magnified in advance and manually zooming that area. You can also choose to use overlays (focus peaking), though I find this system somewhat removes me from the wonderfully organic process of visually confirming focus. I don’t find focus peaking quite as accurate as magnification and visual confirmation. Using the latter technique I rarely, if ever, have focus misses. It makes using a manual focus lens so much easier and more rewarding.

The focus action is perfect. Buttery smooth and precise, the lens glides along with the perfect amount of resistance. I’ve owned three Voigtländer lenses and they all have had perfect focus action.

The front filter thread (metal, of course), is a common 67mm. The lens is 3.07”/78mm in diameter, so the lens isn’t particularly squat, either.

I’ll deal with my criticisms here to get them out of the way. First of all, like other Voigtländer lenses, the APO65 lacks any kind of weather sealing. I used to harp on this in the past with Zeiss lenses, but the Milvus series resolved that. Still, if it is any consolation, none of the mega-expensive Otus lenses have weather sealing. I always prefer my lenses to have weather sealing, not because I want to engage in risky behavior with them (I’m very meticulous in the care of my gear), but because life includes weather. If you are shooting in a light rain, for example, or in an extremely humid environment, or in a dusty environment, etc… the inclusion of weather sealing is some peace of mind. I would love to see Voigtländer address this with future releases.

The second criticism is more minor, and it involves the included lens hood. It is a narrow metal ring that is only about 5/8” or 17mm deep. The materials are nice, with a fine metal ribbing inside, but it is so shallow that I’m hard pressed to see how it would do much. Add to this that the front element is already deeply recessed (nearly 1.5”) in the lens housing and is at miniscule risk for physically hitting it or for stray light to reach it unless the sun was directly in the frame (where the hood wouldn’t makes a difference anyway). The hood design is a screw in design rather than a bayonet-style hood, which means that it screws into the front filter thread on the lens. The front end of the hood is threaded itself, so you can still use filters – you would just screw them into the lens hood instead of the lens itself. That’s good, though it does mean that the lens hood is never going to shade the glass of the filter at all (further reducing its usefulness). Screw-on hoods are also incapable of being reversed for storage (unlike bayonet-style hoods), which means that you have a somewhat permanent extension on the front of your lens. My solution to this problem has been simple.

I left the hood in the box.

The lens works fine without it, and the recessed front element means that I have little concerns about inadvertently hitting and damaging it. I don’t think that it makes much of a difference in shading the front element, so I just don’t use it. A bayonet-style hood that could be reversed (and was deeper) would have been a more practical choice. Your mileage may vary, of course, so feel free to employ the hood if you deem it useful.

Previous Voigtländer lenses that I have used have employed an electromagnetic aperture iris to automatically control the aperture from within the camera body. That’s not the case here, as the APO65 has a physical manual aperture ring, though one superior to most vintage lenses. Rather than having only full stop positions (f/2, f/2.8, f/4, etc…) it employs one-third stop clicks between each major aperture stop, giving you more precise control over the aperture iris between the two extremes of f/2 and f/22. The aperture ring is at the front rather than the rear of the lens. It is very precise and definite, and the upside of having a manual aperture ring is that it helps to future proof the lens. I still use adapted manual focus lenses that are 50+ years old because you can retain full control over the lens’ focus and aperture since there are manual rings to control these behaviors.

The aperture iris itself employs ten blades, and, while I love having more rather than less blades, the aperture blades here aren’t curved, which means that if the lens is stopped down and there are bright highlights, you will slightly see the decagonal shape of the aperture. More blades are good, as the shape is more circular, but the straight edges of the blade do show up. Some people like this, while others prefer a purely circular shape. This is a trait shared by Zeiss lenses.

The APO65 does have an electronic coupling to the camera, so EXIF data is properly transmitted. This is also important on the Sony front because proper information is communicated to the camera’s IBIS (in body image stabilization), which makes this a stabilized macro lens (very important!) when Steady Shot is turned on. It also allows for the aforementioned focus magnification and also allows for in-body Lens Corrections. All of these add up to a better shooting experience than what I’ve had with manual focus lenses on Canon bodies, where I lacked any of these final three tools. I’ve been using the Sigma 70mm f/2.8 ART lens at the same time as this lens (on a Canon 5DIV), and I’ve been surprised by how much I miss having image stabilization. The APO65 definitely benefits from the Sony route of having the image stabilization built into the camera itself.

The lens has no switches on it, nor does it need any. It does have finely etched distance and hyperfocal markings on it near the lens mount. Near the front of the lens (right past the aperture ring) is the APO-Lanthar designation along with a red-blue-green series of slashed lines signifying the Apochromatic nature of the lens that equally focuses these three color channels. The front façade of the lens is handsome with a font and look reminiscent of the Classic Zeiss facades.

The lens can focus down to a minimum focus distance of 12.2”/31cm, which is a great working distance. Like the Makro-Planar lenses, the lens only has a 1:2 reproduction ratio (0.50x or half life-size). For most applications this is plenty, though if your priority is macro work, you may want to choose another lens with full 1:1 magnification. Voigtländer is about to release a 110mm f/2.5 version of this lens which looks very interesting because it is also Apochromatic and is a full 1:1 macro lens. I’m very interested in testing that lens! I’ve only had a few situations where I wanted to go in closer than what this lens allows. I use it more as a general purpose lens that just happens to be able to focus in very close (much like I used the Makro-Planar lenses).

The lens is exquisitely sharp even at minimum focus distances, and using a high resolution body like the a7R3 means that I have the ability to deeply crop the image to get higher magnification if desired.

I genuinely enjoy using the APO65 despite the manual nature of the lens. It is beautifully made and handles extremely well. If you love beautifully made things and manual focus lenses, you will find this one a dream.

Voigtländer APO65 Image Quality

This is where things get really, really good. I knew from the Apochromatic designation along with my previous experience with Voigtländer lenses and their fantastic color rendition that I was going to enjoy the image quality from this lens, and I have not been disappointed. The Voigtländer APO65 takes the things that I loved about other Voigtländer lenses and ramps them up to new levels. I benchmarked the APO65 against two intensely good competitors. The first (due to focal length) is the Sony Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar lens, which is the best all-round 50mm lens that I’ve ever used. It is incredibly sharp, rivaling the Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 and with contrast levels just behind that amazing lens. I found the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART nearly as sharp, but the contrast levels and color accuracy couldn’t keep up with the Sony/Zeiss lens. The second benchmark is the aforementioned Zeiss Milvus 135mm f/2 because A) it is Apochromatic and B) because it is one of the strongest optical performers in the world. I used the Sigma MC-11 mount converter to use the Canon EF mount Milvus on the Sony a7R3 I used for the comparison.

It has become my habit to break image quality down into two categories. The first is resolution, which includes sharpness, contrast, and longitudinal chromatic aberrations (which impact contrast). The second category is rendering, which covers things like bokeh, color rendition, lateral chromatic aberrations, flare resistance, and the general “feel” of the images produced by a particular lens.

You can get all the details by watching this in-depth breakdown of the image quality. This is the best way to get the full details of how the lens performs.

Voigtländer APO65 Resolution

When I compared the Planar lens to the APO65 with them both wide open (f/1.4 vs f/2) I was impressed by just how sharp both lenses really were. The one thing that stands out at all was the that the APO65 showed a little stronger wide open contrast, which makes sense considering its apochromatic design. It was also stronger on the edges of the frame than the Planar lens, which softened somewhat compared to the center.

Stopping the Planar down to f/2 revealed a few other details. The first was that the Planar lens required about 1/3^rd extra stop of light to deliver equal exposure, so light transmission favors the APO65 slightly. This was unsurprising, as I found this to be one of the [minor] weaknesses of the Planar when I reviewed it. With both lenses at f/2, I found the center of the frame and right side slightly favored the Planar, the left side the APO65.

Stopping both lenses down to f/2.8 shows a mixed bag of results. Once again the light transmission favors the APO65 by about 1/3^rd stop, and the center resolution (while exceptional for both lenses) shows a slight win in microcontrast for the APO65. The corner performance is close on the left and very slightly favors the Planar on the right. Both lenses are fairly close to perfect across the very high resolution 42MP frame at this point.

By f/4 both lenses are unsurprisingly flawless across the frame, though the APO65 continues to deliver a brighter image even with less shutter speed. Either lenses delivers enough resolution to satisfy even the most picky of pixel peepers (say that three times fast!)

Needless to say that there is no need to stop down any further. APO65 has shown well against the premium 50mm option available on Sony (and a lens that costs an additional 50% premium over the APO65).

Moving on to a comparison with the Milvus comes with a minor asterisk. The Milvus is a native EF mount, so I have to compare on Sony via an adapter (in this case the Sigma MC-11). I’ve previously determined that my MC-11 delivers excellent results, and that little if any edge deterioration takes place, but your mileage may vary.

Wide open (f/2), the two lenses deliver a roughly similar performance across the frame, which is an impressive performance for the APO65 considering A) the Milvus 2/135 is an exceptional lens when compared with, well, anything and 2) you could buy 2.2 APO65s for the price of the Milvus. The Milvus shows a little heavier vignette wide open than the APO65.

Stopped down to f/2.8, both lenses are exceptional in the center of the frame, with the APO65 showing a slight advantage in the corners of the frame. The APO65 delivers a slightly brighter image with equal settings, which once again speaks well of the light transmission from the lens.

The same truths remain at f/4, where both lenses are superb, but the APO65 has the very slightest edge at a few points in the frame.

In real world use, the lens is just exceptionally sharp and rich in contrast. Check out the crop from this image of Bella (our dog) at f/2.

The detail and microncontrast on her face is just exceptional. The resolution and microcontrast from the APO65 puts it among the very best that I’ve seen. A lot of images remind me of one of my absolute favorite lenses – the Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4…another Apochromatic lens!

Voigtländer APO65 Rendering

Under the heading of rendering I cover things like color rendition, bokeh, chromatic aberrations, and flare resistance as well as my general impressions of the “look” of images.

First of all, an area of exceptionality for the lens is the color rendition. Colors are that unique Voigtländer/Zeiss combination of rich and yet accurate. I do a lot of side by side comparisons, and it is in those comparisons that the quality of the color rendition really shines through. While in most situations you don’t have the benefit of comparing a lesser lens side by side, I think you will find that you instinctively prefer the look of images from the more exceptional lens. Here’s a few images that show off the beautiful color rendition from the lens.

Add to this the absolute complete lack of chromatic aberrations that result in images that are just exceptionally rich in contrast. I haven’t seen any lateral or longitudinal chromatic aberrations, which enables you to shoot in situations where images would normally be negatively impacted. In the shot of the coffee mug below, chromatic aberrations would typically show up strongly along with the edge of the handle – particularly since sunlight was coming right through it.

In the photo of the white blossoms the lack of CA allows the shot to work. I’ve shot white cherry blossoms with lesser lenses and found the end result a mess because there is such a high risk of CA in the transition from the bright white the background. Finally, the shot of the ring is another area where spherical aberrations often show up…and they just aren’t there. Hurrah for apochromatic lens design!

Flare resistance is another area of strength for the lens (even without that silly lens hood attached!) In a few situations I was able to create a mild amount of localized ghosting, but even when shooting right into the sun in portrait sessions I had next to no loss of contrast and very little ghosting or veiling. This extends the usefulness of the lens even further for portrait or general purpose use.

The bokeh quality from the lens is a slightly mixed bag. As previously mentioned, there will be a few situations where you might see the decagonal shape from the aperture blades when stopped down. Like the Otus lenses, however, there is also a bit of concentric circles (onion bokeh) in the bokeh highlights, though it isn’t highly pronounced and unlikely to be seen at anything but a pixel level. You can see it most in the crop of the water droplets on the grass below. In most situations the bokeh quality is quite smooth, however, and I think the lens does a great job of straddling the balance between high contrast and resolution combined with soft bokeh. Here’s a gallery of images shot at different focus distances to illustrate the point.

Put simply, the lens excels at pretty much everything you throw at it. It is exceptionally sharp at macro distances:

It does great when shooting at portrait distances as well.

Move on to infinity and the lens continues to be exceptional as a landscape lens.

It works great for shooting products because of low distortion, non-existent CA, and high sharpness.

Finally, it is an exceptional tool for wedding photographers for all of the reasons just mentioned. I might not choose it as my primary lens for shooting the event itself, but it would be a favorite for shooting the details of the rings, dresses, decorations, hands, and some portraits.

You can find even more images over at the Lens Image Gallery page here. I’ve been shooting with the lens for three months, so I’ve got a wide variety of photos to see there. While I can’t display it here to the same degree, this is an exceptional lens for video work, too. As soon as I started using it for my YouTube channel, people began asking what I was filming with. The look of the footage is just gorgeous.

Conclusion

As you can probably tell, I’m pretty delighted with this lens. It combines a lot of things that I love in one compact, beautifully crafted package. I love the flexibility of being able to get close to subjects and play with the macro range while enjoying the flexibility of the larger maximum aperture at other focus distances. I love the exceptional color rendition, resolution, and microcontrast from the lens. And I love the fact that while the Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm f/2 isn’t cheap at $999 USD, it is a bargain for what it brings to the table and how it compares to more expensive options. Yes, it is manual focus only. No, it doesn’t have weather sealing. If it had those two things, it would be pretty much the perfect lens. As a manual focus lens, it will be passed over by the masses, but if you aren’t put off by manual focus and take a chance on this lens, it will probably become one of your favorites for a long time to come.

Pros:

Beautifully crafted build of premium materials
Fantastically smooth focus action
Exceptional image quality rivaling the best lenses on the market
Complete lack of chromatic aberrations
Strong global and micro-contrast
Good flare resistance
Exceptional color rendition
Great handling
Good price-to-performance ratio

Cons:

Manual focus only
No weather sealing
Lens hood rather useless
Shape of aperture blades can be seen at smaller apertures

Bibliography

Apochromat. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 14, 2018, from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apochromat

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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!

My filming setup: Sony a7R III: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2D6ibNO or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CNxOvH | Sony a6500: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2rKiYNCor Amazon: http://amzn.to/2rKkjnK | Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro @ B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2zmz1cS or Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KUTI4n | Oben CC-2481L from B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2tbHpHY or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2sSRmYe

Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, APO, Lanthar, Macro, 65mm f/2, Voigtlander 65mm Review, Voigtlander 65mm f2, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro, Voigtländer 65mm Macro, Voigtländer 65 Macro, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Apochromatic, Sharpness, Video, ZeissJ

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Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro Galleries

Dustin Abbott

July 10th, 2018

From the moment I added Sony full frame bodies to my own personal kit, I immediately became interested in the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro lens for two reasons. Both of these reasons are Zeiss-inspired. The first is that I’ve always been tempted by the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar in both its “Classic” and Milvus versions. The versatility of such a lens is fabulous, and being able to go from standard work to portraits to macro (though at a 1:2 ratio rather than 1:1) is something that has always appealed to me. Zeiss doesn’t make that lens in a Sony FE mount, so the Voigtländer presented a lovely alternative that supports all of the Sony advantages for manual focus lenses. The second reason I was extremely interested in the lens was the APO (Apochromatic) designation. APO lenses are more expensive to manufacture, but typically represent something near the pinnacle of optical performance in many categories. I own one APO lens – the Zeiss Milvus 2/135 – and it is simply a fabulous lens in every metric. As you will see from these galleries, the APO-Lanthar does not disappoint optically, delivering near-flawless degrees of sharpness, color, and contrast. It is rare to see an apochromatic lens for under $1000, but Voigtländer manages to pull it off…by a penny! Stay tuned for more photos along with my final verdict on the lens.

Photos of the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro

Photos taken with the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro

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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!

My filming setup: Sony a7R III: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2D6ibNO or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CNxOvH | Sony a6500: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2rKiYNCor Amazon: http://amzn.to/2rKkjnK | Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro @ B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2zmz1cS or Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KUTI4n | Oben CC-2481L from B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2tbHpHY or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2sSRmYe

Keywords: Voigtlander, Voigtländer, APO-Lanthar, APO, Lanthar, Macro, 65mm f/2, Voigtlander 65mm Review, Voigtlander 65mm f2, Review, Dustin Abbott, Voigtlander 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro, Voigtländer 65mm Macro, Voigtländer 65 Macro, FE, Sony, a7R3, a7RIII, Sample Images, Video Test, YouTube, Comparison, Apochromatic, Sharpness, Video, Zeiss

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:

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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

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Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 APO-LANTHAR Macro Review

Dustin Abbott

March 30th, 2020

Voigtländer APO 100M Build and Handling

Voigtländer APO 110M Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

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Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 110mm F2.5 Macro Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

March 23rd, 2020

Images of the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro

Images taken with the Voigtländer 110mm F2.5 Macro

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Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm f/2 Review

Dustin Abbott

August 14th, 2018

Voigtländer APO65 Build, Handling, and Focus

Voigtländer APO65 Image Quality

Voigtländer APO65 Resolution

Voigtländer APO65 Rendering

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Bibliography

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro Galleries

Dustin Abbott

July 10th, 2018

Photos of the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro

Photos taken with the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro

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