Ahhh, it is nice to be reviewing another Voigtländer lens! My last Voigtländer review was back in 2020, and it was actually a review of the APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 that a subscriber had personally loaned me because I had no access to Voigtländer products here in Canada because of their not having a Canadian distributor (at least that I was aware of) and a complication with sending their products across the border from the US. Fortunately that has all changed for the better, and early this year I received an email that I was very happy to get – a “hello” from JCL Sales Group, the distributor for Voigtländer in Canada. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing more Voigtländer reviews, to which I responded, “absolutely!”
I’ve got a bit of soft spot for Voigtländer lenses, having owned three of them and currently using one that I do own (APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro) on a regular basis. That has only grown since Zeiss has seemingly transitioned away from producing non-cine camera lenses, leaving Voigtländer as the only company filling that unique niche of premium manual focus lenses. Voigtländer is actually the oldest surviving lens maker, and is a company that traces its roots to Vienna, Austria, in the mid 1700s. Like Zeiss (a German company), the more modern lenses have been produced in Japan by Cosina, and there is just something special about their optical glass that produces gorgeous colors. Today’s review is of one of their newest lenses – the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0. I’m reviewing it on Sony E-mount, and while there are similar lenses for Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts, Voigtländer says that this new lens was exclusively developed for Sony. This is the most expensive lens currently made by Voigtländer, and the reason is all about that F1.0 maximum aperture. It’s extreme in every way, and I’ve reviewed very few lenses that match the light gathering potential of the Nokton F1 (as I’ll call it for brevity here). If you want my full thoughts on this lovely new lens, you can either watch my video review below, read the text review…or just keep reading.
Thanks to JCL Sales Group for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Voigtländer lenses follow a tried and true formula that has been true across the four different mounts that I’ve tested them on. This includes a premium build that is all metal and glass, well executed aperture and focus rings, electronic contacts to communicate EXIF data and to enable more manual focus aids, but no weather sealing. Their lenses tend to be more like classic Zeiss lenses in build but typically smaller and less extreme in size. All of this is true here, and while the Nokton 50mm isn’t a small lens, it is only moderately sized. It has that stubby profile that looks really great mounted on your camera.
There are two aspects of Voigtländer lenses that I enjoy: 1) the beautiful manual focus action and 2) the uniquely beautiful rendering and image quality. That F1.0 aperture allows for extremely shallow depth of field and a lot of lovely, creamy bokeh.
So is the new Nokton 50mm F1.0 worth the roughly $1900 USD price tag? That’s going to depend a lot on your priorities.
Keywords: Voigtländer, Voigtlander, Nokton, 50mm, F1, F1.0, F/1.0, Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0, Nikon, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 61MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #Alpha1, #A7RV
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.
Ahhh, it is nice to be reviewing another Voigtländer lens! My last Voigtländer review was back in 2020, and it was actually a review of the APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 that a subscriber had personally loaned me because I had no access to Voigtländer products here in Canada because of their not having a Canadian distributor (at least that I was aware of) and a complication with sending their products across the border from the US. Fortunately that has all changed for the better, and early this year I received an email that I was very happy to get – a “hello” from JCL Sales Group, the distributor for Voigtländer in Canada. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing more Voigtländer reviews, to which I responded, “absolutely!”
I’ve got a bit of soft spot for Voigtländer lenses, having owned three of them and currently using one that I do own (APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro) on a regular basis. That has only grown since Zeiss has seemingly transitioned away from producing non-cine camera lenses, leaving Voigtländer as the only company filling that unique niche of premium manual focus lenses. Voigtländer is actually the oldest surviving lens maker, and is a company that traces its roots to Vienna, Austria, in the mid 1700s. Like Zeiss (a German company), the more modern lenses have been produced in Japan by Cosina, and there is just something special about their optical glass that produces gorgeous colors. Today’s review is of one of their newest lenses – the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0. I’m reviewing it on Sony E-mount, and while there are similar lenses for Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts, Voigtländer says that this new lens was exclusively developed for Sony. This is the most expensive lens currently made by Voigtländer, and the reason is all about that F1.0 maximum aperture. It’s extreme in every way, and I’ve reviewed very few lenses that match the light gathering potential of the Nokton F1 (as I’ll call it for brevity here). If you want my full thoughts on this lovely new lens, you can either watch my video review below…or just keep reading.
Thanks to JCL Sales Group for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Voigtländer lenses follow a tried and true formula that has been true across the four different mounts that I’ve tested them on. This includes a premium build that is all metal and glass, well executed aperture and focus rings, electronic contacts to communicate EXIF data and to enable more manual focus aids, but no weather sealing. Their lenses tend to be more like classic Zeiss lenses in build but typically smaller and less extreme in size. All of this is true here, and while the Nokton 50mm isn’t a small lens, it is only moderately sized. It has that stubby profile that looks really great mounted on your camera.
There are two aspects of Voigtländer lenses that I enjoy: 1) the beautiful manual focus action and 2) the uniquely beautiful rendering and image quality. That F1.0 aperture allows for extremely shallow depth of field and a lot of lovely, creamy bokeh.
So is the new Nokton 50mm F1.0 worth the roughly $1900 USD price tag? That’s going to depend a lot on your priorities.
Build and Handling
There are essentially two different variations of the Voigtländer design language in use right now. We have a classic “knurled” style to the manual focus ring as seen on the also new Nokton 75mm F1.5 that I just reviewed (and my older APO-Lanthar 65mm F2) and then also a diamond pattern grip surface seen on the Nokton 50mm F1.0 (shown here in Sony e-Mount).
The diamond pattern grip and slightly updated design language is something new for Voigtländer, and I like it. It’s a bit more contemporary, but it looks and feels very premium, too. The word that I’m getting is that Voigtländer is going to use both styles to differentiate different mounts. All Z-mount lenses, for example, will get the scalloped look while Canon RF in particular will all have the diamond pattern. I’m not sure where that leaves Sony E-mount, as both styles currently exist there.
Sony E-mount lenses often have a taper to the mount, as the E-mount is fairly small relative to Canon RF and, in particular, Nikon Z mounts. The biggest problem with this is illustrated above, as Sony uses the smaller mount as a reason to make their cameras smaller and narrower than competitors. But the problem with many lenses is that when the lens flares back out to accommodate the optical design it creates a very narrow spot right where your knuckles flex around the grip. You can see from the shot above there isn’t much room between the grip and the lens barrel. For me there is no pinch, but my knuckles do touch the lens some while gripping the camera. That’s more of a Sony problem than a Voigtländer problem, however.
That narrow section of the lens has a hyperfocal markings (from F2 to F16) and also a thin ribbed section that gives additional style and grip for mounting/unmounting the lens.
The next section is the manual focus ring. It has that diamond pattern grip that I think both looks great and also has nice feel for focus. These Voigtländer focus rings are beautifully engineered, with the perfect balance between enough resistance for precision and enough freedom for smooth, gliding focus. There is roughly 180° of focus throw (rotation), which is about perfect, in my opinion. It’s long enough to allow for precision, but not so long that you have to make multiple rotations of the wrist to make major focus changes.
Markings are etched and painted, with red for Imperial (feet) and white for metric (Meters). The inner barrel will extend about 13mm during focus (this is not an internally focusing lens), with the extension coming towards the minimum focus side (the lens is fully retracted at infinity focus).
The third ring is the aperture ring, and it is located closest to the front of the lens. The aperture ring is the first I’ve used from Voigtländer that has a declick option. When clicked, there are detents on the one-third stop aperture positions from F1 to F16.
The process to switch from clicked to declicked is a little clunky. It involves pulling the very narrow ring beyond the aperture ring back towards the camera in a clutch type action, and then rotating that section 180°. It is nearly impossible to not also rotate the aperture ring at the same time. There are two raised ridged protrusions on these rotating sections to allow you to grip this ring, as it is very difficult to grip it anywhere else.
I’m really glad for the declick option, but I think Voigtländer needs to develop a more elegant solution for the process.
The aperture iris itself has a high blade count of 12. This is appreciated, as Voigtländer works with straight blades in their apertures, so a higher blade count helps retain a more circular shape at smaller apertures, though you will still see the points of this aperture iris in some specular highlights.
Up front we have a very common 67mm front filter thread size along with some badging regarding the lens designation.
There is an included narrow lens hood that threads onto those metal filter threads (no bayonet). A threaded lens hood can’t reverse for storage, so you’ll either choose to not use the hood or leave it threaded on all the time. The short length of it doesn’t means it isn’t much of a liability to leave it attached all the time. There’s enough room in there to get a finger in to rotate a filter if you’re using one (and using filters on a lens this fast will probably be necessary at times to give you more control over shutter speed).
At the rear of the lens you fill the electronic contacts that will communicate all relevant information to the camera. That will include EXIF information, information for IBIS (camera stabilization, if so equipped), and information for various manual focus aids. The lens basically handles as normal, save that there is no autofocus nor the ability to change the aperture from within the camera.
I see no weather sealing gasket there, and no weather sealing is claimed for the lens.
The Nokton F1 is on the small side of medium in terms of size, more squat than long. It is 79.3mm (3.12″) in diameter x 69.3mm (2.73″) in length. Due to the wide diameter and solid construction the weight is a little more substantial at 590g (20.8oz). Though Sony’s cameras aren’t large, this lens is an easy fit and balances well on them.
The minimum focus distance is 45cm. That’s on the low side of average, and the Nokton F1 has a 48° angle of view, which is a little wider than the average for a 50mm lens (typically 45-46°). The resulting magnification, while not listed, looks a little lower than the average of 0.15x. I would estimate it more at 0.13x.
The magnification level clearly isn’t particularly high, but you’ll obviously be able to strongly blur out backgrounds due to the huge maximum aperture. I stopped down to F2 for this shot to keep a bit more in focus, and you can still see how beautifully blurred the background is.
All in all, the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1 was pretty much exactly what I expected. A very solid build with gorgeous engineering, and you do have the added functionality of being able to declick the aperture. The extreme nature of this lens optically means that the price tag is higher than the typical Voigtländer lens, but there aren’t many quality F1 lenses out there. You buy a Voigtländer lens for different reasons that you buy a Sigma, and there is nothing here that will disappoint those who love and appreciate quality manual focus lenses.
Manual Focus on Sony (Alpha 1 and a7RV)
When I first moved to Sony bodies, I found them a wonderful platform for manual focus. They had IBIS (in-body-image-stabilization), good viewfinders, and much more manual focus aids than the DSLRs that I was accustomed to. Since that point, however, essentially the whole industry has shifted to mirrorless cameras, so those advantages aren’t as distinct anymore. But I still found the Nokon F1 an easy lens to use on my Sony bodies and found that I could easily nail focus despite the huge maximum aperture and narrow depth of field. Here’s a few reasons why:
EVF. An electronic viewfinder has a lot of advantages over an optical viewfinder when it comes to using manual focus lenses. You have the ability to see overlays, magnify the image to confirm focus, and as a byproduct I really didn’t have any misses. I don’t always love Sony’s viewfinders due to them going a bit weird when you half-depress the shutter for stabilization, but focus is still really easy due to the EVF.
Effective IBIS (Steadyshot Inside). Sony was a pioneer with IBIS, and while other companies have caught up and even surpassed them, having the ability to stabilize the viewfinder or LCD screen image while focusing makes manual focus much easier. You can hold that image still while you pull focus to the perfect point.
Useful manual focus aids. Sony’s options include the ability to have a color overlay to help to show what is in focus, though I will note that this works better when shooting at larger apertures and at close to medium distances. At longer distances where more is in focus, the color overlays can just become distracting, and just because a lot is in focus doesn’t yet mean that focus is where you want it. I prefer the secondary method, which is to enable an automatic magnification of the focus area whenever you turn the focus ring. This allows you to visually confirm focus is where you want it, and it is pretty foolproof. Sony’s system will both automatically magnify the focus area when you turn the focus ring and then also switch back to the full view when you go to depress the shutter so that you can ensure your composition is still what you want.
I own four different brands of camera (Sony, Canon, Nikon, and Fujifilm), and while I would say that I like Sony’s viewfinders the least in some ways, I still found manual focus with the Nokton F1 nice and easy…right down to focusing on a single blade of grass at F1.
It is worth noting that the beautiful focus ring also makes doing focus pulls during video a treat. There’s nothing quite like a well calibrated true manual focus ring for smooth pulls.
Image Quality Breakdown
The term “Nokton” in the name of this lens is a reference to “nocturnal”, and emphasizes its ability in low light due to the bright maximum aperture. The optical formula here is relatively simple, with just 9 elements in 7 groups. There are two different kinds of aspherical lenses in this design. The grinding aspherical lens stands out for having a very high refractive index.
There are some Voigtländer lenses that are exquisitely sharp at large apertures (typically the Lanthar lenses), while others like the Nokton 40mm F1.2 have more of a dual personality – a bit “dreamy” at large apertures while extremely sharp when stopped down. The Nokton 50mm F1.0 falls more into the latter category, though that’s to be expected for an F1.0 lens. Getting corner to corner sharpness and high contrast at F1.0 is beyond what is currently possible in lens design. What I find to be fairly universal among Voigtländer lenses is the gorgeous color rendition. I love their optical glass, and there’s something about the look of the images right out of the camera that is special. I often find that I do next to no processing or tweaking to images, as it is rather hard to improve on what is already there.
One little tip when using a lens like this. Underexposure just a bit (one third stop is often enough), as the slightly underexposed look really suits the look of the glass. The shot above is at F1.0 and is completely unedited. You can see just how special images look right out of the camera. The blend of the beautiful colors, defocused area, and then even the nature of the vignette creates very artful images.
On the technical side of things, there is little distortion but a significant amount of vignette at F1.0.
There is a very small amount of pincushion distortion (-2 to correct) but nearly 3 stops of vignette (+74 to correct). That’s actually not bad for an F1.0 lens shot wide open.
At F1.0 there is some definite color fringing (LoCA) before and after the plane of focus.
I did some fringing in certain real world shots, particularly those with high contrast transition areas, like the light coming in around these leaves.
Stopping down a bit helps with the fringing in most situations.
Control of Lateral CA was pretty much perfect. The transition from black to white is flawless near the edge of the frame.
Some of the typical flaws for extremely fast glass, but nothing deal breaking here to me. So how about sharpness and contrast? All of my chart tests are shot on the 61MP Sony a7RV sensor with crops shown at roughly 180% magnification. Here’s a look at the test chart.
And here are the F1.0 crops from across the frame:
There’s actually a decent amount of detail in the center of the frame considering this is an F1 lens, on 61MP, at nearly 200% magnification. But you can also see that some fringing is reducing contrast, giving the textures a bit of a “bloom” to them. The midframe and corners are a bit softer, though it is more a lack of contrast than a lack of sharpness.
If you use the lens to its advantage, it is capable of producing very usable amounts of sharpness even at F1.0, and that of course gives you the advantage of having a beautifully soft defocused background.
In higher contrast situations, however, the fringing and loss of contrast wont’ be as effective. You can see in the crops from the same image at F1.0 and at F2 that the extra contrast and detail at F2.0 is significant.
Stopping down to F1.4 will increase contrast a bit and eliminate a lot of the fringing. The image looks brighter and cleaner:
It’s not really sharp yet, though. Things sharpen up considerably by F2, but I will note that I needed to refocus to get proper results. There’s clearly a bit of focus shift. Look at how different the results are looking at the original focus point vs the refocus results.
Results are also looking much crisper in the corners when compared to the F1.4 results, though I’ll note that the sharpness profile shows a little bit of a rebound in the extreme corners vs about 5% into the frame. Look at the image on the right and you’ll see it looks better out at the edge (right side) when compared to the left side of that frame.
This really shows the dual nature of the lens. We have gone from a “dreamy” look at F1.0 (and to a lesser extent F1.4) to a very crisp result by F2. Stopping on down to F2.8 shows a very sharp result all across the image frame.
Landscape apertures of F4-F8 will be extremely sharp and high contrast across the frame. I’ve been consistently impressed by how good Voigtländer lenses are at the medium apertures.
As expected on a high resolution body, diffraction will hit after F8, softening the image a bit at F11 and more so at F16.
So sharpness and contrast will vary dependent on the aperture you choose, which does give you some flexibility with the kinds of images that you can create with the lens.
What’s fairly indisputable is that the bokeh and rendering from the lens is beautiful. You can really isolate your subject in very unique ways, as in this case where I’ve shot through the layers of an apple tree to isolate one budding apple.
Or this lock hanging against barn boards. There’s that tiny depth of field surrounded by a lot of creamy bokeh.
But even here, stopped down two full stops (F2), you can see that while the background is visible, it is beautifully soft.
This is the real reason, of course, that you buy a lens like this.
If you choose your subject well, it will seem to pop off the screen compared to the background.
Voigtländer lenses are perfect for those who don’t really want to spend time post processing images. The colors and rendering are so nice that they look great right out of camera. Most all of the images in this review have received next to no processing.
The only fly in the ointment for some may be the straight aperture blades and the effect this has on specular highlights (bokeh balls). You will see those straight blades, though the high blade count makes this less of an issue. Here’s a look at what F2.8 looks like:
The “Nokton” part of the equation means that this lens is useful for shooting in dim lighting conditions. The bright maximum aperture of F1.0 allows for uniquely special low light performance, allowing you to pretty much see in the dark. I shot into the deep recesses of my lens cabinet and was able to shoot at ISO 400 and still produce a relatively bright looking image of a lens several rows in that was completely in shadow.
Flare resistance isn’t bad for a lens with such a huge maximum aperture. While it is possible to see some mild ghosting, I was actually surprised by how little there was. It’s very difficult to point at the sun at F1.0 and not get a blown out image for obvious reasons. You’ll probably want to work with an ND filter if you are shooting in bright conditions.
Bright lights right out of frame were also handled fine. Here’s a shot with bright sunlight filtering into the frame (shot at F1.3).
Bottom line is that this is a pretty amazing lens optically, particularly for one that opens all the way to F1.0. The combination of usable sharpness, gorgeous colors, and nice bokeh is definitely special.
As you can probably tell, I’ve enjoyed my time spent with the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0. It’s an extreme optical instrument that also happens to be a lot of fun. The ability to do extreme subject isolation really gives you some creative options, and the lens makes it easy to product beautiful end results even in ordinary situations.
As per usual, the focus and aperture rings are perfectly executed, making manual focus and general handling great…if you love manual focus lenses.
Manual focus lenses have long been for a certain niche market. Many photographers have no interest in a lens without autofocus, and that’s okay. Voigtländer has managed to remain successful in the modern era because they are in touch with their actual audience. The Nokton F1 is a more extreme instrument than most Voigtländer lenses, and is much more expensive as a result. $1900 is a pretty steep price, particularly when they sell a 50mm F1.2 for just $800 USD. But what you are paying for here is that extra little bit of special that is found in the extremes, and perhaps that is worth it to you.
Keywords: Voigtländer, Voigtlander, Nokton, 50mm, F1, F1.0, F/1.0, Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F1.0, Nikon, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 61MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #Alpha1, #A7RV
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.
Ahhh, it is nice to be reviewing another Voigtländer lens! My last Voigtländer review was back in 2020, and it was actually a review of the APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 that a subscriber had personally loaned me because I had no access to Voigtländer products here in Canada because of their not having a Canadian distributor (at least that I was aware of) and a complication with sending their products across the border from the US. Fortunately that has all changed for the better, and early this year I received an email that I was very happy to get – a “hello” from JCL Sales Group, the distributor for Voigtländer in Canada. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing more Voigtländer reviews, to which I responded, “absolutely!”
I’ve got a bit of soft spot for Voigtländer lenses, having owned three of them and currently using one that I do own (APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro) on a regular basis. That has only grown since Zeiss has seemingly transitioned away from producing non-cine camera lenses, leaving Voigtländer as the only company filling that unique niche of premium manual focus lenses. Voigtländer is actually the oldest surviving lens maker, and is a company that traces its roots to Vienna, Austria, in the mid 1700s. Like Zeiss (a German company), the more modern lenses have been produced in Japan by Cosina, and there is just something special about their optical glass that produces gorgeous colors. Today’s review is of one of their newest lenses – the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5. I’m reviewing it in Nikon Z-mount, though I know that a Sony E-mount (and perhaps other mounts) are on the way. If you want my full thoughts on this lovely new lens, you can either watch my video review below…or just keep reading.
Thanks to JCL Sales Group for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
Voigtländer lenses follow a tried and true formula that has been true across the four different mounts that I’ve tested them on. This includes a premium build that is all metal and glass, well executed aperture and focus rings, electronic contacts to communicate EXIF data and to enable more manual focus aids, but no weather sealing. Their lenses tend to be more like classic Zeiss lenses in build but typically smaller and less extreme in size. All of this is true here, and while the Nokton 75mm isn’t a small lens, it is only moderately sized.
There are two aspects of Voigtländer lenses that I enjoy: 1) the beautiful manual focus action and 2) the uniquely beautiful rendering and image quality.
So is the new Nokton 75mm F1.5 worth the roughly $900 USD price tag? Read on to find out.
Build and Handling
There are essentially two different variations of the Voigtländer design language in use right now. We have a classic “knurled” style to the manual focus ring as seen on this Nokton 75mm F1.5 (and my older APO-Lanthar 65mm F2) and then also a diamond pattern grip surface seen on the Nokton 50mm F1.0 (shown here in Sony e-Mount).
The Nokton 75mm is the classic anodized metal look that is broken up by 3 different textured grip surfaces. Closest to the lens mount in a thin ring of ridges that is just a textured area for grabbing the lens and twisting it to remove it from the mount. This area is not moveable.
This section of the barrel also has the hyperfocal markings from F8 to F32 for those who like to utilize that method for focus.
The next section is the manual focus ring. As noted, this has a knurled grip pattern and moves with the perfectly damped smoothness that Voigtländer is famous for. These focus rings are beautifully engineered, with the perfect balance between enough resistance for precision and enough freedom for smooth, gliding focus. There is roughly 180° of focus throw (rotation), which is about perfect, in my opinion. It’s long enough to allow for precision, but not so long that you have to make multiple rotations of the wrist to make major focus changes.
Markings are etched and painted, with yellow for Imperial (feet) and white for metric (Meters). The inner barrel will extend about 16mm during focus (this is not an internally focusing lens), with the extension coming towards the minimum focus side (the lens is fully retracted at infinity focus).
The third ring is the aperture ring, and it is located closest to the front of the lens. The aperture ring is clicked (there is no declick option) with detents on the one-third stop aperture positions. The aperture range on the lens is unusually large, going from F1.5 to as small as F32. That means this aperture ring has longer travel than usual, but it feels very precise.
The aperture iris itself has a high blade count of 12. This is appreciated, as Voigtländer works with straight blades in their apertures, so a higher blade count helps retain a more circular shape at smaller apertures. There are ten blades in my APO-Lanthar 65mm, and I do see the shape sometimes.
Up front we have a somewhat uncommon 62mm front filter thread size along with some badging regarding the lens designation.
There is an included narrow lens hood that threads onto those metal filter threads, but fortunately the filter threads are repeated inside the hood so that you can continue to use filters when the hood is attached. A threaded lens hood can’t reverse for storage, so you’ll either choose to not use the hood or leave it threaded on all the time. The short length of it doesn’t means it isn’t much of a liability to leave it attached all the time. If you want to use a rotating filter like a circular polarizer, you will probably want to leave the hood off, however, as there just isn’t much room to reach in there and rotate the filter with the hood mounted.
At the rear of the lens you fill the electronic contacts that will communicate all relevant information to the camera. That will include EXIF information, information for IBIS (camera stabilization, if so equipped), and information for various manual focus aids. The lens basically handles as normal save that there is no autofocus nor the ability to change the aperture from within the camera.
I see no weather sealing gasket there, and no weather sealing is claimed for the lens.
The Nokton 75mm is on the small side of medium in terms of size. It is 74mm (2.9″) in diameter x 75.9mm (3″) in length. Due to the solid construction the weight is a little more substantial at 530g (18.7oz). It’s an easy fit on my more robust Z8 body, but still small enough to work fine on smaller cameras as well. You can see that it is substantially smaller than my 65mm F2.
The minimum focus distance is 50cm. This is considerably closer than most 85mm lenses, which tend to only allow focus as close as 80-85cm. The resulting magnification is higher than those lenses (typically 0.12-0.14x magnification) at a very useful nearly 0.21x times (1:4.8).
This allows for some interesting closeups with very shallow depth of field at F1.5!
All in all, the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 was pretty much exactly what I expected. A very solid build with gorgeous engineering, but without any of the modern features that I typically evaluate in a lens at this price point ($899 USD). You buy a Voigtländer lens for different reasons that you buy a Sigma, and there is nothing here that will disappoint those who love and appreciate quality manual focus lenses.
Manual Focus on Nikon (Z8)
My recent purchase of the Nikon Z8 is the first time that I personally owned a Nikon body. I did a lot of research ahead of buying the Z8, and felt like it was the best fit for my needs. While manual focus was not a primary consideration in my purchase, I’ve actually really enjoyed the various Nikon focus aids and the overall focus experience on Nikon. Here’s a few reasons why:
Clear, useful EVF. On paper, the EVF of the Z8 is nothing special, but, in practice, it works very well. I’ve got much higher resolution viewfinders on Sony cameras, but Sony viewfinders do some weird things when the shutter is half depressed. And I typically want the shutter half depressed when manually focusing, as this helps stabilize the viewfinder while I focus. Nikon’s viewfinder is clear and makes it easy to see focus moving as I turn the manual focus ring.
Effective IBIS (VR). I’ve been impressed with the real world stability of Nikon’s in camera VR. It works effectively and allows for both a stable viewfinder experience as a I focus and also stable results when I take the shot. To my knowledge, no manual focus lens to this point has included lens-based image stabilization, so having effective in-camera stabilization is very important.
Useful manual focus aids. There are three primary manual focus aids that I’ve utilized when manually focusing, including the onscreen focus confirmation box (put it where you want focus to be, and it will turn green when proper focus has been achieved), magnification of the image to visually confirm focus, and focus overlays (peaking). With some lenses Nikon includes a directional arrow that points you the direction you need to turn the focus ring to focus in the right direction, but that isn’t always the case. I’ve found that the focus box is quite accurate, though, and it makes manual focus fairly easy.
My one complaint is that it feels like magnification could be handled a little more effectively. Some camera brands allow for an automatic magnification of the focus area when you start to turn the focus ring (Sony, for example, and this is true with Voigtländer lenses that are true manual focus lenses but have electronic contacts). Nikon doesn’t do that, and so you have to manually choose to magnify the image. Also, when you’ve magnified the image and gone to depress the shutter, the camera does not automatically return to normal view to help assure that your composition is correct. This has to be handled manually as well. This just adds additional time to the focus process if you desire to visually confirm focus.
In general, however, I enjoyed using the Nokton 75mm on Nikon. I got good stabilization, good focus accuracy, and the lens seemed to work well in general on my Z8. While I certainly wouldn’t choose a manual focus lens for action, I was able to use the green box focus confirmation and snap this quick photo of a turkey at F1.5, and, as you can see from the crop, focus is nailed.
It is worth noting that the beautiful focus ring makes doing focus pulls during video a treat. There’s nothing quite like a well calibrated true manual focus ring for smooth pulls.
Image Quality Breakdown
The term “Nokton” in the name of this lens is a reference to “nocturnal”, and emphasizes its ability in low light due to the bright maximum aperture. The optical formula here is relatively simple, with just 7 elements in 6 groups. Of those elements, one is an aspherical element, while three are unique low dispersion elements.
There are some Voigtländer lenses that are exquisitely sharp, while others like the Nokton 40mm F1.2 that have more of a dual personality – a bit “dreamy” at large apertures while extremely sharp when stopped down. The Nokton 75mm F1.5 falls somewhere in between, in that it is quite sharp even wide open, but not to the level of my APO-Lanthar 65mm F2, and then is extremely sharp when stopped down. What I find to be fairly universal among Voigtländer lenses is the gorgeous color rendition. I love their optical glass, and there’s something about the look of the images right out of the camera that is special. I often find that I do next to no processing or tweaking to images, as it is rather hard to improve on what is already there.
You really notice this when shooting more shallow depth of field shots, as the blend of the beautiful colors, defocused area, and then even the nature of the vignette creates very artful images.
On the technical side of things, there is little to no distortion but a meaningful amount of vignette.
There is the tiniest amount of pincushion distortion (-1 to correct) and about two stops of vignette (+58 to correct). Nothing significant to see.
This is not one of their Apochromatic designs, so it isn’t entirely free of fringing, but I saw little color fringing (LoCA) either before or after the plane of focus.
That was true in real world shots, too. What I did see is a little bit of “blooming” around some of the edges of things like these flowers, which does produce a very slight “dreamy” effect, though nothing like the 40mm F1.2.
Control of Lateral CA was pretty much perfect. The transition from black to white is flawless near the edge of the frame.
A great start! So how about sharpness and contrast? All of my chart tests are shot on the 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor with crops shown at roughly 200% magnification. Here’s a look at the test chart.
And here are the F1.5 crops from across the frame:
Center detail is good, but contrast isn’t great. The mid-frame looks the weakest of the bunch, as the corners rebound surprisingly well. The corner performance is probably the most standout.
Other than the bit of bloom on the textures, I found that real world sharpness at F1.5 was very usable.
Stopping down to F2 definitely increases contrast and also there is some increase in resolution. The center of the frame has obviously higher contrast.
Though corners were already strong, contrast looks obviously better there at F2 as well.
By F2.8 results are high contrast and detail across the frame.
From F4-F8 image quality is pristine all across the frame. There is high contrast and detail everywhere I look in the frame. Landscapes look fantastic due to the rich colors and excellent contrast. That excellent optical glass really shines!
The Nokton 75mm really has the ability to delineate fine details. Take this F5.6 shot of a river scene. If you look to the left of the island on the right of the frame you might see a little dot.
Zooming DEEP into the image reveals that the dot is a kayaker, and you can even make out the towel of someone on the beach in front of the cottage beyond.
That’s at nearly 300% magnification, and the fact that this much detail is visible is pretty impressive.
Minimum aperture is a very small F32 (unusual for a lens with such a large maximum aperture). Sharpness is strong through F11, but at smaller apertures (F16 and beyond), diffraction will begin to soften the image.
The Nokton 75mm F1.5 is a lens capable of very useful sharpness wide open and exceptional sharpness when stopped down.
But that may not be the biggest reason to purchase the lens. If sharpness is all you are looking for, there are alternative lenses that can achieve similar levels of sharpness. The better reason to choose the Nokton 75mm is for the overall rendering – that unique blend of color, out of focus rendering, and “look” to images that is just special.
That’s right out of camera without editing. The general look of the image, even with a simple subject, is just great.
Look at how beautiful the greens are here :
Here’s another unedited shot of a close-up of one of my vintage bellows cameras.
I’m not saying there aren’t situations where I wouldn’t want to remove some vignette, but in many cases, like with a Zeiss lens, the vignette is intentionally part of the look. In many images it just works, like this F1.5 shot of some roses.
The only fly in the ointment for some may be the straight aperture blades and the effect this has on specular highlights (bokeh balls). You will see those straight blades, though the high blade count makes this less of an issue. Here’s a look at what F2.8 looks like:
The “Nokton” part of the equation means that this lens is useful for shooting in dim lighting conditions. The bright maximum aperture of F1.5 (oddly not F1.4) allows for good light gathering, and manual focus assures that autofocus won’t complicate things in dim lighting.
I could put focus exactly where I wanted when I shot these bees in front of one of my hives. It was a hot day, and these middle aged worker bees were tasked with cooling the hive. They poise themselves in front of the hive entrance, anchor down, and flap their wings at a very high rate to help produce air flow into the hive. Pretty amazing!
Flare resistance is so-so. It is fairly easy to compose without getting too much negative from a bright light source wide open. The final image in this series is shot with the sun right out of frame, and you can see that there is no negative impact. But at certain angles you will see some ghosting patterns and a bit of loss of contrast. When stopped down the straight aperture blades aren’t much of an advantage, as the sunstar just looks busy to me. When panning the camera across the sun at small apertures I also saw a bit of flashing with the sun at certain angles.
That being said, it isn’t flare-prone in normal shooting conditions, and, while I could create some negative effects if I tried (the coatings aren’t perfect!), I also wasn’t really impacted under normal shooting conditions.
All in all, this is a strong optical performance. Yes, there is a little less contrast at F1.5, but that’s by design to allow for a special kind of “look”, and I find that it works well in real world shots. Images in general just look beautiful from the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5.
As you can probably tell, I’ve enjoyed my time spent with the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5. It’s been fun to not only get to use a beautiful new Voigtländer optic, but also to get to explore it on what is a completely new platform for me. The Nokton 75mm and my new Nikon Z8 have been excellent companions, and have produced a lot of very nice images for me.
The Nokton 75mm F1.5 is a beautifully made lens that is small enough to be a nice fit on most all Nikon Z-mount bodies. As per usual, the focus and aperture rings are perfectly executed, making manual focus and general handling great…if you love manual focus lenses.
Manual focus lenses have long been for a certain niche market. Many photographers have no interest in a lens without autofocus, and that’s okay. Voigtländer has managed to remain successful in the modern era because they are in touch with their actual audience. I certainly wouldn’t want to shoot exclusively with manual focus lenses, and I don’t like them for all types of photography, but I do love them for many of the kinds of shots that I’ve shared in this review. Shooting still subjects, taking my time, and enjoying the process of watching focus glide along until it hits the perfect spot where you want it to be. Years ago I wrote an article for Digital Photography School called, “Why Every Photographer Should Use a Manual Focus Lens.” The premise of that article was that using a good manual focus lens helps you become a better photographer. It makes you consider depth of field and its relationship with aperture, think more about composition and focus, and slows you down so that you can become a little more deliberate and even artistic in your thought process. If you’re interested in manual focus, and think that 75mm might be an interesting focal length, then the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 should definitely be on your short list of potential new lenses.
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.
Ahhh, it is nice to be reviewing another Voigtländer lens! My last Voigtländer review was back in 2020, and it was actually a review of the APO-Lanthar 50mm F2 that a subscriber had personally loaned me because I had no access to Voigtländer products here in Canada because of their not having a Canadian distributor (at least that I was aware of) and a complication with sending their products across the border from the US. Fortunately that has all changed for the better, and early this year I received an email that I was very happy to get – a “hello” from JCL Sales Group, the distributor for Voigtländer in Canada. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing more Voigtländer reviews, to which I responded, “absolutely!”
I’ve got a bit of soft spot for Voigtländer lenses, having owned three of them and currently using one that I do own (APO-Lanthar 65mm F2 Macro) on a regular basis. That has only grown since Zeiss has seemingly transitioned away from producing non-cine camera lenses, leaving Voigtländer as the only company filling that unique niche of premium manual focus lenses. Voigtländer is actually the oldest surviving lens maker, and is a company that traces its roots to Vienna, Austria, in the mid 1700s. Like Zeiss (a German company), the more modern lenses have been produced in Japan by Cosina, and there is just something special about their optical glass that produces gorgeous colors. Today’s review is of one of their newest lenses – the Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5. I’m reviewing it in Nikon Z-mount, though I know that a Sony E-mount (and perhaps other mounts) are on the way. If you want my full thoughts on this lovely new lens, you can either watch my video review below, read the text review, or just enjoy the photos in the gallery.
Thanks to JCL Sales Group for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
Voigtländer lenses follow a tried and true formula that has been true across the four different mounts that I’ve tested them on. This includes a premium build that is all metal and glass, well executed aperture and focus rings, electronic contacts to communicate EXIF data and to enable more manual focus aids, but no weather sealing. Their lenses tend to be more like classic Zeiss lenses in build but typically smaller and less extreme in size. All of this is true here, and while the Nokton 75mm isn’t a small lens, it is only moderately sized.
There are two aspects of Voigtländer lenses that I enjoy: 1) the beautiful manual focus action and 2) the uniquely beautiful rendering and image quality.
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.
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 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)
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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.
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.
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!
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.
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 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
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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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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