Photography Gear News

Today we would like to present our review of a very interesting, unique and extremely fast lens, designed for Micro 4/3 system, which is the Voigtlander Nokton 17.5 mm f/0.95 Aspherical. Enjoy!

"Sony's NEX cameras have a great deal going for them, especially the NEX-5n which is turning out to be one of the most popular new cameras of Q4 2011. But the widest E mount lenses available are 16mm, which on an APS-C sensor is the equivalent of 24mm. This is wide, but in many situations, not wide enough.

Fortunately NEX cameras have such a short lens-flange-to-sensor distance that virtually any lens ever made can be attached. Regular readers will know that I am something of a Leicaphile, and have a good collection of Leica M lenses. I also have a Sony A900 is my primary DSLR, and a full selection of Sony / Zeiss lenses. Since the new LA-EA2 adaptor allows any Sony Alpha mount lens to be attached while using phase detection autofocus, there is a wealth of really wide lenses available.

For this test I decided to look at two of the widest lenses available – the Cosina Voigtländer Ultra Wide-Heliar 12mm f/5.6 and the Sigma 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM. The Voigtländer is one of the widest rectalinear full frame lenses available, while the Sigma is the widest APS-C format lens focal length available. On a NEX-5n the Voigtländer becomes equivalent to an 18mm, while the Sigma at its widest focal length becomes equivalent to 12mm.

The 12mm Voigtländer sells for about $850, with an M to NEX adaptor costing an additional $50 to $250. The Sigma costs about $700 at retail, while the LA-EA2 adaptor costs another $400, for a total of $1,110. This makes them quite similar in price. The Sigma on the LA-EA2 is quite a bit larger and heavier, but has autofocus. The Voigtlander is more petite, but is manual focus only, and not a zoom.

The availability of autofocus may seem like a significant advantage for the Sigma, but in reality isn't so much. Lenses this wide have considerable depth of field at typical shooting distances, and so zone focusing is usually all it takes. More on this shortly.

Lets see how they each perform on the NEX-5n and how they compare with each other..."

"Here at Photozone we sometimes enjoy having a look beyond the mainstream and I always wanted to check out the Voigtlander Heliar 75mm f/1.8 VM. The lens is actually made by Cosina (Japan) and only marketed under the classic (German/Austrian) Voigtländer brand name. It is a fairly recently released product with Leica M mount. We'll surely give it another look on the Leica M9 soon but I was curious how it performs on the Sony NEX 7 with its ambitious 24mp sensor.
If you don't mind using an adapter solution with manual focusing, working aperture and without lens EXIF data it may be worth a thought. After all Sony has only released a handful of more or less acceptable lenses in Sony E mount so far."

"Pancake lenses are hot sellers in the mirrorless system world but unfortunately there're only a handful avaiable for full format DSLRs. As of the time of this review only Voigtländer offers two of such lenses in Canon EF mount and today we will have a look at the Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f/2 SL II. We already reviewed the lens quite a while ago on Nikon DX but we were curious how the lens performs on a full format camera. Like all SL II lenses it is a manual focus lens but it is fully coupled so a camera-controlled aperture, focus confirmation and EXIF information are all available. The Ultron is basically a standard lens with typical applications such as street and low light photography."

The Voigtlander (or to be precise: Voigtländer) Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical is a interesting representative of its species: it is a ultra-wide angle pancake lens. The Skopar has one as a length of merely 28.8mm and a weight of 205g - a nothingness compared to e.g. the Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM (70.6mm, 405g) or a zoom lens a la Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 USM L (96.8mm, 500g).
The Color Skopar is an ultra wide-angle lens available in Nikon-, Pentax- and Canon EF-mount. Typical for all SL II-series lenses the 20mm f/3.5 is a manual focus lens. The focus indicator in the viewfinder remains active so there's some sort of electronic focus guidance here at least. The Canon version uses an electronically controlled aperture so it can be operated via the camera (the Nikon/Pentax variants feature a classic aperture ring).

Unfortunately we weren't able to get our hands on the Canon EOS version so we had to use the Nikon variant via adapter. However, there aren't any differences apart from the mount specific aspects so our conclusions regarding the optical performance will be fully valid for the EOS version as well.