Voigtlander Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 Lens for Micro Four Thirds

2017-07-04T12:09:27

The lens reopens a segment of photography that I forgot about,like seeing more impact using manual focus and the bokah provided by the 0.95 option.When you think for a longer period, you can create for a longer period.It demands the best part of your Time.

William R.

2013-11-11T19:00:00

If you enjoy low light capable equipment and speed, this is the lens for you. It allows for tremendous depth of field control. This lens is quality built and is a solid chunk of glass surrounded by an all metal housing. You feel the quality when you handle this lens. The weight is noticeable on a smaller MFT body, but slap it on the Olympus O-MD E-M1 or similar body and it actually feels great. Smooth focus along with half and full aperture stops. There is also a silent smooth aperture setting for movies. Great lens!! Feels like you are using a Leica. Suburb pictures even wide open. You can't go wrong here. This is a must have in your MFT kit.

BH

2013-10-28T21:00:00

We've bought this lens and it's 25mm brother/sister. I've really enjoyed using this lens over the last few weekends on our BMCC cameras. Perfectly sharp when stopped down a little bit, and this one and the 25mm have an awesome ethereal feel when wide open and shooting at a macro level. They've paired well with our MFT BMCCs, I don't have any other lenses at the moment to compare sharpness or contrast with just yet. I know they do well when compared with the SLR Magic lenses too. We're glad we bought this 17.5mm though, it gives us a roughly 35mm field of view on our cinema camera. We've fallen in love with the MFT system because of this lens!

Two B.

2013-07-05T21:00:00

I had many M43 lenses before buying the 17.5mm Voigtlander. On the normal end I had the 25mm Panasonic which I used a lot, the 20mm Panasonic and 14m Panasonic, which I rarely used, and the kit 12-50 Olympus which I never used. I bought the Voigtlander 25mm because I saw it second hand at a good price and decided to try it out. It was so much better than the PanaLeica that I decided to also try the 17.5mm. I bought it at Adorama in the second hand store, and since then the 17.5mm has been on my OMD around 90% of the time. It is not small, it is not light, which are the two reasons I went from DSLR to m43. And there is no autofocus, and you have to manually select your aperture. And it's not weather sealed. Those are all the negative aspects. The image quality is unbelievable, it gives the images a look that makes them pop. When I take images with my Panasonic/Olympus lenses, I have to play with them a little in Lightroom. A little S-curve, a bump in the saturation or whatever. With the images I take with the Voigtlander lenses this is already done, the images straight off the camera look exceptional. Wide open, the image can be 'glowy' in the center and downright soft at the edges. This is most notable at the near-focus limit, which is close enough to the lens to allow almost macro shots. Stopping the lens down to 1.4 removes this glowy character and gives a very sharp image center, and acceptable edges. It never approaches the sharpness of, say, the Olympus 75mm, but that is a pretty high bar and it's definitely able to hold its own compared to most other lenses. Apart from the fantastic IQ the build quality is sublime, it feels like a finely machined Swiss engineering tool. The weight is just about OK on the OMD, I can imagine it would be very front heavy on lighter m43 cameras. There is a distance scale that makes shooting from the hip without using the EVF very possible, great for candid street shooting. The bottom line is that this lens costs a lot, and requires careful manual focusing which some people may not have the inclination or patience for. If you don't mind the manual aspect, I can only recommend this lens. It's such a fun, useable and attractive piece of gear that after 6 months with it I think it may be one of the best value for money pieces of photographic gear I have ever bought.

Tomas

2013-04-29T21:00:00

I'm a cinematographer/event videographer I purchase this lens especially for my wedding gigs. I'm always fighting low light situations during the reception. I love my new lens on my GH3.

Luner E.

2013-02-12T19:00:00

Sharp, heavy duty, well constructed, extremely fast aperture lens. Sharp all the way down. It does seem to diffract at higher f stops, as most MFT lenses do, so not really an issue, just need filters. It has a 58mm thread or an up sizer to the more common 67mm. Focuses extremely close, 5.9" from focal pane, which is less than 1" from the lens. With ETC mode on a gh3, this is fairly usable for macro photography. I'm not sure of the reproduction ratio but its probably around 1:2. Could've asked for a declicked aperture, because I mostly do video, but can't have everything.

Stephen

2013-02-04T19:00:00

I was surprised - and impressed - by it's versatility. I'm more and more prone to keep the lens on camera, in spite of other good primes I own. Weight not a problem in my usage, w/o adapter on micro 4/3. Balance with camera fine.

Tonyenglishman