2018-01-14T08:58:39
Rated 4 out of 5
The images are of course copyrighted and are shown here for educational purposes
Let me get right to the points here, if image quality, Leica glow and sharpness are something your interested in. Buy this lens, Seriously, you wont find color pop like this lens unless you decide to purchase and APO lens. Honestly this little lens will pretty much make you want to put away all the other 50's you've used in the past, to me renders a tad warm, its nicely saturated and the contrasts are fantastic, mild - moderate not over the top.
The slow 3.5 F stop; Well this is somewhat of let down for sure, when you get into shade or indoors, your ISO will be going up. Modern digital cameras handle higher ISO better these days, so perhaps with your camera you can get away with it. 3.5 was not uncommon for a very long time as a typical lens. Yes I wish it was 2.8 or even better a 2.
Fall off is fantastic never harsh, bokeh is beautiful, no harsh nasties its blends nicely with the fall off. Being a 3.5, I think it avoids a lot of the harshness of bokeh gone wild.
Construction - its a finely built optical instrument.
Focus and Aperture rings: very smooth and dampened to near perfection. Con- the writing is really small, silver on black and lets be generous here, its difficult to see and worse with sun. Aperture is not clicked.
The conical nature of the lens- its an interesting design and some have said its indulgent, well if you use thumb and index finger on the focus ring, your middle finger fits nicely on the aperture dial, because its de-clicked, you can pull focus and aperture together, I believe this was actually the intent of the design that others may have missed.
The lens is very light weight - you will appreciate that.
Conclusions. This is a fantastic lens the makes you wish it came in with a faster aperture. Its economics have been described before as squirrelly. the lens barrel spins if you adjust the aperture without holding the focus. which is why the three finger approach works well or you just preset the aperture and just play with your focus (and ISO as needed).
The image pop is extraordinary and far better then the price and speed of the lens suggest. I personally want something faster because I feel that speed helps a lens be more versatile but your milage may vary. If your a portrait photographer and not looking for a largely blurred bokeh dominated backgrounds you will find this lens very appealing. If your a photographer who is ever seeking a better quality of rendition and is tired of lens that are clinical perfection but completely lack character, then I would suggest you give this Voigtlander a try. I will attach a couple images taken with it, yes the images are processed as they were raw from camera. The images are of course copyrighted and are shown here for educational purposes.
Paul L.
