Awful or Great? Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95

keylight

keylight

Veteran
People who own it seem to love it. And many more wish they could buy one.

I don't own this lens, and from what I've seen I don't think I ever will. To my eye it doesn't look like a very good lens. It's optically very soft, but maybe that's because most of the videos I've seen are shot with the lens wide open in low light. Perhaps if the lens were stopped down a little it would offer better performance, although I suspect it is this ability to shoot in such low light that makes it attractive to most people.

And there is one thing I really don't understand about this lens. Why did they put the aperture ring so far away from the focal plane? Is this innovative or odd? Does it help or hurt the performance of the lens, and how does it impact day to day use of the lens.

I'd really love to get feedback from others who actually own the lens. And if you love the lens and think I've gotten a wrong impression of the lens, please post some photos that demonstrate it's benefits. Maybe everything I've seen (mostly video, not stills) has just been poorly shot.

Looking forward to reading your comments and viewing your results.

Cheers!
 
keylight said:
And there is one thing I really don't understand about this lens. Why did they put the aperture ring so far away from the focal plane? Is this innovative or odd? Does it help or hurt the performance of the lens, and how does it impact day to day use of the lens.
Click to expand...

That design is common with rangefinder lenes which is what voigtlander's main focus is.

It's interesting that it there is a lot of intrest in this lens from video users. In a interview Cosina is aware that a part of the market share was for video and they were going to start making Lens for that specific market. So we might be seeing something similar in a video friendly format.
 
Last edited:
keylight said:
People who own it seem to love it. And many more wish they could buy one.

I don't own this lens, and from what I've seen I don't think I ever will. To my eye it doesn't look like a very good lens. It's optically very soft, but maybe that's because most of the videos I've seen are shot with the lens wide open in low light. Perhaps if the lens were stopped down a little it would offer better performance, although I suspect it is this ability to shoot in such low light that makes it attractive to most people.

And there is one thing I really don't understand about this lens. Why did they put the aperture ring so far away from the focal plane? Is this innovative or odd? Does it help or hurt the performance of the lens, and how does it impact day to day use of the lens.

I'd really love to get feedback from others who actually own the lens. And if you love the lens and think I've gotten a wrong impression of the lens, please post some photos that demonstrate it's benefits. Maybe everything I've seen (mostly video, not stills) has just been poorly shot.

Looking forward to reading your comments and viewing your results.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Well i dont do much shooting in the dark and would never pay that much for a lens anyway,some seem to love the soft look it gives but i dont either,i will be getting the Pana 20mm f1.7 and dont know if thats wise either but i feal i have to have an option for low light filming.
 
The 20mm f1.7 is great...sharp,contrasty,distortion correction is good...but also lacks a organic filmic look...(pannys lenses give a very sharp video look to me) this is probably due to software communication to the camera to correct optical flaws.

Ive received my voigt today...Its actually sharp in its centre even wide open.....keep in mind that f0.95's can be generally "soft" down to the increase in DOF ...f0.95 is not very common in lenses....they hav drawbacks but also huge benefits for lowlight and high shutter uses.
It gives very beautiful images so im impressed....the metal construction is superb (not a big fan of these modern plastic lenses)...its a hand made lens...the feel of focus is just...ahhhhhhhhhh ;-)
I had a senko f0.95 cctv lens last year...this is a different league...I was lucky to pick one up for £620 on ebay. Its expensive but you get what you pay for and in comparison to the canon its a steal. Even the schneider xenon cctv lense costs more than the voigt and has some vignetting.

The point of the lens is to give just that extra creative freedom with all the f stops at your disposal...so not always about shooting in the dark.
My only gripe is wish it was 35mm...I prefer to shoot 35mm

If you feel you need justification to get the voigt then you probably shouldn't get one. If youre after a f0.95 for the m4/3 then this is the one.
 
Nokton 25.95 seems great. Excellent center sharpness at 2.8. Good corner sharpness from 2.8 to 8. Hands assembled aperture blades. 10 blades!!! 17cm closest focus distance!!! Crazy bokeh.... drool......

The upcoming Lumix 25.4 seems promising. Prolly fast AF and better optical performance than 20.7. GH2 has an option to disable continuous AF. I've been using 20.7 on it with AF-S. Slow AF but it's been working fine indoor. "Video" like extra sharpness from m43 lenses actually helped motion tracking from AE CS5. Color grading made it less sharp.

If I have enough money, I will buy them both but I can't. Prolly I can't afford either of them. Lately I was very impressed by power of Lightroom presets. Power of post-processing!!! Here goes 1001 After Effects tutorials. Hopefully this stops me from spending binge. If I can't buy anymore hardware, gotta learn more software tricks.
 
I have done two tests on the Voigtlander lens. One was a comparison of how it reacts at various different f-stops.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?243367-Voigtlander-25mm-at-varying-f-stops

The other was as part of a comparison among six different 25mm lenses, ranging from a $15 CCTV lens up to a $3900 Zeiss Compact Prime.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?232881-25mm-Lens-Comparison

Judge for yourself whether you think the lens holds up or not. As for me, I'll say that it looks every bit as sharp as the Zeiss ZF 25mm. Now consider that the Zeiss costs $105 more than the Voigtlander. Now consider that the Voigtlander has mechanical construction quality that seems to rival the Zeiss (and both are far, far superior IMO to the standard for today's AI lenses, as far as build quality goes). Now, finally, consider that the Voigtlander opens up more three stops more open than the Zeiss(!) Three stops! That means you can get comparable image brightness in less than 1/8th as much light.

When put all in context, I think the Voigtlander is an amazing lens and an astounding bargain at its price point.
 
mimirsan said:
My only gripe is wish it was 35mm...I prefer to shoot 35mm
Click to expand...
Totally agree. 25mm is a little wide for my taste for doing portraiture and interview shots, I like to have the camera a little further away for that type of work, and 35mm would be a much more suitable range for that.

If you feel you need justification to get the voigt then you probably shouldn't get one. If youre after a f0.95 for the m4/3 then this is the one.
Click to expand...
Totally agree here too.
 
If you want a fast 35mm then get the Samyang 35 mm f/1.4 AS UMC in 4/3rds mount.
35mmf1.4.jpg

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1103/11030705samyang35mm.asp
 
What would happen if you used a mount adapter to put the Voigtlander 25mm (which is made for micro-4/3 cameras) on a full S35 sensor camera. Given that the Voigtlander is made for a smaller sensor, I can't imagine this would be a good thing, would it?
 
sean90291 said:
What would happen if you used a mount adapter to put the Voigtlander 25mm (which is made for micro-4/3 cameras) on a full S35 sensor camera. Given that the Voigtlander is made for a smaller sensor, I can't imagine this would be a good thing, would it?
Click to expand...
Depends on how large the image circle is on the V. You likely would have some vignetting, but probably not a horrible amount; the m43 frame is quite close to regular cinema movie film size, which is not much smaller than S35 size. Probably the bigger problem would be the flange focal distance; PL mount has a 52mm distance, but m43 lenses have a 20mm distance. So you'd have to mount the V 32mm "inside" the camera body, to have a prayer of it focusing correctly. That's not likely gonna work...
 
sean90291 said:
What would happen if you used a mount adapter to put the Voigtlander 25mm (which is made for micro-4/3 cameras) on a full S35 sensor camera. Given that the Voigtlander is made for a smaller sensor, I can't imagine this would be a good thing, would it?
Click to expand...

I remember seeing a post about this. It vignettes badly, but there is one rumor that Voigtlander will make a version for NEX cameras. ( Don't buy too much into that )
 
Yeah, I have seen quite a bit of vignetting from this lens on regular 4/3 cameras. So I feared it would be much worse on full sensor. Too bad.
 
The 50mm F1.4 Sigma takes 77mm filters and the much faster 25mm F0.95 Nokton takes 52mm filters so that is the difference between a standard lens for FF sensor and m4/3rds sensor.
 
stonebat said:
Are you sure about that? 4/3 has longer flange focal distance.
Click to expand...
Yes, but that has nothing to do with sensor size...

You couldn't even get a Voigtlander to focus at all on 4/3 because of the longer flange distance. But it would cover, if you did somehow manage to mount it.
 
Flipping the mirror and shovel m43 adapter, if there's a such thing, into 43 mount? I would never do that!
 
Barry_Green said:
What do you mean? 4/3 and m4/3 are the same sensor size, and the Voigtlander doesn't vignette at all on either.
Click to expand...

I refer to this review here, which tested the lens for vignetting: http://www.lenstip.com/276.8-Lens_review-Voigtlander_Nokton_25_mm_f_0.95_Vignetting.html

Now, these photos are specifically designed to HIGHLIGHT vignetting. Admittedly we're not usually shooting "white walls" all the time, so those people who have used the Voitlander lens in the real world may not see any of this shadowing at all. That would be awesome. But I wondered, given that we can distinctly see this vigneetting on 4/3 sensor in this test at least, if it would be much worse on the super-35 sensor (on a Sony NEX-FS100 for example). My guess was it would definitely be worse on a larger sensor--the further out you reach, the darker the shadow would likely get, no?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top