Another very nice review! I would like to see how this lens compares to the Viltrox AF 50mm f/2 Air.
Jan Blomberg
May 21, 2025 1:51 am
First, Spencer, another excellent review! There are not a lot of decent reviews of these amazing Voigtlander series out there, hence that there is a huge photographic community that, thus far, has not even been aware of the fact that these gems exist. Thanks for bringing this under attention of a much bigger audience! Totally different subject: these are optical gems, fully admit and can confirm, but I also recognize there is a community that also appreciates the aesthetics of a certain camera/lens combination as well! I love shooting with the Zf VC 50mm f/2 generation one, but, let’s face it, the shape of gen one has always been a bit odd, and certainly not the most pretty out there. Your mentioning that, optically speaking, gen one and gen two, are identical, in my humble opinion, Voigtlander, has indeed recognized this, for most of us totally irrelevant aesthetic aspect, and just made gen 2 more pretty! Tip for gen one owners: the total appearance of the gen one series changes completely when you put a classic, HS-5 nikon lens hood on these one, and suddenly making it adorable. Again, totally off topic for most! But for the weird ones out there, maybe a nice tip!
Bjorn Vink
May 19, 2025 7:46 am
Nice review again ;-) In case Leica mount, one can obtain AF with an adapter and therefore closer focus.
Other high quality options AF + compact and cheap recent Viltrox nearly a Nikkor 50 1,8S concerning some testers AF + Sigma(monster) 40 mm f1.4 very well corrected for astro ( now ~600 Euro in EU), better than my Nikkor S 50 mm f1.8 . AF + Sigma 50 mm f1.2 close to equal SOny GM 50 mm f1.2
I loved this lens so much that I also bought the 35 haha, which is excellent as well. Maybe you’re right, it’s the combination of portability, excellent sharpness, lack of distortion and the “demanding” side that makes me go back to it constantly, even if on paper an AF lens would be more practical.
Practicality is not always the goal, sometimes the goal is enjoyment! Same reason I still shoot film… :)
John Motzi
May 18, 2025 5:19 pm
I don’t have this lens so it was great to see this nice review. I am all in with Voigtlander lenses on my Z7II. I have the 35/2, 50/1, 65/2 & 75/1.5; I very much like the separate aperture ring (I shoot M or A-priority) and prefer MF for landscape photography. What I REALLY like is that it’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get with regards to depth of focus. Now if they only would come out with a 25mm lens so I replace my Zeiss ZF.2 adapted lens…
A 25mm or thereabouts would be perfect. I’d also be interested in something around the 18mm range that prioritizes image quality, as frankly, the only Voigtlander lens I’ve used so far that has not impressed me as much is the 15mm f/4.5 Heliar (still not bad, and super tiny, but room for improvement optically).
John Taylor
May 18, 2025 4:53 pm
Very good review Spencer. I have, for some time, used Voigtlander lenses with a Sony A7r and would suggest that using “focus magnifing” in the viewfinder, will always give superior focus results to “focus peaking”. The lack of autofocus does limit the lens for some situations, however the overall image quality of the Voigtlander lenses, I have used, is always very pleasing and certainly stand out. Regards, John Taylor.
I fully agree about focus magnifying! Even with autofocus lenses, I’m constantly magnifying to make sure that my focus point is optimal. With manual focus lenses, it’s an essential tool.
Very much like that Nikon allows you to go to 400% view. When it was announced it did not seem necessary to me, but i use it very often now.- Best way to nail focus.
pedro
May 18, 2025 11:35 am
– “The “APO” in the lens name signifies, accurately, that there is no meaningful level of color fringing in blurry foregrounds and backgrounds. ” . Kind of… Apochromatism is a specific form of color correction. The traditional form, derived from the “achromatic doublet,” involves shifting/moving around only two wavelengths into focus (traditionally those at the extreme end of the visible range: red and blue (“C” and “F” lines)). So you have red (C) and blue (F) together (that’s primary spectrum correction), and the green (E) is a slight distance away (microns range). That difference between red/blue – green is the “secondary spectrum”. A typical “fast” classic telephoto lens (400 2.8; 500 f4, etc.) shows a minimal residual secondary spectrum, the green (E) will be a couple of microns off (there are some true apo designs of course, especially now with mirrorless) So, an “ideal Apo” design corrects both the primary and secondary spectrum (i.e., it joins blue, red, and green). In real life, thjere’s always a mininum secondary spectrum, negligible for practical purposes. Spherochromatism is not just “color fringing”, it means the amount of spherical aberration in each color is different (and for physical reasons, it’s pretty hard to correct 3 wavelengths in focus and also have the spherical aberration of each color at 0). What we are looking for is to achieve a nice balance between the main aberrations (and many times it’s achieved by “cancelling out” each other). That’s why we have several examples of “Apo” lenses -even from Voigtlânder_ that have some color fringing in out-of-focus areas, or some spherical aberration in red, blue, etc., some problems with color coma/astigmatism, etc. The designation (Apo) only indicates the way of treating color (3 wavelengths in focus), not necessarily the level of correction achieved (but of course, an Apo lens “should be” better corrected than a common “Achromatic” one).
True, I should have phrased that better. I’ve definitely used APO lenses with a little background fringing. In this case, I was trying to get at the fact that this particular lens eliminates them almost completely, not just ideally but in practice.
Over the decades, various lens manufacturers have abused the technical terms “apochromat” and “apochromatic lens”.
QUOTE
A design that brings three visible colors together is called apochromatic. A superachromatic lens corrects for four or more wavelengths and virtually eliminates color errors. Strictly speaking it is not the number of zero crossings that determines the image quality, but the departures of the in-between wavelengths (the secondary spectrum). The designation APO is nowadays used by many a manufacturer to indicate such a reduced secondary spectrum, but true apochromatism is of rare occurrence in photographic lens designs.
Strictly speaking color artifacts in out-of-focus parts of the image should not be called chromatic aberration, since the aberration is only defined for the plane of focus. However, the cause is the same (dispersion) and ‘out-of-focus color’ or ‘defocus color fringing,’ or whatever the best name is for the phenomenon, is an aberration in the sense of anomalous behavior.
Yes, it’s very frustrating when a technical term becomes used as a marketing term and then gradually loses meaning!
Richard Handler
May 18, 2025 10:56 am
Pixel peeper’s delight and unique aperture blades which give bokeh at f/2.0 and f/2.8, sunstars at smaller apertures, intriguing!
Indeed it is excellent for astro. Last keeper from mine (Sony E) was a night landscape featuring Neowise. By adding a Marumi Achromat magnifier it can become a very precise macro.
But I sold both my CV 50 and its larger sib the 65mm macro Apo-Lanthar. CV lenses are totally without seals, even at the mount, plus have externally telescoping focusing and are magnets for pulling dust, pollen and water into the lens barrel and risk camera damage from moisture in even a trivial drizzle.
It’s a very interesting lens indeed! Your mention of Neowise brings back good memories. I do think anyone considering this lens needs to weigh its potential use in very bad weather conditions, and that could be another factor in favor of first-party autofocus lenses.
Nick
May 18, 2025 10:18 am
The complete lack of weather sealing needs to be called out much louder. Even a basic gasket on the mount. There’s literally no reason for Voigtlander to continue excluding this basic, essential feature when they charge as much as they do. It completely turns me off.
That’s fair, maybe I should have spent more time on it. I expected it to be more of a problem than it was, frankly. The lens struck me as being built with a higher degree of precision than what we typically see, to the point that I wasn’t nervous to use it in bad weather.
I’ll give a specific example. I brought this lens and two other Voigtlanders with me on a long hike, more than a week through some very humid and rainy conditions. I didn’t experience any fogging or other issues with these lenses, whereas the Hasselblad 28mm P lens did fog once in the same conditions. Of course, it’s possible I was just lucky. I don’t think it would survive being dunked underwater (unlike a few lenses I know that probably would)!
Another very nice review! I would like to see how this lens compares to the Viltrox AF 50mm f/2 Air.
First, Spencer, another excellent review! There are not a lot of decent reviews of these amazing Voigtlander series out there, hence that there is a huge photographic community that, thus far, has not even been aware of the fact that these gems exist. Thanks for bringing this under attention of a much bigger audience!
Totally different subject: these are optical gems, fully admit and can confirm, but I also recognize there is a community that also appreciates the aesthetics of a certain camera/lens combination as well! I love shooting with the Zf VC 50mm f/2 generation one, but, let’s face it, the shape of gen one has always been a bit odd, and certainly not the most pretty out there. Your mentioning that, optically speaking, gen one and gen two, are identical, in my humble opinion, Voigtlander, has indeed recognized this, for most of us totally irrelevant aesthetic aspect, and just made gen 2 more pretty! Tip for gen one owners: the total appearance of the gen one series changes completely when you put a classic, HS-5 nikon lens hood on these one, and suddenly making it adorable.
Again, totally off topic for most! But for the weird ones out there, maybe a nice tip!
Nice review again ;-)
In case Leica mount, one can obtain AF with an adapter and therefore closer focus.
Other high quality options
AF + compact and cheap recent Viltrox nearly a Nikkor 50 1,8S concerning some testers
AF + Sigma(monster) 40 mm f1.4 very well corrected for astro ( now ~600 Euro in EU), better than my Nikkor S 50 mm f1.8 .
AF + Sigma 50 mm f1.2 close to equal SOny GM 50 mm f1.2
Thank you, Bjorn! I hadn’t even thought of the possibilities with an autofocus adapter.
The images you took look fantastic.
Thank you for saying so, Anders!
I loved this lens so much that I also bought the 35 haha, which is excellent as well. Maybe you’re right, it’s the combination of portability, excellent sharpness, lack of distortion and the “demanding” side that makes me go back to it constantly, even if on paper an AF lens would be more practical.
Practicality is not always the goal, sometimes the goal is enjoyment! Same reason I still shoot film… :)
I don’t have this lens so it was great to see this nice review. I am all in with Voigtlander lenses on my Z7II. I have the 35/2, 50/1, 65/2 & 75/1.5; I very much like the separate aperture ring (I shoot M or A-priority) and prefer MF for landscape photography. What I REALLY like is that it’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get with regards to depth of focus. Now if they only would come out with a 25mm lens so I replace my Zeiss ZF.2 adapted lens…
A 25mm or thereabouts would be perfect. I’d also be interested in something around the 18mm range that prioritizes image quality, as frankly, the only Voigtlander lens I’ve used so far that has not impressed me as much is the 15mm f/4.5 Heliar (still not bad, and super tiny, but room for improvement optically).
Very good review Spencer.
I have, for some time, used Voigtlander lenses with a Sony A7r and would suggest that using “focus magnifing” in the viewfinder, will always give superior focus results to “focus peaking”. The lack of autofocus does limit the lens for some situations, however the overall image quality of the Voigtlander lenses, I have used, is always very pleasing and certainly stand out.
Regards, John Taylor.
I fully agree about focus magnifying! Even with autofocus lenses, I’m constantly magnifying to make sure that my focus point is optimal. With manual focus lenses, it’s an essential tool.
Very much like that Nikon allows you to go to 400% view. When it was announced it did not seem necessary to me, but i use it very often now.- Best way to nail focus.
– “The “APO” in the lens name signifies, accurately, that there is no meaningful level of color fringing in blurry foregrounds and backgrounds. ”
.
Kind of… Apochromatism is a specific form of color correction. The traditional form, derived from the “achromatic doublet,” involves shifting/moving around only two wavelengths into focus (traditionally those at the extreme end of the visible range: red and blue (“C” and “F” lines)).
So you have red (C) and blue (F) together (that’s primary spectrum correction), and the green (E) is a slight distance away (microns range). That difference between red/blue – green is the “secondary spectrum”. A typical “fast” classic telephoto lens (400 2.8; 500 f4, etc.) shows a minimal residual secondary spectrum, the green (E) will be a couple of microns off (there are some true apo designs of course, especially now with mirrorless) So, an “ideal Apo” design corrects both the primary and secondary spectrum (i.e., it joins blue, red, and green). In real life, thjere’s always a mininum secondary spectrum, negligible for practical purposes. Spherochromatism is not just “color fringing”, it means the amount of spherical aberration in each color is different (and for physical reasons, it’s pretty hard to correct 3 wavelengths in focus and also have the spherical aberration of each color at 0). What we are looking for is to achieve a nice balance between the main aberrations (and many times it’s achieved by “cancelling out” each other).
That’s why we have several examples of “Apo” lenses -even from Voigtlânder_ that have some color fringing in out-of-focus areas, or some spherical aberration in red, blue, etc., some problems with color coma/astigmatism, etc. The designation (Apo) only indicates the way of treating color (3 wavelengths in focus), not necessarily the level of correction achieved
(but of course, an Apo lens “should be” better corrected than a common “Achromatic” one).
True, I should have phrased that better. I’ve definitely used APO lenses with a little background fringing. In this case, I was trying to get at the fact that this particular lens eliminates them almost completely, not just ideally but in practice.
Over the decades, various lens manufacturers have abused the technical terms “apochromat” and “apochromatic lens”.
QUOTE
A design that brings three visible colors together is called apochromatic. A superachromatic lens corrects for four or more wavelengths and virtually eliminates color errors. Strictly speaking it is not the number of zero crossings that determines the image quality, but the departures of the in-between wavelengths (the secondary spectrum). The designation APO is nowadays used by many a manufacturer to indicate such a reduced secondary spectrum, but true apochromatism is of rare occurrence in photographic lens designs.
END OF QUOTE
— Paul van Walree. ‘Chromatic aberrations’. toothwalker.org.
web.archive.org/web/2…matic.html
The sidebar note is profound:
QUOTE
Strictly speaking color artifacts in out-of-focus parts of the image should not be called chromatic aberration, since the aberration is only defined for the plane of focus. However, the cause is the same (dispersion) and ‘out-of-focus color’ or ‘defocus color fringing,’ or whatever the best name is for the phenomenon, is an aberration in the sense of anomalous behavior.
END OF QUOTE
Yes, it’s very frustrating when a technical term becomes used as a marketing term and then gradually loses meaning!
Pixel peeper’s delight and unique aperture blades which give bokeh at f/2.0 and f/2.8, sunstars at smaller apertures, intriguing!
Indeed it is excellent for astro. Last keeper from mine (Sony E) was a night landscape featuring Neowise. By adding a Marumi Achromat magnifier it can become a very precise macro.
But I sold both my CV 50 and its larger sib the 65mm macro Apo-Lanthar. CV lenses are totally without seals, even at the mount, plus have externally telescoping focusing and are magnets for pulling dust, pollen and water into the lens barrel and risk camera damage from moisture in even a trivial drizzle.
It’s a very interesting lens indeed! Your mention of Neowise brings back good memories. I do think anyone considering this lens needs to weigh its potential use in very bad weather conditions, and that could be another factor in favor of first-party autofocus lenses.
The complete lack of weather sealing needs to be called out much louder. Even a basic gasket on the mount. There’s literally no reason for Voigtlander to continue excluding this basic, essential feature when they charge as much as they do. It completely turns me off.
That’s fair, maybe I should have spent more time on it. I expected it to be more of a problem than it was, frankly. The lens struck me as being built with a higher degree of precision than what we typically see, to the point that I wasn’t nervous to use it in bad weather.
I’ll give a specific example. I brought this lens and two other Voigtlanders with me on a long hike, more than a week through some very humid and rainy conditions. I didn’t experience any fogging or other issues with these lenses, whereas the Hasselblad 28mm P lens did fog once in the same conditions. Of course, it’s possible I was just lucky. I don’t think it would survive being dunked underwater (unlike a few lenses I know that probably would)!