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Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

nehemiahphoto
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p.30 #1 · p.30 #1 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

I picked up another copy

Mar 01, 2024 at 08:33 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.30 #2 · p.30 #2 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

nehemiahphoto wrote:
I picked up another copy

I really enjoy the samples you've taken with this lens. It's great to see you've got another one, as I believe it complements your style well.

Mar 01, 2024 at 10:19 PM

nehemiahphoto
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p.30 #3 · p.30 #3 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

Fred Miranda wrote:
I really enjoy the samples you've taken with this lens. It's great to see you've got another one, as I believe it complements your style well.

Very kind words—thank you Fred.

I always enjoy a narrow 28mm or wide 35mm. I love the amount of contextualized visual information.

Mar 02, 2024 at 12:46 AM

jaygould
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p.30 #4 · p.30 #4 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

So what's the verdict regarding using this on a Sony E mount camera with adapter? Still worth buying?

Mar 02, 2024 at 03:08 AM

BastianK
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p.30 #5 · p.30 #5 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

jaygould wrote:
So what's the verdict regarding using this on a Sony E mount camera with adapter? Still worth buying?
No.

Mar 02, 2024 at 05:49 AM

Juha Kannisto
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p.30 #6 · p.30 #6 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

jaygould wrote:
So what's the verdict regarding using this on a Sony E mount camera with adapter? Still worth buying?

I would say yes but it depends on your personal preferences. I have lots of 28mm rangefinder and other lenses that I use on Sony E (now mainly on A7CII), including CV 28/1.5, 28/2.8, 28/3.5 LTM, 28/1.9 LTM, MS-Optics 28/2-II, 28/2-III, 28/1.7 and Minolta M-Rokkor 28/2.8, Avenon 28/3.5, Pentax-K 28/3.5, Minolta MD 28/2 and also Laowa 28/1.2 in E-mount.

My favorites from those are CV 28/1.5 & 28/2.8 & MS-Optics 28/2-II & Laowa 28/1.2. All have some pros and cons.

I need to use f8 for best stopped down ~infinity corner-to-corner results with all of the favorites as they all have some field curvature which can be stronger on Sony E sensors esp. for the adapted rangefinder options. My CV 28/1.5, 28/2.8 and MS-Optics 28/2-II can all be used at hard infinity for best stopped down results, but my Laowa can't. Laowa is possibly the best for wide open close range results but it's weaker when shooting against bright lights and of course much bigger and heavier than the others. All others from those favorites can be focused to 0.5m but MS-Optics goes to ~0.4m natively (without close focus adapter).

I would love to buy a native E-mount MF lens option with electronic contacts that would tick all the boxes but while there isn't one available I think my favorites from the list above will continue to work well for my purposes.

I did also get the native CV 18/2.8 (~28mm FF equivalent) for Fuji X that was released in February and it's also a personal favorite on my 2nd camera system Fujifilm X-S10, but it also doesn't tick all the boxes since it's relatively slow. It has a unique capability in being able to focus to 0.17m.

Mar 02, 2024 at 06:34 AM

RustyBug
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p.30 #7 · p.30 #7 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

Juha Kannisto wrote:
I would say yes but it depends on your personal preferences. I have lots of 28mm rangefinder and other lenses that I use on Sony E (now mainly on A7CII), including CV 28/1.5, 28/2.8, 28/3.5 LTM, 28/1.9 LTM, MS-Optics 28/2-II, 28/2-III, 28/1.7 and Minolta M-Rokkor 28/2.8, Avenon 28/3.5, Pentax-K 28/3.5, Minolta MD 28/2 and also Laowa 28/1.2 in E-mount.

My favorites from those are CV 28/1.5 & 28/2.8 & MS-Optics 28/2-II & Laowa 28/1.2. All have some pros and cons.

I need to use f8 for best stopped down ~infinity corner-to-corner results with all of the favorites as they all have...Show more →

That's quite the bevy of 28's ... a dozen different lenses. But, it seems to be missing any of the Leica offerings. Have you ever shot anything like the 28/2.8 Elmarit or 28 Cron to note how they compare with the dozen others you have in your harem? For instance, I really enjoyed my PK 28/3.5 (on K1), but when I moved into the Elmarit, it caught my attention. Just curious with so many 28's ($$$ and space), what your take is on why no Leica?

Mar 02, 2024 at 08:38 AM

RustyBug
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p.30 #8 · p.30 #8 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

highdesertmesa wrote:
I don’t think any 28 beats the Q for rendering, but I’m a biased Q fan. Two completely different bokeh styles, but each has their own charm. The Q may get bested in the corners by the 28 1.5 by a stop or two. But the Q is otherwise optically very well corrected for everything but distortion. The Q is also sharp at the point of focus wide open regardless of where in the frame the subject is and at any distance. The 28 1.5 is softer wide open close up when the subject is near the intersection of the...Show more →

I guess I "need" to get the Nok and check it out against my Q2.

Mar 02, 2024 at 08:41 AM

Juha Kannisto
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p.30 #9 · p.30 #9 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

RustyBug wrote:
That's quite the bevy of 28's ... a dozen different lenses. But, it seems to be missing any of the Leica offerings. Have you ever shot anything like the 28/2.8 Elmarit or 28 Cron to note how they compare with the dozen others you have in your harem? For instance, I really enjoyed my PK 28/3.5 (on K1), but when I moved into the Elmarit, it caught my attention. Just curious with so many 28's ($$$ and space), what your take is on why no Leica?

I have never owned any Leica lenses and haven't had a chance to try them out without buying either. The reason is that I don't have Leica rangefinder (or other Leica) cameras and I think Leica lenses are priced too high to be bought for the purpose of adapting them to other camera systems where they would probably not work optimally. I think they are generally not going to perform better than e.g. recent Voigtländer lenses with similar focal length / aperture on Sony etc. so it would not make sense to pay those high prices in my case.

I do like rangefinder lenses in terms of small sizes, handling, manual focusing etc. but I have only picked up moderately priced ones mostly sticking to Japanese brands. Leica digital M cameras should be optimal for using those lenses (esp. the newer lenses that are optimized for digital M) from sensor optimization point of view but rangefinder focusing doesn't appeal to me at all (just tried it on some demo cameras). Can't find any appeal in focusing centrally with the focus patch and re-composing, dealing with the focus frames and inaccuracies of rangefinder patch alignment etc. I got into manual focusing with mirrorless cameras from 2012 using focus peaking & magnification and that works perfectly for me. Also the Leica camera prices don't appeal to me at all in comparison to mirrorless options from other vendors like Sony, Fuji, Nikon etc...

I could pick up a lot of moderately and low priced lenses one by one to try and find what I like even without knowing how well they would work on my cameras in advance but the same would not work out with lenses that are priced way higher

Also 28mm is one of my very favorite focal lengths so I've got more lenses in this FL than almost all others (50mm is another favorite with rather heavy concentration of lenses).

Mar 02, 2024 at 10:26 AM

Fred Miranda
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p.30 #10 · p.30 #10 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

RustyBug wrote:
I guess I "need" to get the Nok and check it out against my Q2.

Too bad I no longer have the Q2/Q3 to compare to the CV 28/1.5. I have a feeling they will be similar in rendering at comparable apertures. The Q will perform better at close distance though.

Mar 02, 2024 at 11:14 AM

nehemiahphoto
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p.30 #11 · p.30 #11 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

I was thinking of the Q as well versus the CV 28/1.5 and 28/2, and the new Thypoch. But specifically in terms of the Q2 versus the CV 28/1.5, which I shot both on 40mp FF camears, I think the Q is the stronger lens technically cause it's better all over the frame, as a bit more bite/micro-contrast with less Axial CA. While the draw the bokeh has a little structure in it, the draw is far more consistent all though I did find a bit more busyness in the far edges of the frame.

As far as rendering, attached are a couple photos. I know, not quite a to b, but I do think the resolution across the frame is much more even. You don't see the FC towards infinite (inward or outward, I can't recall what FM uses for this). I also find the files have a more pop and immediacy. And less optical vignetting. I also find the colors warmer and a bit richer on the Q.

Overall, I think I prefer the files from the CV 28/1.5 on account of personality, but I do wish the midzone was better wide open.

Both of these would be much rougher on the CV 28/1.5 I think.

Mar 02, 2024 at 06:17 PM

rscheffler
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p.30 #12 · p.30 #12 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

jaygould wrote:
So what's the verdict regarding using this on a Sony E mount camera with adapter? Still worth buying?

---------------------------------------------

BastianK wrote:
No.

---------------------------------------------

Juha Kannisto wrote:
I would say yes but it depends on your personal preferences.

.......

Bastian's reply is predictable based on his review.

Check the reviews. IMO it will boil down to how much tolerance you have for peripheral image quality degradation on stock Sony from a technical perspective, vs. how the lens was designed to perform on Leica M (or thin stack modified Sony sensors). You'll get more field curvature/astigmatism at wider apertures on stock Sony. But this is mostly only relevant if you care about wide aperture across-frame performance along a relatively flat plane of focus, which is where the lens will suffer. If most of your wide aperture work is a central subject well separated from the background, then you probably won't see much of this (though the peripheral bokeh may be a bit busier). Sounds like stopping down to f/5.6-8 will give you good across frame performance, if you're OK with this.

If you want small and fast on Sony, you don't have a lot of options. Maybe the 7Artisans 28/1.5 FE+? though it has its own set of weaknesses.

Mar 02, 2024 at 07:14 PM

RustyBug
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p.30 #13 · p.30 #13 · Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton Review

Juha Kannisto wrote:
I have never owned any Leica lenses and haven't had a chance to try them out without buying either. The reason is that I don't have Leica rangefinder (or other Leica) cameras and I think Leica lenses are priced too high to be bought for the purpose of adapting them to other camera systems where they would probably not work optimally. I think they are generally not going to perform better than e.g. recent Voigtländer lenses with similar focal length / aperture on Sony etc. so it would not make sense to pay those high prices in my case.

I...Show more →

Gotcha ... no M bodies, so what's the point of mismatching Leica wide's onto the Sony, etc., particularly since we already know it takes a hit on IQ that doesn't optimize, due to stack diff's etc. I guess I thought you had M's too, for some reason, or would have demo'd them in store or something. Just struck me as peculiar. Thanks for the clarification, I understand better, now.

Mar 02, 2024 at 09:44 PM