ON LOCATION
Finally got a day with blue skies and sunshine. I went off to Stratford Upon Avon with just my GH1 fitted with the Voigtlander to give it a "real world" test.
There is some vignetting at f/0.95. This can be fixed in Photoshop, but it is there. Using this aperture in bright sunlight is just possible, thanks to the GH1's 1/4000 sec. top shutter speed. On most occasions I would have used f/2.8 or something like that but the effect is undeniably attractive. The background here was quite messy and the very shallow depth of field has eliminated that.
Shot directly into the sun at f/11, this is a good result. I did get other flare problems with strong sunlight coming from the side however, and should have taken the hood!!
CA and fringing is present, but its much better than on many lenses I have. Its very rare to find a lens that doesn't do this. With winter approaching I always dread this, as bare branches against the sky are always a problem with the blue or purple borders that appear. I have various methods of reducing it, though I've never found a totally successful solution. However the Nokton is pretty good in this respect.
One of the things I really do appreciate is that the distance markings are not just cosmetic but actually work. This means that the hyperfocal distance comes into play. I took many general landscape shots with the lens set at infinity on f/8 and they were all fine. I also took shots like the following, where I didn't focus on anything particular but set the infinity mark on the lens to f/16. I had enough light to be able to use that aperture and as you can see everything is in focus.
Again if was wasn't testing I would have used a wider aperture, but it also served to see what f/16 was like. The answer to which was OK, but not as sharp as F/8 which seems to be the optimum aperture for this lens.
Just a brief word on depth of field. This lens is a 25mm. Therefore it provides the DOF for a lens of that focal length. Because of the crop factor of the sensor what appears in the viewfinder is the same view as if you were using a 50mm "standard" lens on a 35mm film camera or a digital camera with what has become known as a "full-frame" sensor. I chose my words very carefully there. No mention of equivalents or saying things like 25mm at f0./95 is really..... etc. Its possibility about time we stopped thinking in 35mm terms for lenses, though I will admit its quite difficult for me personally to do that. There is now a generation of photographers using digital cameras who have never used 35mm anyway, and must wonder what all the fuss is about.
However, there is no doubt that having a 25mm as a "standard" lens does give DOF advantages. This means that for shots like the one below, I was able to focus about halfway along the boat in the foreground, set f/8 as my aperture and get a picture that is "in focus" from front to back.
Personally, I do see this an advantage. Shooting a lot of landscape and travel work, I want a lot of depth of field. Differential focus and bokeh is all very well but getting things in focus is much more important to me and for the work I do. I've always thought that some peoples obsession with shallow depth of field is somewhat strange. I see fast lenses as a way of achieving images in less than ideal light, rather than some creative option. For example. this lens at 25mm is far more useful for me than getting a 50mm f/0.95 lens for my Leica. (Good job really, considering the price!!)
For example, I chose f/2.8 for this picture of Lady Macbeth. I wanted the statue of her creator behind to be out of focus, but not "disappear".
Using a manual focus lens obviously slows things down somewhat (How did we all cope without autofocus!) but with the possibility to use the hyperfocal distance and zone focusing shots like the swans above are possible. OK they don't move very fast, but I wasn't sure that they wouldn't break formation.
Using the lens at narrower apertures confirmed my initial assessment that this is a very sharp lens. Everything from f/2.8 to f/11 is superb, with f/8 seemingly the best. Wide open its very good, and moving through f/1.4 and f/2 the sharpness improves. I really wouldn't have any problem using it at any aperture.
I shot a couple of multi-image panoramas, and these were very sharp and detailed. I'm very happy with the colour rendition of the lens also and the contrast, all of which combine to produce nice punchy pictures.
Its obvious that Voigtlander have taken the opportunity to work with the m4/3 format and produce a lens that suits that system. The bulk of their other lenses are designed for rangefinders and while many of them are excellent on m4/3, its nice to use a lens that's specifically designed for the format. It has allowed the 17cm close focus, which is significantly more than most, if not all of their rangefinder lenses can achieve. Its allowed a relatively small lens for the speed. A 25mm f/0.95 lens that worked on a full-frame rangefinder would be huge.
If you can cope with manual focus then its actually a very versatile lens. During my day with it, I didn't find myself wishing I'd taken another lens. Seeing the results I'm very impressed with the image quality. Its not just a speed merchant, its a very high quality lens at all apertures. I'm very impressed with it, and while I am aware that its expensive, the old cliche that you get what you pay for does hold true most of the time. Is it sharper than the 20mm f/1.7 pancake? My gut reaction says it is, but until I prove that to myself, I'll leave it at that. It doesn't however take anything away from the 20mm which was, is and always will be a stunning lens.
The Nokton gives a wonderful opportunity to explore the world of seriously fast lenses without resorting to rebadged c-mount surveillance lenses, and it is to be hoped that this is the start of a series of quality offerings from Voigtlander. I'm sure we could all give them a list of what we want and a fast wide-angle would be top of my list. For many people a fast medium telephoto / portrait lens would be a priority. I'm very happy with my Olympus 50mm f/2 macro, but I can see the attraction.
Hopefully today I'll be able to do a test video with the lens to finish off the review tomorrow. I'll do a final summing up then, but its not going to be substantially different from what I've indicated already. This is a very good lens, maybe even a great one. Its not perfect, but there hasn't been a lens made yet (or probably ever will be) that deserves that description. I'm very happy with it and it will serve me well in a variety of shooting situations.
D
