napilopez
Contributing Editor
Voigtlander Nokton 42.5mm f/0.95 Real World Review
The Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 Nokton is currently my favorite lens for Micro Four Thirds. It’s sharp, fast, built like a tank, and full of character. Those first two sentences really tell you everything you need to know about it, but then this wouldn’t be much of a review, would it?
Disclaimer: this review is written primarily from a "real-world usage" perspective, meaning you won't find highly technical examinations of image quality; the lens has been out for a while, and there are other resources online for such tests. Still, I hope it provides an accurate idea of what to expect from the lens in the field.
I don’t own the lens, but by this point I’ve rented it more times than I can count (just check out the lens’ sample image thread and see how many of the images are mine). See, I had been holding out for the Panasonic Leica 42.5mm f/1.2 that has been garnering so much attention (and controversy) to be priced and tested. With the latter two criteria now complete, I’ve ended up even more confused. In many ways, the rendering of these lenses is worlds apart, and they seem less comparable than I’d initially imagined. The PanaLeica seems designed to provide the most technically impressive image possible, maximizing “modern” values in bokeh, practicality (autofocus), and sharpness. The CV42.5, like the other Nokton lenses, behaves as if it were purposely designed to stand out not just amongst it’s M4/3 competitors, but also from other lenses with a similar angle of view on other systems. If the PanaLeica is your charming straight-A overachiever, the CV42.5 is a bit more like the unruly jovial student that slacks off, but is a bit of a genius when tested.
Build and Design
If I had to use a lens as a self-defense tool, the Voigtlander would be near the top of my list (the Sigma 200-500 wins in sheer intimidation factor though). I’m as terrified of dropping this lens out of fear of shattering the glass as I am out of fear of shattering the bones in my feet. If that doesn’t get the point across: with an all-metal construction weighing in at 571g (1.26lb), the lens feels extremely robust. In an era of electronic lenses with plastic parts and fly-by-wire focus, there’s something hugely gratifying about using a well-crafted piece of gear that is completely mechanical and analog.
Size-wise, at its shortest length--it extends slightly at for nearer focus--the lens is approximately the same size as the excellent Olympus 75mm f1.8, despite the latter weighing a little over half as much (305g). Since the Voigtlander is completely manual, it features a distance scale above the focus ring, as well as an aperture ring. As a neat trick, there is a narrow third ring that lets you switch the aperture ring from having one-third-stop increments, to being completely clickless. This feature will come particularly in handy for videographers who appreciate smooth, noiseless aperture transitions. Or you know, if you have a great affinity for f/2.494572 or f/π or any strange aperture of your choice.
It also comes with a solid metal cylindrical hood, which helps reduce flare, though I’ve rarely found flare to be bothersome.
Basically, this is a lens that feels like it will last decades even with frequent usage. Old school.
Operation
There’s no autofocus here, so it’s time to brush up your manual focus skills. That said, the manual focus ring on this lens is probably the best I’ve ever come across in a modern lens. It’s metal and ridged for grip, perfectly damped, and feels exceedingly good in use.
Some of you may worry about using MF to shoot moving subjects, but with any modicum of manual focusing practice,I’d say those concerns are ill-informed. I’ve shot all sorts of moving subjects with this lens, from models walking at a leisurely pace to toddlers zipping around hyperactively, and if anything, the CV has served as a great remember of just how genuinely useful manual focusing can be.
For example, you have the distinct advantage of being able to compose your image as you want and relying on your own eye rather than an algorithm to guess what you want to focus on. Likewise , you needn't sacrifice time and accuracy with focus-and-recompose. When shooting subjects such as a couple walking down the aisle, rather than risking faulty autofocus, it’s often more reliable to simply pre focus the lens and then do a sort of focus bracket as your subjects move though the focus zone. You can always use focusing aids such as magnification and peaking (if your camera features it), but I rarely needed these except for the occasional nearest-eye focus on a formal portrait. This is not dismiss the value of autofocus, but you may find yourself surprised at the number of scenarios where manually focusing actually feels more convenient than the alternative.
Here I quickly prefocused when the subject started running, and snapped a burst as soon as he entered the focal plane
If you've used manual focus on a modern lens and found it to be unsatisfactory, it’s also worth noting that using manual focus on a modern electronic M4/3 lens and focusing on the CV42.5 are completely different experiences. Electronic M4/3 lenses implement a fly-by-wire mechanism for manual focusing, which are generally “accelerated”, meaning that a quarter turn of the focus ring will yield a different change in the focal plane depending on what speed you turn the ring. This is almost always less accurate than the true 1:1 motion of a manual focus lens.
Focusing aside, the clicks on the aperture ring are cleanly defined. If you set the aperture ring to clickless mode, the ring becomes as smooth as the focusing ring. As an important note, this lens features 10 straight aperture blades (as opposed to the typical rounded ones in modern lenses), so don’t expect circular bokeh from it stopped down. It’s instead a nice little decagon—part of the lens’ charm.
There are only two things I really wish this lens would feature. Firstly: electronic contacts for EXIF data. You can generally tell when the lens was shot wide-open or not due to rendering qualities and the shape of the bokeh, but it’s hard to specify anything that isn’t f/0.95. The second is weather-sealing, but you’ll hear me complain about that on virtually every lens I review without it, and it’s such a feature is pretty much unheard of in a manual lens.
Image Quality and Rendering
This is a lens you buy to shoot wide open. If you just need to do casual headshots, the Olympus 45mm f1.8 is an affordable lens that will serve you incredibly well for most situations. But it’s that extra speed that’s generally the greatest allure with the CV42.5, whether it means being able to shoot comfortably in darker settings or allowing for shallower depth of field. Indeed, the latter was what attracted me to this lens--I like my bokeh. Here you have, on a system with a sensor a quarter of the size of that on full frame cameras, a lens that will render depth of field similarly to a traditional 85mm f1.8 (f/1.9, technically) set-up. That’s pretty cool in my book, as it hugely increases the versatility of the system for garnering “looks” generally reserved for larger sensor cameras. In particular, I like it for isolating your subject(s) in environmental portraiture.
The shallow DoF of this lens allow you to isolate subjects easily from a distance.
Thankfully, it performs quite admirably from f/0.95, albeit with some quirks. Wide open, center sharpness is already pretty great and perfectly useable for all but the most demanding portraiture. Due to some ghosting, the lens does lose some contrast and detail, but this has the conversely pleasant effect of softening your subject’s skin a bit, and the lens is already quite contrasty to begin with. As one would expect at such a wide aperture, there is some vignetting, but it’s something that shouldn't be particularly unpleasant given the general subject matter you’ll be shooting wide open.
100% crop wide open followed by original. Completely unmodified RAW import into LR5, Sharpening 25, Radius 1.0. Notice how narrow DoF is at this shooting distance.
Longitudal CA (purple and green fringing) is surprisingly well-controlled, only showing up in the highest contrast situations. Thankfully, this is generally pretty easy to correct in post. More notable is the field curvature, which causes the focal plane to not be perfectly flat; something to keep in mind when shooting group portraits.
The lens has an extremely close focusing distance for a non-macro lens of 23cm, allowing for surprisingly close-up shots. However, shooting that close wide open will generally result in a ton of ghosting that will render an image unusable unless you are specifically going for the dreamy look. Thankfully, this disappears by the time you stop down the lens to f/2 or so, which you’ll want to do anyway since DoF at that distance and at f/0.95 is incredibly narrow.
Similarly, the lens is also softer when shooting subjects further away at f/0.95, although the softness isn’t nearly as pronounced as it is with closer subjects. The CV42.5 seems designed to give the best performance when shooting at traditional portrait distances. This is a lens that’s not meant to be perfect wide open: it’s just sharp enough to be usable in most scenarios, it's a little less contrasty than optimal, it vignettes, it shows some field curvature, and features unusual bokeh. Yet these “flaws” are what make for an incredibly unique lens.
Conversely, once you stop the Voigtlander down, it becomes technically impeccable. Although you buy this lens to shoot wide open, its performance stopped down is second to none. At f/2, it performs better than its Olympus competitor, and by f/4 the lens has already reached peak sharpness across the frame. And by peak sharpness, I mean incredible pixel level resolution corner-to-corner. Contrast becomes excellent, CA is minimized, and ghosting is completely eliminated at all focusing distances. Although this is not a traditional landscape angle of view, this lens is worth consideration for such images or others where maximum resolution matters.
With E-M5 at f/4. You can see some aliasing in the 100% crop, indicating the lens is out resolving the sensor. Unretouched RAW, standard LR5 sharpening.
Perhaps the most divisive aspect of this lens will be its bokeh. As with other Voigtlander lenses, some people love it, some people hate it. Wide open, it exhibits plenty of the cats-eye bokeh effect Voigtlander lenses are known for—it is noncircular pretty much everywhere except the very center of the frame. And as mentioned previously, stopped down bokeh highlights are decagons formed by the ten straight aperture blades. This is obviously a purposeful choice by Voigtlander, and one that I like for how it stands out. Overall, bokeh can vary between looking buttery smooth to something more typically considered harsh from shot to shot. What you’re then left with is a personal choice; do you prefer traditional, smooth circular bokeh, or would you rather have something different? I personally think I fall on the latter side; there’s something very appealing to me about instantly being able to recognize when photos are shot with a particular lens, and the Voigtlander renders like pretty much nothing else I’ve seen. On the other hand, if you’re not tactful about your composition, the bokeh can look less than ideal.
Wide open vs stopped down
Conclusion
Sometimes, shooting M4/3, I feel spoiled. Unlike with some larger sensor kits, shooting with lenses like 75mm and 20mm f1.7 on a M4/3, whether I shot wide open or stopped down rarely resulted in a noticeable difference in quality. The Voigtlander is a bit pickier. This is not a lens you buy for its apex MTF numbers wide open; I actually need to think about whether I want to shoot wide open or stop down. Do you want it to be an amazing, dreamy-yet-sharp-enough portrait lens, or do you need impeccable detail to shoot architecture and landscapes? That's up to you.
Likewise, it’s a lens that makes you focus on the shooting process. Unlike with an AF lens, your hand will always be on the barrel of the lens, and it makes its presence known through its heft and solid build. You take that extra second to think about what you’re shooting and how you’re shooting it, and I feel that connection has helped me capture better images.
I haven’t used the PanaLeica yet, so I don’t know whether I’ll end up preferring it once I get the chance. But part of me thinks it doesn’t matter. What makes the Voigtlander appealing to me isn’t so much the ability to get that full frame look (although I do very much appreciate it), its good-to-amazing sharpness levels, or its solid construction. Instead, it’s the character, and how all the above come together to create a lens that both shoots beautifully and feels wonderful while doing it. In a time where more and more lenses strive towards perfection and consequently seem to converge towards sameness, the CV42.5 is refreshing. Whether or not you ultimately prefer its look, at least it’s a lens that looks to stand out.
The Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 is available from B&H for $999, and if you ask me, it's totally worth the price. Please note that we receive a commission fee for every item purchased by going through one of the links on this article (or throughout the website). Any help is appreciated; your price remains the same.
Wide open, where this lens truly stands out
Additional Real-world Samples:
For the images not explicitly stated to be unedited, please note that my processing often reduces the lens' original detail retention. Additionally, any flare/haze you see here has been added in post--a personal taste thing. This lens is actually hard to get to flare, even wide open.
Wide open:
SooC JPEG at f/4. Check the original to see the detail throughout the entire frame:
f/2.8 bokeh:
The Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 Nokton is currently my favorite lens for Micro Four Thirds. It’s sharp, fast, built like a tank, and full of character. Those first two sentences really tell you everything you need to know about it, but then this wouldn’t be much of a review, would it?
Disclaimer: this review is written primarily from a "real-world usage" perspective, meaning you won't find highly technical examinations of image quality; the lens has been out for a while, and there are other resources online for such tests. Still, I hope it provides an accurate idea of what to expect from the lens in the field.
I don’t own the lens, but by this point I’ve rented it more times than I can count (just check out the lens’ sample image thread and see how many of the images are mine). See, I had been holding out for the Panasonic Leica 42.5mm f/1.2 that has been garnering so much attention (and controversy) to be priced and tested. With the latter two criteria now complete, I’ve ended up even more confused. In many ways, the rendering of these lenses is worlds apart, and they seem less comparable than I’d initially imagined. The PanaLeica seems designed to provide the most technically impressive image possible, maximizing “modern” values in bokeh, practicality (autofocus), and sharpness. The CV42.5, like the other Nokton lenses, behaves as if it were purposely designed to stand out not just amongst it’s M4/3 competitors, but also from other lenses with a similar angle of view on other systems. If the PanaLeica is your charming straight-A overachiever, the CV42.5 is a bit more like the unruly jovial student that slacks off, but is a bit of a genius when tested.
Build and Design
If I had to use a lens as a self-defense tool, the Voigtlander would be near the top of my list (the Sigma 200-500 wins in sheer intimidation factor though). I’m as terrified of dropping this lens out of fear of shattering the glass as I am out of fear of shattering the bones in my feet. If that doesn’t get the point across: with an all-metal construction weighing in at 571g (1.26lb), the lens feels extremely robust. In an era of electronic lenses with plastic parts and fly-by-wire focus, there’s something hugely gratifying about using a well-crafted piece of gear that is completely mechanical and analog.
Size-wise, at its shortest length--it extends slightly at for nearer focus--the lens is approximately the same size as the excellent Olympus 75mm f1.8, despite the latter weighing a little over half as much (305g). Since the Voigtlander is completely manual, it features a distance scale above the focus ring, as well as an aperture ring. As a neat trick, there is a narrow third ring that lets you switch the aperture ring from having one-third-stop increments, to being completely clickless. This feature will come particularly in handy for videographers who appreciate smooth, noiseless aperture transitions. Or you know, if you have a great affinity for f/2.494572 or f/π or any strange aperture of your choice.
It also comes with a solid metal cylindrical hood, which helps reduce flare, though I’ve rarely found flare to be bothersome.
Basically, this is a lens that feels like it will last decades even with frequent usage. Old school.
Operation
There’s no autofocus here, so it’s time to brush up your manual focus skills. That said, the manual focus ring on this lens is probably the best I’ve ever come across in a modern lens. It’s metal and ridged for grip, perfectly damped, and feels exceedingly good in use.
Some of you may worry about using MF to shoot moving subjects, but with any modicum of manual focusing practice,I’d say those concerns are ill-informed. I’ve shot all sorts of moving subjects with this lens, from models walking at a leisurely pace to toddlers zipping around hyperactively, and if anything, the CV has served as a great remember of just how genuinely useful manual focusing can be.
For example, you have the distinct advantage of being able to compose your image as you want and relying on your own eye rather than an algorithm to guess what you want to focus on. Likewise , you needn't sacrifice time and accuracy with focus-and-recompose. When shooting subjects such as a couple walking down the aisle, rather than risking faulty autofocus, it’s often more reliable to simply pre focus the lens and then do a sort of focus bracket as your subjects move though the focus zone. You can always use focusing aids such as magnification and peaking (if your camera features it), but I rarely needed these except for the occasional nearest-eye focus on a formal portrait. This is not dismiss the value of autofocus, but you may find yourself surprised at the number of scenarios where manually focusing actually feels more convenient than the alternative.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Here I quickly prefocused when the subject started running, and snapped a burst as soon as he entered the focal plane
If you've used manual focus on a modern lens and found it to be unsatisfactory, it’s also worth noting that using manual focus on a modern electronic M4/3 lens and focusing on the CV42.5 are completely different experiences. Electronic M4/3 lenses implement a fly-by-wire mechanism for manual focusing, which are generally “accelerated”, meaning that a quarter turn of the focus ring will yield a different change in the focal plane depending on what speed you turn the ring. This is almost always less accurate than the true 1:1 motion of a manual focus lens.
Focusing aside, the clicks on the aperture ring are cleanly defined. If you set the aperture ring to clickless mode, the ring becomes as smooth as the focusing ring. As an important note, this lens features 10 straight aperture blades (as opposed to the typical rounded ones in modern lenses), so don’t expect circular bokeh from it stopped down. It’s instead a nice little decagon—part of the lens’ charm.
There are only two things I really wish this lens would feature. Firstly: electronic contacts for EXIF data. You can generally tell when the lens was shot wide-open or not due to rendering qualities and the shape of the bokeh, but it’s hard to specify anything that isn’t f/0.95. The second is weather-sealing, but you’ll hear me complain about that on virtually every lens I review without it, and it’s such a feature is pretty much unheard of in a manual lens.
Image Quality and Rendering
This is a lens you buy to shoot wide open. If you just need to do casual headshots, the Olympus 45mm f1.8 is an affordable lens that will serve you incredibly well for most situations. But it’s that extra speed that’s generally the greatest allure with the CV42.5, whether it means being able to shoot comfortably in darker settings or allowing for shallower depth of field. Indeed, the latter was what attracted me to this lens--I like my bokeh. Here you have, on a system with a sensor a quarter of the size of that on full frame cameras, a lens that will render depth of field similarly to a traditional 85mm f1.8 (f/1.9, technically) set-up. That’s pretty cool in my book, as it hugely increases the versatility of the system for garnering “looks” generally reserved for larger sensor cameras. In particular, I like it for isolating your subject(s) in environmental portraiture.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
The shallow DoF of this lens allow you to isolate subjects easily from a distance.
Thankfully, it performs quite admirably from f/0.95, albeit with some quirks. Wide open, center sharpness is already pretty great and perfectly useable for all but the most demanding portraiture. Due to some ghosting, the lens does lose some contrast and detail, but this has the conversely pleasant effect of softening your subject’s skin a bit, and the lens is already quite contrasty to begin with. As one would expect at such a wide aperture, there is some vignetting, but it’s something that shouldn't be particularly unpleasant given the general subject matter you’ll be shooting wide open.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
100% crop wide open followed by original. Completely unmodified RAW import into LR5, Sharpening 25, Radius 1.0. Notice how narrow DoF is at this shooting distance.
Longitudal CA (purple and green fringing) is surprisingly well-controlled, only showing up in the highest contrast situations. Thankfully, this is generally pretty easy to correct in post. More notable is the field curvature, which causes the focal plane to not be perfectly flat; something to keep in mind when shooting group portraits.
The lens has an extremely close focusing distance for a non-macro lens of 23cm, allowing for surprisingly close-up shots. However, shooting that close wide open will generally result in a ton of ghosting that will render an image unusable unless you are specifically going for the dreamy look. Thankfully, this disappears by the time you stop down the lens to f/2 or so, which you’ll want to do anyway since DoF at that distance and at f/0.95 is incredibly narrow.
Similarly, the lens is also softer when shooting subjects further away at f/0.95, although the softness isn’t nearly as pronounced as it is with closer subjects. The CV42.5 seems designed to give the best performance when shooting at traditional portrait distances. This is a lens that’s not meant to be perfect wide open: it’s just sharp enough to be usable in most scenarios, it's a little less contrasty than optimal, it vignettes, it shows some field curvature, and features unusual bokeh. Yet these “flaws” are what make for an incredibly unique lens.
Conversely, once you stop the Voigtlander down, it becomes technically impeccable. Although you buy this lens to shoot wide open, its performance stopped down is second to none. At f/2, it performs better than its Olympus competitor, and by f/4 the lens has already reached peak sharpness across the frame. And by peak sharpness, I mean incredible pixel level resolution corner-to-corner. Contrast becomes excellent, CA is minimized, and ghosting is completely eliminated at all focusing distances. Although this is not a traditional landscape angle of view, this lens is worth consideration for such images or others where maximum resolution matters.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
With E-M5 at f/4. You can see some aliasing in the 100% crop, indicating the lens is out resolving the sensor. Unretouched RAW, standard LR5 sharpening.
Perhaps the most divisive aspect of this lens will be its bokeh. As with other Voigtlander lenses, some people love it, some people hate it. Wide open, it exhibits plenty of the cats-eye bokeh effect Voigtlander lenses are known for—it is noncircular pretty much everywhere except the very center of the frame. And as mentioned previously, stopped down bokeh highlights are decagons formed by the ten straight aperture blades. This is obviously a purposeful choice by Voigtlander, and one that I like for how it stands out. Overall, bokeh can vary between looking buttery smooth to something more typically considered harsh from shot to shot. What you’re then left with is a personal choice; do you prefer traditional, smooth circular bokeh, or would you rather have something different? I personally think I fall on the latter side; there’s something very appealing to me about instantly being able to recognize when photos are shot with a particular lens, and the Voigtlander renders like pretty much nothing else I’ve seen. On the other hand, if you’re not tactful about your composition, the bokeh can look less than ideal.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Wide open vs stopped down
Conclusion
Sometimes, shooting M4/3, I feel spoiled. Unlike with some larger sensor kits, shooting with lenses like 75mm and 20mm f1.7 on a M4/3, whether I shot wide open or stopped down rarely resulted in a noticeable difference in quality. The Voigtlander is a bit pickier. This is not a lens you buy for its apex MTF numbers wide open; I actually need to think about whether I want to shoot wide open or stop down. Do you want it to be an amazing, dreamy-yet-sharp-enough portrait lens, or do you need impeccable detail to shoot architecture and landscapes? That's up to you.
Likewise, it’s a lens that makes you focus on the shooting process. Unlike with an AF lens, your hand will always be on the barrel of the lens, and it makes its presence known through its heft and solid build. You take that extra second to think about what you’re shooting and how you’re shooting it, and I feel that connection has helped me capture better images.
I haven’t used the PanaLeica yet, so I don’t know whether I’ll end up preferring it once I get the chance. But part of me thinks it doesn’t matter. What makes the Voigtlander appealing to me isn’t so much the ability to get that full frame look (although I do very much appreciate it), its good-to-amazing sharpness levels, or its solid construction. Instead, it’s the character, and how all the above come together to create a lens that both shoots beautifully and feels wonderful while doing it. In a time where more and more lenses strive towards perfection and consequently seem to converge towards sameness, the CV42.5 is refreshing. Whether or not you ultimately prefer its look, at least it’s a lens that looks to stand out.
The Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 is available from B&H for $999, and if you ask me, it's totally worth the price. Please note that we receive a commission fee for every item purchased by going through one of the links on this article (or throughout the website). Any help is appreciated; your price remains the same.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Wide open, where this lens truly stands out
Additional Real-world Samples:
For the images not explicitly stated to be unedited, please note that my processing often reduces the lens' original detail retention. Additionally, any flare/haze you see here has been added in post--a personal taste thing. This lens is actually hard to get to flare, even wide open.
Wide open:
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
SooC JPEG at f/4. Check the original to see the detail throughout the entire frame:
f/2.8 bokeh:
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