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There are fast lenses, and then there are FAST lenses. The Voigtländer Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 definitely falls into the latter category. In fact, at f/0.95, it ties with a few other lenses, including its 25mm Micro 4/3 brother, as the fastest lens currently produced for an interchangeable lens camera. Faster lenses have been made, but they have been extremely rare and usually restricted to enlargers or extremely specialized video rigs. The other f/0.95 baddies include a few new lenses made by SLR Magic, and the legendary Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95, which runs just shy of $11,000. This beauty comes in at a little more reasonable price of $1249 US.
If you’re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won’t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool. Also, I would like to thank my friends at LensRentals.com for providing the sample for this review. Please visit them whenever you need a lens for that once in a lifetime shoot, or just if you want to try a lens out without having to buy it first.
So, how fast is f/0.95?
If you aren’t all that familiar with aperture numbers, seeing an aperture listed like f/0.95 seems a little odd. How fast is it? Well, it’s over one full stop faster than an f/1.4 lens, and over three full stops faster than the only other 17mm prime for Micro 4/3, the Olympus 17mm f/2.8. That means in dim light, you can shoot with this Voigtlander at ISO 200, while the Olympus 17mm will need at least ISO 1600 and the Olympus 12-50 kit zoom would need ISO 4000 (at f/4.3 and 17mm) to get the same shutter speed. Then there’s the ability to separate a subject from the background. This lens is equivalent in field of view to a 35mm lens on a full frame camera. On full frame, one of the great things is the ability to use a fast 35mm such as a 35mm f/1.4 to get great subject separation in an environmental portrait. The Voigtländer’s great speed brings this capability to Micro 4/3, provided it can perform well wide open. Generally, lenses at f/1.2 and faster are only OK wide open, with a few notable exceptions. Let’s find out how the Voigtländer stacks up.
Build Quality, Construction and Handling
The first thing you notice about the Voigtländer 17.5mm f/0.95 is that it is a serious chunk of glass and metal. It’s relatively large for a Micro 4/3 lens, and quite hefty too at 19 oz. The weight comes from the large glass elements for the ultra-wide aperture as well as the solid metal construction. This lens is built like those solid lenses from the 60s. It’s absolutely rock solid construction with a beautifully damped, metal ribbed focus ring and an aperture ring out front that has nice satisfying indents that are sure, but not difficult to maneuver past. The lens is a native Micro 4/3 mount lens, but features no electrical contacts, so the lens acts as if it’s an adapted lens. You’ll be using all manual focus and manual aperture for this lens. As I’ve had plenty of practice using adapted lenses on both Micro 4/3 and Canon DSLRs, I felt pretty at home with this lens, though if you’ve only ever used autofocus cameras, there will be a learning curve.
As I mentioned earlier, the wide focus ring rotates beautifully smoothly and has a very long focus throw from minimum focus distance (MFD) to infinity. While this may sound less than desirable, the majority of this focus rotation is at the VERY close focus distances. This lens can focus all the way down to 6″ from the sensor, which gives excellent magnification and makes semi-macro shots possible. With the wide aperture, it allows for photos that are frankly extremely difficult to get on any other format with any other lens. I found focus on closer objects to be quite easy to obtain through the OM-D’s EVF, though further subjects required a quick magnification of the viewfinder to nail focus at wider apertures. Due to it’s ultra-thin depth of field, this is a lens you will want to use with an EVF.
If you have a Panasonic GX1 or GF series camera without the external viewfinder, or an Olympus Pen without a viewfinder, it will make focusing this lens much more challenging, though of course still possible on the rear LCD.
The Nokton 17.5mm has a very neat little trick up its sleeve for video users. There is a slim ring just above the aperture ring that can be pulled towards the lens mount and rotated 180 degrees. This takes the aperture half stops away, and allows for completely fluid and stopless aperture adjustment. Just glide the aperture ring along to change the aperture to anything between f/0.95 and f/16 silently.
The lens includes a small, screw-in type metal lens hood that provides a little bit of protection for that big front element and a little help with flare, though it’s not big enough to really shield all that well. The biggest problem with this hood design is that it can’t reverse for stowing (which is true of all screw in type hoods). Voigtländer does provide a ‘hood cap’ to use on the end of the lens so you can leave the hood in place. I did not have access to this cap, so I can’t comment on how well it stays in place going in and out of your bag.
On a camera with a substantial hand grip, such as the Panasonic G and GH series (except for the G3), and the Olympus E-M5 with the optional grip attached, the lens handles beautifully. It’s heavy, but balances well and feels great on the camera. When walking around with the above combo, the lens was a joy to use, though it did add a little noticeable weight to my bag. I wouldn’t recommend this lens for shooting with one of the rangefinder styled Micro 4/3 cameras…it’s just too awkward to hold for long periods of time without a decent grip.
Thanks for this.
Right now this lens is competing with the Oly 75mm for the next piece of glass to save for.
Great work, enjoyable read! Would be very helpful to hear your views on the Voigtlander 25/0.95 and how it compares with this.
“but worst of all, the lens cap won’t attach when the lens hood is mounted, which means that you either need to leave the cap off when stowing the lens, or unscrew the hood every time you put your camera away.”
Didn’t you get two caps of different size? One smaller is for the lens without hood, one bigger for the lens with hood.
No, I didn’t, but I was provided this review sample and the larger cap was not included. Does it ship with the larger cap? EDIT: after some research I see it does come with a lens hood cap..will update the review..thanks!
did you ever find the hood cap size? i have similar problem with a used lens i just purchased. cant figure out what size to buy… might have to go to the camera store and just try them all. help?
Thanks for the review,
I just received this lens, I haven´t tryed yet. This weekend I´m sure.
Thanks for the review, Jordan. Another set of very beautiful pics…
Hey Jordan, Firstly great photos, the best user review I have read till date, had the lens for about 2 weeks now and I am amazed how the m43 format has chnaged and prolly has come of age on par with the other sensors….esp with OMD this lens is a beauty esp in low light and the ability to use zone focusing completely kills it on the street…I havent missed auto focus yet however the CA annoys me sometimes at wide open however I guess there is nothing that CS6 and LR cant fix. Anyways awesome review and great pictures. Cheers mate!!!!
Excellent review and some beautiful shots as a bonus!
I’ve hesitated buying this lens, since I already have the Voigtländer 25mm, but you’ve convinced me!
Thanks for sharing such great information. The lens definitely gives a sharp image of contrast and color.
Hi Jordan,
Good review.
I just picked up this voightlander 17.5 myself today. Pretty happy with it until I used a speedlight with this lens. Something really strange happened.
All the images with flash had this stereoscopic look (sorta like when you look at 3D video without the glasses on).
This doesn’t happen with my other lenses. Would you know what’s happening here?
Regards,
Mark
thank you for great review. I ordered my copy and will share later. now i m set for my OMD with Nokton 17.5 and Oly 75mm. Which is another lens i highly recommend. thanks.
Hello.
you query proved f/0.95 and Voigtlander 17.5mm XC Fujifilm Fujinon 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS is the best lens Voigtlander 16mm Fufi the speaker as well, ruling that is brighter than that is evident . value for money which makes better images. a greeting
sorry, I meant wrong lens to Fujifilm Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8 R against 17.5 mm The Voigtländer Nokton f/0.95
Great review thanks, backed up with some excellent images which really show the potential of the lens. Particularly love the he environmental cityscape portraits. Just got. An EM1 body and I’m looking at the nokton lenses to allow me some subject isolation. Looks like this lens and the. 42.5mm will be on my wish list!
IMO, the second and second to last pics are stunning! Yes, the others are very good, but these are really standout pics!
@GlueFactory, tastes certainly differ. I hated the second and second to last pics, liked most of the others, particularly the use of selective focus. Not complaining though, Jordan makes his HDR preferences very clear at the outset. A great review. I am very tempted by this lens. Although I have the focal length comprehensively covered, the speed and build quality will likely make it a sound investment.
Hi, i use olympus omd em1 with voigtlander 17,5mm f 0.95, what priority setting should be used in the camera body?
Can i still use A priority? Or only with S priority? I am confused, because in order to use the wide open 0.95 aperture, of course we have to set it manually at the lens body isn’t it?
and if we use A priority, then the kens will not work because it is manual?
thanks for helping
Hi Antono,
You select A (aperture priority) on the OMD and set the aperture on the lens. The camera will chose shutter speed accordingly. You can set the ISO manually or set it to auto-iso.
Hope this helps.
Hi Surfdiver,
thanks for your reply.. I also notice from the manual to use A or M..
so, the camera, if we set A priority, will know that we use a faster aperture (for example if we use 0,95), and it will set the shutter accordingly .. eve though no exif will be recorded, is that correct?
thanks
Hi Antono,
Yes thats correct, if you choose aperture priority (A) on the E-M1 and set 0.95 aperture on the Nokton, the camera will choose shutter speed accordingly with no exif information in the file.
The final image of the Voigtländer Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 you have aliens hood on the lens. didi it come with the lens and if not where did you get the lens hood. Also I get the feeling from your 2012 review, the Voigtländer Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 has or might have made a newer version of the lens. I’m saying this now because it is 2015.
Las I’m also looking at the new 4/3 Olympus 7-14 f 2.8. Which would you say is sharper.
Please email me your thoughts.
thanks
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I yield 18% all day with my Ghost Trai
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