Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 Nokton Micro Four Thirds Lens

I’m in love with this lens. I’ll be honest: I bought this to try out almost expecting to return it. It’s way outside my usual budget. But I can’t let this gem go.I’ll get the obvious drawback out of the way: it’s huge. Doubles the weight of my Pen-F. I disagree with those who say this makes it awkward to use, though. Obviously you’re not going to buy this for one-handed use, and with your other hand properly supporting the Voigtlander and operating the focus and aperture, it feels really good to me.The factors that make this lens irresistible are the deliciously smooth adjustment rings, the incredible low light performance, razor thin depth of field wide open, color profile, rock solid build, unique/fantastic bokeh, incredible sharpness (especially when stopped down, but more than useable wide open), super close/borderline macro minimum focus distance/magnification, etc. It also happens to be my favorite focal length (35mm equivalent).I’ve used this lens to take photos of stars without a tripod. I’ve used it for portraits, especially in low light. I’ve used it for macro. I adore it for still-life. I’ve used it for landscape. Is it the ideal go-to lens for all of these situations? No, but it can handle them all and give very satisfying results.This lens can give me everything I need in most situations, and give a result with some uniqueness that makes it stand out. You’ll have to be okay with using manual, which takes some getting used to. It’s not ideal in every situation. But this lens is unbelievably fun when you want to explore your creative side and get some impressive photos.I’ve been in tons of situations where I’m trying to use a more typical lens thinking the Voigtlander wasn’t the right fit. Then I’d gave it a shot anyway. Then I’ve smiled at how much better it did than whatever other lens I was trying to use.Worth every penny to me.

I recently made the switch from a Nikon D90 +16-85VR lens to the Olympus OMD m43 camera plus this lens.The change has had it's ups and downs, but ultimately the change has given me what I had expected, a lens that was challenging due to the manual focus and its quirks, but a lens that can reward you with very special images if you put in the time and effort to learn how this lens works.This lens is not for beginners or those who want to whip out the camera and shoot, and it's also quite large, however, combined with my OMD, it's still much much smaller and discrete than my old DSLR.PROS: Once you stop down a bit this lens is very sharp, the creative license that the shallow depth of field gives you is remarkable, the build quality and handling on this lens is superb, while it is a manual focus lens, the focus scale is very handy when trying to hyperfocus or taking street pics.CONS: Performance at the lowest aperture numbers is challenging, the edges are soft and vignetting is very pronounced, however it is still usable, especially if you're not close focusing at max aperture. Even stopped down, corner performance can be a bit soft and you have to learn how to work with the curved focus plane.This lens isn't perfect, and it's very expensive, however my previous experience with the D90 + 16-85VR duo made me realize that I wanted something extra out of my lens, and this lens has not disappointed in that regard. Low light performance is impressive, and as I already mentioned, the ability to play with the DOF creates many opportunities that just wouldn't exist with a more normal lens. Video performance with this lens is also quite impressive. Once you start to work with the focus scale, you can take quicker snapshots when needed and obtain very good results.It's been a learning experience and a very rewarding one, if you're up for a challenge and don't have an army of kids to feed, this lens just might be for you ; )

I had to return this lens right away unfortunately.It was just too heavy.I did appear very sharp.But it doesn't matter how sharp a lens is if it is so heavy you do not carry it around.And isn't light weight along with smaller size the point of the micro 4/3 format?Also, regarding a fully manual lens, recently I did some run and gun street photography.There is no way I could have done this with a fully manual lens, with the time required to set aperture and focus.I suppose this lens would be great for studio work, where time (and weight) are not issues.