Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 Fujifilm Initial Impressions
Back in May I had the chance to use a manual focus lens for the first time in Venice. It was an adapted Minolta 40mm I borrowed from my mate for a few days. I remember enjoying the experience and decided I’d get my own one someday. As cool as it was shooting with a vintage lens, I wanted something more modern and after some research ended up looking at Voigtlander. Although they have many options available, I settled on the 35mm f1.2 for two reasons. First of all I love shooting on the 35mm focal length and secondly at f1.2 I can shoot at night easier. The final decision to go with Voigtlander was the fact that it has electronic contacts so the camera receives all the data thus allowing you to use it like a normal lens.
Build Quality
The build of this lens is very good. It’s made from high quality materials and feels premium. For a lens that small there is definitely a weight to it which I assume comes from the all metal build. The aperture dial is so good. It’s smooth and easy to turn with nice clicks at each value. The focus dial is buttery smooth with just the right amount of damping. All the markings are bright, clear and easy to read. The one negative about the construction is the lack of weather sealing. There is no apparent sealing at all, not even a gasket on the mount. For this price point you’d expect at least something, so if you wish to shoot in all weather conditions, this is something to keep in mind. One thing to note is when using this lens on a camera with PASM dials like the XH2 and XS20 is that the exposure will go nuts because this lens is fully manual with no electronic aperture adjustment, so you’re stuck in either full manual or aperture priority.
Ergonomics
The first thing you notice is how small this lens is especially considering it’s f1.2. It really is tiny and I would even argue borderline pocketable. It will feel great on any Fuji body however it feels perfect on the XT5. It’s just the right size and weight to make the whole package feel ideal. The aperture dial has a nice finger tab on it so it’s easy to catch it and adjust with one finger while shooting however I wish there was something similar for the focus ring. The focus ring doesn’t have anything on it which means it’s a little more awkward to turn while shooting. Another drawback of not having a focus tab is that you can’t really remember your finger position and correlate it to a particular distance. This isn’t an issue in the grand scheme of things because you can buy a stick on focus tab from Amazon for not much at all, as I have. Finally keep in mind that as you adjust the focus, the size of the lens will change too.
Image Quality
The image quality is good at all aperture values. Of course when you stop down to around f8 you get the sharpest image however even at f1.2 you get sharp detail in the centre. The colour rendering is fine although personally I prefer how Fuji primes look at least straight out of camera. I found in some cases the image can feel a little washed out which isn’t an issue when shooting raw. The bokeh does look great though. Overall the image quality is fine however I wouldn’t buy this lens for its image alone.
Manual Focus
The manual focus experience is pretty good. One glaring issue is that infinity is not actually infinity. On other manual focus lenses I tried, when you turn the focus dial all the way to the physical stop, you will be at infinity. This is great because you easily know where you are without looking at the lens. However on this lens infinity is just before the physical stop. So you need to turn all the way to the end and then back off a little. I found this time consuming and a little annoying. From reading forums it seems others have found this issue too. The other focus distance marking are accurate and seem to correlate with the digital scale too.
Summary
Overall this lens is ok. The build and handling is great, the image is fine however the lack of weather sealing and no hard infinity stop lets it down. If it cost around £200-£300 then it makes sense, however considering it costs £600, it’s a very hard sell and I think I will be returning mine.
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