DSLRmagazine posted a couple of image samples taken with the Voigtländer Nokton 10,5 mm f/0,95 lens. All four images they posted have been taken at full f/0.95 aperture. The bokeh is very creamy and the close focusing ability creates a very unique kind of picture. LIke that one:
DSLRmagazine writes that the price of the lens will be announced soon. Full lens specs can be read at BHphoto (Click here).
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Those shots confirm my personal opinion that ultra fast wide angles are a bit pointless if the intent is subject-background isolation. Their main utility is ∞ focus at their maximum aperture so they need to be be superb wide open.
Exactly…I’m waiting for other samples!
As long as people only think that aperture is primarily for depth of field control, instead for shutter speed control, will never learn to accept photography as is to capture moments.
We don’t live in 1990 where way to get background out of focus required objectives. Today we can most often do much better job with post processing if we want to get subject isolated. It has been possible in last 10 years to easily separate subject, get awesome bokeh and with very little work even.
But even today there are couple challenges:
1) Not possibility get wide or narrow enough field of view.
2) Not possibility to freeze motion fast enough
3) Not possibility to have deep enough depth of field
We can get subject sharp and background blurred.
We can get long exposures and get subject motion blurred.
And Voigtländers are just pure awesome to help to get motion freezed. To get camera out in dark situations and get photos. Not even with Sony A7s is not near the possibilities that these f/0.95 Voigtländers allows (deep depth of field, fast shutter speed, clean ISO). So we can get same results with almost any camera with these Voigtländers on m4/3.
I think this was the main appeal to me of the Voigtlanders but it seems like their lenses are very soft at the wide open apertures. It sort of defeats the purpose of being able to get fast shutter speeds or lower ISO when your photo always looks like focus was off because the lens is soft. For most reviews, their 17.5mm and 25mm lenses need to be stopped down to f2 for best results and their best results are very similar to what you would get with many of the other Olympus/Panasonic lenses in their focal lengths. It makes it hard to justify Voigtlanders high prices.
Agree, and when I said this lens is way overpriced for what it offers everybody tried to contradict me. A much better, cheaper and sharper option is the Samyang 16mm f/2 + Speed Booster.
A much better is Olympus 17mm f/1.8 or 25mm f/1.8. Or get then some Panasonic with f/1.4.
For the moment there is no 12mm f/1,4 except for the combination I just said.
To f/2.8 to get the crispness. But when in extreme low light situations, Voigtländers are not so bad wide open, as motion blur is worse than the softness those have with wide open.
I would be interested to see an example of a voigtlander being used at 0.95f to freeze motion.
“Not even with Sony A7s is not near the possibilities that these f/0.95 Voigtländers allows”
That doesn’t make any sense.
Very interesting.
I’m an ultra wide lover, and I feel the lack of a good lens for m43, but things are going to change soon!
7-14 2.8 might be the best compromise, while the 8mm fisheye 1.8 could be very interesting for some interiors shots and night photography so that we wouldn’t have to bump the ISO too much. But well, with this 10.5 0.95 I can’t make my mind up…it’d be amazing for night photography but I feel that the widest angle of view of the 7-14 (and probably quality) would make it a wiser choice. Let’s see and decide! 😀
The angle of view between 10.5mm f/0.95 and 7-14mm f/2.8 isn’t a problem for nightsky. The problem is that if this new Voigtländer is anything like the previous ones, it is unusable at below f/2.8 as sharpness isn’t good enough for stars. So then you are again in the situation where 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro is there.
Then you have the weather sealing problem, as if you are shooting landscapes or skies in any other situation, the weather sealed objective can be very important or nice to have.
And there the 8mm fisheye f/1.8 fits as well. And as far I know, it will be the fastest fisheye you can buy, everything else being f/2.8. So astronomies will love it because you get 1.3 stops benefit that is huge. That is as well reason why Olympus 12mm f/2 has been very popular as its one of the best for that task.
Now if Olympus releases the 12mm f/1.0, it will be the one for everyones bag unless requiring fisheye.
Choices, choices, the damn choices!
Paradox of choice doesn’t go away!
True words!
At the end of the day, I think the 7-14 as an edge for landscapes and architecture. The fisheye with its 1.8 would surely be a great tool for night photography, though I wouldn’t wanna always have the “fisheye” effect for those kind of shots.
The 12mm f/2 is surely a nice option for night photography, but I feel like the 12mm are not enough… And I already own the 12-40 f/2.8 so I wouldn’t have that super edge that justify me buying it.
As usual, money is the problem :)) but I’m glad they’re releasing such lenses, its exciting! My sure bet will be the 7-14 f/2.8
I think that 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro will fill 80% of your needs. That rest 20% is 8mm job.
I wanted that 8mm to be rectlinear f/2.8 and build same way as the 12mm f/2 or 25mm f/1.8 are. It would have been pure awesome for many.
But as Pro line fisheye and f/1.8, it is way better that any other system has. But its expensive and cuts if off to very special requirements. Why I am not going to replace with it the Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 because the price (219€) and seize, weight and sharpness fills the need very well. Best fisheye this far from any system. And if Olympus manages to beat that with f/1.8 aperture….
All what I wish to be better with Samyang is the auto-focus. It might sound stupid but even with f/4 and focused to 50cm distance so everything is sharp, makes easy to miss focus because subjects gets closer 🙂
Why I get the 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro, and then maybe years later 8mm fisheye.
I can’t justify the $2000 price tag, can you?
Yes. But I don’t think it will go to that range as 12-40mm was 999€ as new (I got my own for 499€ as new in first week) and 40-150mm is 1399€ or 1599€ with TC bundle.
So I think the 7-14mm will go to 1399-1499€ price range at max. And for that price tag it is a deal.
Now just wishing to see 150-400mm f/4 like what Fuji does for their mount. I would gladly take even a f/2.8 even if it would be huge and heavy. As when you would show that beast on pre-order sites to wildlife shooters or sports photographer, they would throw many at Olympus.
+1 for the Samyang/Rokinon/Bower fish – I actually traded my Panny 20mm for that lens and have never regretted it. Fantastic quality for super cheap, especially for a lens that only gets used on 10% of my shoots or less.
I do have the Samyang 7.5mm and it’s incredible what it can do with that pricetag! but I also have the panny 20mm and i’m not gonna sell it 😀 perfect pair with the gm1 🙂
The panny 20 was a great lens, but the Leica 15 stays on my GM1 95% of the time, so it was collecting dust…
Oh well, in that case it makes sense 🙂 great lense that one!
If you’re an ultra wide lover and are unsatisfied with the Panasonic 7-14 for some reason (maybe you have an Oly body?), then the Oly 7-14 sounds like a no brainer here. The difference between 7 and 10.5 is HUGE, so if you really do love UW, you know you definitely want the option to go as wide as you can. The Voigt and the fish are specialty lenses that you’d take out every once in awhile while the 7-14 can probably used on just about every shoot. If they were a couple hundred $ each, sure, get all three, but at over $1k each, I’d go for the one I’d use all the time.
Exactly, I have the E-M1 so I’m waiting for the Oly version (and the difference between f4 and f2.8 is quite useful for night photos. So yeah, as you say the future 7-14 is the best one for general use (landscapes, architecture, ecc). The fish would be loveable but less usable, same for the 10.5.
And since I’m not rich, I’m gonna go with the 7-14 and be happy 😀
Like most photos shot at exhibition booths, these are hideous. Some, though, seem to show that images with the 10mm f/0.95 could be sharp if there was something on them that was in focus. And, of course, getting something that even slightly resembles bokeh out of a 21mm (equiv.) wide-angle lens with M43 is something really new. (BTW, I remember shooting similarly hideous images at Photokina 2014, with the Kowa 8.5mm f/2.8 lens…)
“very unique kind of picture”
ugly, pointless, not exactly sharp…
How the managed to make this twice as heavy and less sharp than almost equivalent Nikon 20/1.8 is beyond me.
f0.95 yo
My guess is that this lens will be similar to the 25mm where it is not very sharp wide open and needs to be stopped down to f1.4-2 to get sharp pictures. It’d be great if someone could make a lens where the photos were usable at 0.95 because it’d be great for low light photos, not needing to jump ISO up so high.
Leica could do it, but if you thought the Voigts were expensive… 😉
I seem to belong to a minority of people that do like the look of the sample shot really quite a lot. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it to be a bit wider and lighter and smaller, which may all in all not be very realistic, but well, anyway.
I like them too – I’m fond of the character of Voigtlander lenses, and hope one day that someone drops a huge bag of cash on me so that I can justify picking up the set.
For quick, off the cuff shots, they’re not bad. You can get a rough sense of what it can do. There’s still that luscious Voigtländer rendering!
There were some shots posted a few months ago from some trade show that demonstrated how much optical correction there is. Straight lines at the tops and sides. It was pretty impressive! I have a Nikon 20mm f2.8 AI-S I bought back in 1989 and there are lots of curvy straight lines!
There’s a stunning lack of imagination displayed by some of the posters here, I must say. :-/
That lack of imagination can easily be corrected with links to actual usage examples.
First few image samples?? Really?? I saw some here months ago claiming to be ‘first’ too…………………….
Some test shots with my new OMD EM5 Mk2
https://plus.google.com/photos/101191223694267273293/albums/6115716250200490145?authkey=CIPmnb2irMy_VA
Shot 1: Handheld slow shutter speed
Shot 2: ditto, converted from RAW
Shot 3-10, just some general shots. First one out of camera jpeg, second one from RAW
Shot 11-12, focus on Gundam model, Jpeg, converted from Raw, respectively
Shot 13, high res mode, focus on Gundam
Shot 14-15, focus on kid, Jpeg, converted from Raw
Shot 16-17, high res mode, focus on kid, jpeg
Are those shot with the Voigtländer 10.5mm?
Sorry. Nope. Pana leica 42. So it is really off topics. Sorry.
WTF?
Yesterday he posted that he had just got the EM5 MK2, this is his update
Obviously not, most of them are in focus and sharp.
😀
He’s just trying out the e-m5 II like he promised yeasterday. Thanks! Have you tried the silent shutter? Is rolling shutter a problem?
Still haven’t gotten to that. Will do tomorrow.
I also tried the video with 1080p. The movement while smooth generally, it seems to stutter a little here and there. I think it was assuming that the initial movement was not intentional and then suddenly the camera realizes that I intended to pan. Still very smooth. I may try to turn off the digital stabilizing (1 used both ibis and digital stabilizing) to see whether that gets better.
I tried panning left and right atnormal speed and noticed zero “jello” effect. So, no rolling shutter over on the video side.
If bokeh is your thing you should just buy a FF or MF camera.
I have little love for lenses that are not decently sharp wide open.
Most FF lenses are soft wide open with the exception of the Sigma ART lenses and the Zeiss Otus lenses.
There are few others, if you dont mind manual focus.. just nothing new.
Otherwise you have point, very few currently produced f1.4 (or even f1.8) FF lens is sharp wide-open. Advantage of FF is DOF control.
This little Voigtlaender is equiv. of 21mm f1.9, which doesnt exist for dSLR (it exits in Leica M land). Im positive it might be pretty good at f1.4, for which there is equiv. in form of Zeiss 21mm/2.8 lens.
If it will be that good as Zeiss at f1.4, then its worth it.. Fact that you have for emergency/creative reasons f0.95 isnt exactly bad. 🙂 I take those super-speeds more like added bonus.
For DSLRs, there’s one Sigma (pretty old now) and recently released Nikon. Both 20mm, so not precisely equivalent, but close enough. The Nikon from what I read is never really sharp in the corners, but very good in the centre when stopped down.
Yup I used to own a Sigma 20mm f1.8 in Canon fit and it was IMVHO a good lens and quite sharp at f1.8. This Voigtlander will be better built, very probably optically better, smaller and the important bit… MFT fit.
all of the voightlanders f0.95’s are quite soft wide open. but extreme sharp stopped down
if you say you want sharpness wide open, then these lenses are not meant for you
um….Can’t tell JACK from those images at DSLReview…..I think that
those images have camera shake, (I hope that I am NOT wrong)….Still need a proper review from a
photographer that I respect.
The MFT voights are quite charming for video, the softness and aberrations aren’t so much of an issue at 1080. And they can do great focus pulls/throws.
Even for stills, depending on what you’re shooting. Not everything has to always be razor sharp, and if something does, there’s no shortage of lenses for MFT that do that.
Wow a 21mm F1.9………..yawn.
Yes, because full frame users have so many choices of those kind of lenses. Not to mention APS-C shooters, they have literally zero lenses like that, which is so much better.
Full frame (and recently, Sony & Nikon APS-C) sensors are clean through very high ISOs and don’t need super expensive manual focus gimmick lenses to compensate for a weak sensor like m43 has.
You probably don’t own a camera but maybe your mommy does? If she does you can ask her if she has a lens that’s as good as the Voigtlanders released so far.
http://voigtlaender.de/21-mm-f-1%2c8-ultron.html
You clearly don’t understand how equivalence works. A Full Frame camera with 21/1.8 already needs to be operating at higher ISO (2 stops) than 10.5/0.95 on MFT. Hence, the noise is roughly the same in this case. That’s why it’s called equivalence. With equivalent lens, EVERYTHING is roughly equivalent (exposure time, FOV, DOF, noise, DR (except Canon)).
APS-C shooters have it much worse, since there’s simply no equivalent lens (f/3.5 equivalent is as close as they get, and that lens is out of production anyway). So while MFT camera shoots this Voigt at ISO200, APS-C will have to shoot at ISO800. And if you believe that will magically give you better image quality, then go to dxo measurements for a reality check.
So, please do tell us what lens could Nikon or Canon APS-C DSLR shooter use to get equivalent results to this Voigt on MFT?
So all of the lenses available for APS-C that would give equivalent FOV and DOF as this lens weigh less than it does? Even if you combine all of them, they still weigh less? Good job, you just disproved the notion that Micro 4/3 is lighter! 🙂
Edgy.
Tha’s the equivalent depth of field. The lens itself gather f0.95 light. Like a Noctilux and a Noktor. But these latters are 50mm, not wide angle lenses. I’m pointing out what should be obvious, sorry. 😉
FF equiv 0.95 DoF would be really tough to get anything in focus with MF, especially when you get close to your subject. Hmm… do we want to see this nose hair or that one? 😉
The lens gathers f0.95 light on a sensor that gathers 4x less light (4x less surface area). FF equivalence is what you want it to be.
No, a m43, a FF and a MF files will deliver different files. I can use a f0.95 lens to keep low ISO, but if I need absolutely a thin dof without bothering too much on the aperture, I go FF.
Personally I prefer the bokeh of an mzuiko at f1.8 than that of a f3.6 FF, it’s a matter of taste.
Back to the topic: this lens is a f0.95 lens, there are no counterparts in the FF world: want to talk/write about the final results? Ok, let’s ask those equivalence guys to post their own pictures and compare them. Then we can talk and write also about the way they took their shots, how easy it has been, if it was a pleasure or whatever. 😉
//f0.95 light on a sensor that gathers 4x less light//, so FF will ned four times more light to catch up with it. But your logic made me smile 🙂
I don’t know why you guys (the 35mmers) keep coming here to a site dedicated to m43s and keep reminding us of equivalent DOF, like if we don’t already know?!
I, for one, like the extra DOF m43s provide.
In the test shot… that’s some funky field curvature there
Those look much better than the ones from Photokina. Maybe that’s because of different lighting. But maybe at Photokina, they were showing unfinished versions.
But let’s face it, the true image quality will be revealed when actual photographers start shooting with them outside. Anyway, for me, this is the most anticipated lens for MFT.
I just want a small and light 9 or 10 mm lens. F/2.8 is fast enough for my purposes. I don’t want to schlepp a giant super wideangle hunk of glass.
Just give us the damnn 7mm 2.8 prime please. Stop dickkking around Oly and Panny. You folks should no better- shame on you.
8mm please, as 7mm can’t get a filter mounted, but 8mm can. Sure the difference is big between 7mm and 8mm, but I would take one small prime UWA with filter as it would get lots of use for landscape.
//The bokeh is very creamy//
Creamy? Really? Not dopey?
It looks horrible, i hope the camera was shaking or something, from this, picture the lens can’t be used at 0.95, if it needs 1.2 or 1.8 then what’s the point, metabones with some canon or nikon leses gets 1.0 with very sharp results.
There’s a reason why Olympus and Samyang apertures start at 2.0 on their wider lenses… they want to guarantee certain level of image quality. I don’t blame the lens though, it’s just physics – SLRMagic’s 12mm T1.6 suffered the same fate. I guess many people will be happy to own a 0.95 even though it’s only usable from 2.0 on, barring some artistic effect. But the reason will be mostly psychological 🙂
Nocti 42.5 1.2 would disagree with you.
…except it’s not really wide 🙂