Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.2 Review

The Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.2 SE is a manual focus lens with a compact design. The build quality is top-notch and it electronically communicates with the camera. The image quality is good with excellent sharpness and contrast when stopped down.

The build quality of the lens is top-notch and it electronically communicates with your camera, providing useful features such as focus assistance and automatic aperture recognition. However, the lens lacks weather sealing, and the image quality suffers at wider apertures.

The lens delivers good image quality when stopped down, with excellent sharpness and contrast at f/2 and beyond. However, it exhibits noticeable distortion, vignetting, and poor close-up image quality at the widest aperture.

The Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.2 SE is a manual focus lens designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras. It features a bright maximum aperture of f/1.2 and is available for Sony E and Leica M-mount. The build quality of the lens is top-notch with a beautiful black finish and a nice weight to it. Despite the large aperture, the lens is relatively small in size. The lens electronically communicates with the camera and has useful features such as focus assistance and automatic aperture recognition. However, it lacks weather sealing and comes with a small metal hood that is not very useful. The image quality at f/1.2 is good in the middle but suffers from reduced contrast and purple fringing in the corners. However, when stopped down, the image quality improves significantly, with excellent sharpness and contrast at f/2 and beyond. The lens exhibits noticeable distortion, vignetting, and poor close-up image quality at the widest aperture, but these issues can be corrected with in-camera corrections. The lens also performs well in handling bright lights and controlling coma smearing. The bokeh is generally quite soft but can produce some pleasant backgrounds. Chromatic aberration is noticeable at wider apertures but is virtually gone at f/2.8. Despite some clear compromises, the lens delivers good image quality when stopped down and is enjoyable to use.

The bokeh is generally quite soft, but it can produce some pleasant backgrounds. Chromatic aberration is noticeable at wider apertures but is virtually gone at f/2.8.