Philip Whiteman
Old hand returning to the fray
I bought one of the new M-mount Voigtlander 25s the moment it came in stock at Robert White.
For what it's worth, I'd say this lens is a nice little job. It is well finished and the focussing – rather stiffer than my similarly-sized 35mm Summicron – is smooth. The aperture click stops appear on first examination to be over light, but I've had no problem with accidently moving the iris, and I think the early Summilux-style tabs are actually nicer that the almost full ring you find on later Leica lenses like the Summicron.
I am sure those who do these things professionally will have their own views on image quality, but from my quick tests over the last 48 hours I find the thing is pretty sharp across the whole field at f4. I don't see any distortion or chromatic fringing – which is more than I can say for my Nikon 18-70 f3.5-4.5G at its wide end – and vignetting is less marked that it is with the 15mm Voigtlander.
The R-D1's built-in 28mm framelines are of course too tight – but not wildly out. I thought my existing Voigtander 35mm finder might do and actually it's almost spot on (very useful for 6 mb digital work where you need every pixel!) Even so, you can leave the finder behind and use the 28mm framelines as a good approximation of the actual sensor image.
I wanted a nice lightweight lens that I could use on long walks etc, and sunny day medium-wide work. So far, I'd say the little 25 (it really is minute) fits the bill very well indeed I may buy the 28mm f1.9 Voigtlander too – but there's always my 35 Summicron for low-light stuff, albeit not wide-angle low light stuff…
Also, a couple of hundred quid doesn't hurt that much!
For what it's worth, I'd say this lens is a nice little job. It is well finished and the focussing – rather stiffer than my similarly-sized 35mm Summicron – is smooth. The aperture click stops appear on first examination to be over light, but I've had no problem with accidently moving the iris, and I think the early Summilux-style tabs are actually nicer that the almost full ring you find on later Leica lenses like the Summicron.
I am sure those who do these things professionally will have their own views on image quality, but from my quick tests over the last 48 hours I find the thing is pretty sharp across the whole field at f4. I don't see any distortion or chromatic fringing – which is more than I can say for my Nikon 18-70 f3.5-4.5G at its wide end – and vignetting is less marked that it is with the 15mm Voigtlander.
The R-D1's built-in 28mm framelines are of course too tight – but not wildly out. I thought my existing Voigtander 35mm finder might do and actually it's almost spot on (very useful for 6 mb digital work where you need every pixel!) Even so, you can leave the finder behind and use the 28mm framelines as a good approximation of the actual sensor image.
I wanted a nice lightweight lens that I could use on long walks etc, and sunny day medium-wide work. So far, I'd say the little 25 (it really is minute) fits the bill very well indeed I may buy the 28mm f1.9 Voigtlander too – but there's always my 35 Summicron for low-light stuff, albeit not wide-angle low light stuff…
Also, a couple of hundred quid doesn't hurt that much!
