To have and to hold, until death do us part.
Comparable to the 25mm Lumix Leica 1.4 in terms of quality - these lenses are in fact very similar.
The main differences are:
Price: The Voigtlander is a lot more expensive - but it is much more beautifully built.
Weight: The Voigtlander is very heavy - especially noticeable on a body like the GX1.
Size: It's larger by far than the Lumix Leica 25mm, and certainly much larger than the 20mm pancake.
Manual Focus: No AF whatsoever. Will need time to focus your shots. This is fine, and very satisfying, so long as you don't need to change focus very quickly.
Aperture: Very wide. You can almost shoot in the dark. Widest apertures do give a Nokton "Glow" or a Nokton "Schmear" as someone else has called it.
Build Quality: Very solid, and heavy, and reassuring.
DOF: Extreme and impressive.
This is a thing of beauty - there is no doubt, and it is a joy to behold. You'll want to feel it in your hand - the extra weight being satisfying and solid, most pleasing in fact. On your camera body though, the weight is noticeable in a different way. You'll want to support the lens with your left hand, and maybe wish you hand a larger hand grip. Possibly fine for those with slightly larger models, but a little uncomfortable for those of us who've opted for the svelter bodies in the M43 range.
Quality is superb, as you'd expect. I've become a master of manual focus. Using the touch screen or clicking the thumb-wheel to zoom in to the focus area for precise adjustment. Half pressing the release to zoom out again if required to re-frame ... this technique works just fine. It also means you won't be focusing in a hurry so you won't be taking (m)any action shots with this, unless you like things looking blurry, which is sometimes nice.
If you open up beyond the 1.4, things are going to a little "soft" as they say. Some people talk about the Nokton "Haze" or the Nokon "Glow" but a more accurate term in fact might be the Nokton "schmear" as someone else so grumpily puts it. In essence, at 1.2 and the 0.95 - no matter how finely you focus, the edges, the contrasts ... well, they're going to look a little blurry, or "schmeary", as though you've smeared butter on your lens. If this is desirable, as well it might be, you'll get plenty of it. It reminds me somewhat of a particular Hollywood movie era - especially in black and white. And it has to be said, black and white shot wide open like this does look delightful.
The advantages of a lens like this are two fold.
The first is that it can see in the dark. Opening right up means it'll see even more than the Lumix Leica. Most other lenses just couldn't cope without a flash of some sort. The Lumix Leica is already fantastic in the dark, but this is just better. Things might be a little soft, but at least they're there. The down side is that you'll need to have a very, very steady hand, or a tripod.
I can see how video shooters would like this lens a lot, where movement is expected. But for photography, with the aperture ring open this wide, even the slightest movement is going to mean one hell of a lot of blur. You can use this to certain effect, of course but it's not what necessarily what everyone wants. Commas and comets abound.
The second - is that you can get right up close, about as close as you would with a macro lens. It can focus at incredibly short distances, and the background blur is superb.
Sometimes I have wish it had auto focus, but not very often in truth.Read full review
