Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

I put the performance of Canon and Nikon's consumer level primes slightly above the Voigtlander. It's not bad, but it's no Canon "L" prime or Leica. Flare is hard to control, bokeh is pretty ugly wide open and there's lots of blooming off OOF highlights, especially skin tones.
For the price, and given our limited choices for M mounts, this is still a fair choice as long as you don't have too high of expectations.
It triggers 50mm framelines so you will need to file the mount to trigger the (far more accurate)35mm framelines.
I don't recommend it for Pro's as I use an M8 along with my Canon pro equipment and the look from this lens doesn't blend well with the look I get from my "L" lenses or M8 and old Summicrom.

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

I should preface my comments by saying that I'm using this with an adapter on a Micro 4/3rd body (GF1).I'm very happy with the lens. I use it for low light photography and candid portrait shots, as well as some landscape photography.The lens is pretty soft wide open, which isn't necessarily a con as some portrait shots are better served by a softer touch, and even stopping down to f/2 makes a noticeable difference. By f/4 or f/5.6 it's more than sharp enough through most of the frame, though corners tend to remain a tad soft. Stop to f/8 and you're fully sharp.The bokeh works for me, but that's a pretty subjective measure.The main shortcoming of the lens lies in purple fringing, which can be quite pronounced wide open but tends to abate as the lens is stopped down. The only other image quality downside is some slight vignetting at the corners. In most shots, the vignetting isn't even noticeable, and I only really discovered it by shooting a white surface and increasing contrast in an image editor.Lastly, the rear element has a small speck at the edge of the glass that won't be removed with normal cleaning (like a tiny fleck of black paint or something). I almost returned the lens for this reason. However, it doesn't seem to affect image quality. It's likely cropped out by the m4/3 sensor size (which turns a 40mm into an 80mm). Although this could affect the lens' resale value, I kept it. Why? Because it's a fun lens and on my first day of ownership I shot two great candid portraits of my wife and kid in some tricky lighting. That's pretty much what I was looking for.

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

I've used this lens on a Panasonic Lumix G1 with an adapter and a Leica M8. The performance has been stellar, especially for the price.

Slight vignette on fastest f-stop, but that's pretty standard. Highly recommended.

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

The build quality on this lens is amazing, none of the current plastic auto focus lenses come close. Both aperture and focus rings are perfectly weighted and work flawlessly. I use this with an adapter on my Panasonic G1 and the large 1.4 aperture allows me to take low light pictures. It is also very compact and light. Obviously you need to focus manually and zoom with your feet!

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

I use this as my standard walking around lens, and it does a good job out in the street. The focus is a quick quarter turn. The images are nice and crisp after f2. At f1.4 everything looks a little vague, and contrast is way down. Sometimes I like that look. It does seem consistent from center to edge. At f5.6 it's almost as sharp as my Contax G Zeiss 45mm f2 (yes, I did a test).

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

I use it overall
Price normal for this quality (see tests on the net)
Usefull f/1.4
Smooth rings
All metal
Very small and light, allways in a pocket

Normally you see the 50 in the finder, but you can have 35 with a little modification (Ask the seller)

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

This 40mm Nokton is unquestionably one of the best bargains in the M-mount line. Sharpness, contrast, and color rendering of this lens are excellent pretty much through its aperture range. Its compactness is also an added benefit.

This lens is an especially excellent choice for M8 owners who want a very compact normal range general lens for the M8's sub-35mm sensor. The only real disadvantage is that there are no rangefinder frame lines for a 40 mm lens. You'll have to approximate with the 50mm frame that the lens activates.

Comments about Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 M-Mount Lens:

Whether I use this lens in natural light or with my Metz flash units, it produces stunning clarity and resolution, seemingly equal to that which my Leica lenses, both M and R, produce. For a match made in heaven, try this lens with Fuji's Acros 100 developed in Ilford's ID-11 developer stock (without any dilution with water). Stunning!