Real world review of Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95

I have a chance to play around with the Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 MFT, which has a mixed feedback from everywhere. This lens is attractive to me because it has F1.9's depth of view in 35mm format, it makes my OMD become the closest thing to a full frame camera; that's why I'm so happy to try it out.




First of all, it has excellent finishing; it is a bit bulky compare to other MFT lens, but the weight is good weight. You feel solid and fine when you hold it (of course it looks really cool with the OMD). Since it is a F/0.95 lens, I took most of the shots at 0.95.


Eye Contact @ 0.95

Eye contact 

This is the lens you can get the body separation whenever you wanted. It is very important for candid shot because the crowd is really unexpected (especially in Hong Kong, one of the busiest place in the world). My focus is not perfect, I do think it is good enough to show the look and feel of the image.

At 0.95 you have freedom to create more stylish and moody scene

Waiting

Waiting at the bus stop

So boring to wait at the bus stop, just keep shooting.

Group discussion

People mostly complained it is not sharp at 0.95, from my experience, it is pretty cool at the center, below is the sample (no post production except white balance in Adobe Camera Raw):

100% crop

If you nail down the focus, it is sharp even wide open. I don't talk about the corners because I expect it will become out of focus due to the shallow depth of view.

It also provides you a platform to open up your artistic mind

Bridge in impression

You can shoot at extreme low light situation

Flower in very low light

It is not a easy lens to use, but the Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 gives you some magical touch that others lens don't. To me, manual focus is not a issue because I do miss focus with my Olympus 45mm 1.8 in low light situation. The good thing of MF lens is it provides you a depth of view chart, I just preset my focus distance at 2m and shoot. If you are in experience to estimate the distance between the subject, the hit or miss chances compare to AF is not really far behind.

As a result, it is such a wonderful lens to me.

If you feel my images are interesting, please feel free to go Flickr to check out my stuff.