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Voigtlander Heliar 75mm f/1.8 on Sony NEX - Review / Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Sony NEX
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Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published May 2012
Introduction
Here at OpticalLimits we sometimes enjoy having a look beyond the mainstream and I always wanted to check out the Voigtlander Heliar 75mm f/1.8 VM. The lens is actually made by Cosina (Japan) and only marketed under the classic (German/Austrian) Voigtländer brand name. It is a fairly recently released product with Leica M mount. We'll surely give it another look on the Leica M9 soon but I was curious how it performs on the Sony NEX 7 with its ambitious 24mp sensor.
If you don't mind using an adapter solution with manual focusing, working aperture and without lens EXIF data it may be worth a thought. After all Sony has only released a handful of more or less acceptable lenses in Sony E mount so far.
The build quality of the Voigtlander lens is superb thanks to a tightly assembled metal body. The focus ring operates smoothly (dampened) just like in the old times. The lens extends a little towards shorter focus distances but the front element does not rotate. A rather small metal lens hood is part of the package.
It is a comparatively long lens which is probably why it hasn't really perceived well by the size-addicted Leica M community. The Heliar has a very simple optical design but then it doesn't cost a fortune for that reason.
As mentioned it is a manual focus lens so you have to rely on Sony's focus peaking feature or magnified live view. This will slow you down, of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing unless you want to do action photography.
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | 113 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/2.7 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 6 elements in 3 groups |
| Number of aperture blades | 10 |
| min. focus distance | 0.9 m (1:?) |
| Dimensions | 58 x 74 mm |
| Weight | 427 g |
| Filter size | 52 mm |
| Hood | barrel shaped, supplied, bayonet mount |
| Other features | - |
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