Comments on: The Better Pancake: Voigtländer Ultron 40mm f/2 SL II

By: Denis Levchenko

Denis Levchenko — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:34:00 +0000

Is it possible to set the aperture manually on the lens itself and NOT using the camera settings on the new Nikon DSLRs?

By: Dave King

Dave King — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:58:00 +0000

The different SKU is because they changed from rubber to metal focusing ring, otherwise nothing else changed. I have the 40mm Canon pancake too, I tend to agree with the other feedback you have been given here. My copy is sharp as a tack corner to corner, and no chromatic aberration.

By: adamdscott

adamdscott — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:30:00 +0000

Junesoo is providing you with useful feedback. I would recommend taking it on board, rather than slavishly defending your approach.

In order for a lens review to be useful, it needs to be as objective as possible. Your narrow and highly subjective approach reduces the credibility of any assertions that you make.

In the context of a complete picture, made up of multiple sources, this one is mostly valueless. *

This is not the first review on fstoppers that has had this issue.

* Please don’t take this as an attempt to be trollish or hurtful. Comments are for feedback, and I hope that it is seen as a good thing that members of the photographic community are expending effort to encourage improvement.

By: Erik Leigh

Erik Leigh — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 21:31:00 +0000

I have the Canon 40mm and I found it to be tack sharp at a VERY good aperture range. The Voigtlander would have to wake me up in the morning with a cup of coffee and the newspaper for me to pay the extra money for only a .8 increase on the wide end.

By: Jonas_Andersen

Jonas_Andersen — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:45:00 +0000

I have the 40mm Voigtlander and I agree. It’s crazy sharp. By far my sharpest lens and I own the canon 70-200 2.8L and the canon 24-70 II L which are both nice and crisp. I can recommend the voigtlander to anyone not afraid of manual focus. It’s cheap, lightweight and optically awesome.

By: Junesoo Andrew Yang

Junesoo Andrew Yang — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Granted but you aren’t “any” consumer. I only make mention of the other sites as 1) they provide an objective measure among a multitude of subjective evaluations, and 2) your review might be the only negative review of the lens I’ve seen to date.

As a typical consumer, given the data on hand, if I had purchased the EF 40mm and saw performance contrary to general consensus, I would exchange or return the lens.

By: Jaron Schneider

Jaron Schneider — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:59:00 +0000

It’s possible, but I judge what I am given just as any consumer would. And our process is different from other blogs, so we like to think we offer a more complete picture when looked at as a whole along with what other sources might write.

By: Junesoo Andrew Yang

Junesoo Andrew Yang — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Did you have a bad copy of the EF 40mm? SLR Gear, and Photozone both report very good results on their test benches.

http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1523/cat/10
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/752-canon_40_28_ff

By: Willi Kampmann

Willi Kampmann — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:30:00 +0000

I hope I’m not shattering any illusions here, but Voigtländer is NOT an old company. There was an old company named Voigtländer once, but they went out of business a long time ago. The only thing that survived was their name, which was sold to and then passed on to other companies, which mostly put it on crappy low-budget products.

The “new” Voigtländer is really just the name which was acquired by Japanese OEM manufacturer Cosina about ten years ago. Everything under the name Voigtländer now comes from Japan. This isn’t a bad thing as I think Cosina is pretty good, but it’s just not the traditional German company from a hundred years ago. I’ve read, though, that Cosina’s CEO is a pretty big photography buff, collecting old cameras and stuff, which maybe explains why Cosina bought that brand and continues to use the old camera names like Bessa for new products.

But maybe Leica will someday face the same fate, being reduced to nothing more than a brand owned by Panasonic. ;)