The Leica 35mm Summilux FLE is an amazing lens. Many say it is the reference for 35mm lenses. Unless you are looking for some particular aberration (defect) for some unique rendering for a specific image there is no point in looking elsewhere. Like you, mine is mounted on my M11 over 90% of the time.
That said, the Nokton is an excellent lens and the price difference is significant. But I would never swap it for my Lux FLE.
How well does the black coating/paint on the V1 wear? Obviously anodizing is super durable, but I’m unsure about the newer coating Voigtlander is using on their aluminum bodied lenses.
_jim_ wrote:
How well does the black coating/paint on the V1 wear? Obviously anodizing is super durable, but I’m unsure about the newer coating Voigtlander is using on their aluminum bodied lenses.
I've had mine for about a year with no paint defects at all. Looks brand new.
I chose the aluminum because of the weight savings and have had no regrets at all.
I really like this lens. It has somewhat more organic rendering than my Summilux, while still being very sharp. The Summilux does have slightly more “bite” and structure, but it’s a matter of preference…
There are instances when I dislike how the Summilux renders bokeh, can be a bit busy, the VM is more smooth. I think for the price and being smaller and lighter than the FLE, Cosina knocked this one out of the park.
1bwana1 wrote:
The Leica 35mm Summilux FLE is an amazing lens. Many say it is the reference for 35mm lenses. Unless you are looking for some particular aberration (defect) for some unique rendering for a specific image there is no point in looking elsewhere. Like you, mine is mounted on my M11 over 90% of the time.
That said, the Nokton is an excellent lens and the price difference is significant. But I would never swap it for my Lux FLE.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Nice tonality and detail here. Would you mind sharing your B&W conversion settings?
See attached. I don't do a lot of B&W, so don't really have any particular settings I use. I just click on the B&W conversion in Lightroom and then do Auto color mix in the B&W Mix section. Then tweak from there if needed.
The Nokton does have a mice mix of sharpness and smooth falloff at the same time...
Great review! I am looking into picking this or the f2 ultron for the M6 for mostly street photography. I was wondering if anyone had any strong opinions or which would be preferable for film photography. I prefer the images from the ultron but I'm interested in taking some night shots (mostly of streets and city lights) and don't know how much I'll miss that extra stop of light.
Personally, I would go for the extra stop of light but I don't shoot film that often. I have all 3 of the Voigtlander 28's, f1.5,2,2.8. The Ultron is kind of the odd man out now. If I know I will be shooting after dark, the 28/1.5 goes with me, if it is going to be all daytime, it is hard to ignore the small but excellent 28/2.8 Color-Skopar. There is no denying though that the 28 Ultron is an excellent lens, but so are they other 2. Tough choice but it is great to have such choices!
BruceRH wrote:
Personally, I would go for the extra stop of light but I don't shoot film that often. I have all 3 of the Voigtlander 28's, f1.5,2,2.8. The Ultron is kind of the odd man out now. If I know I will be shooting after dark, the 28/1.5 goes with me, if it is going to be all daytime, it is hard to ignore the small but excellent 28/2.8 Color-Skopar. There is no denying though that the 28 Ultron is an excellent lens, but so are they other 2. Tough choice but it is great to have such choices!
I was in the same boat because I love the 28mm focal length. I ended up with three Voigtlander lenses, plus the Leica f/2 and f/1.4 versions. After testing them side by side and considering many factors, I decided to keep only two: the Voigtlander 28/1.5 (my favorite) and the equally outstanding Voigtlander 28/2.8 Color-Skopar. The Leica Summicron was too similar in rendering to the 28/1.5 stopped down to f/2, and the Summilux gave a similar look to the 28/1.5 when wide open.
Picked up a Techart TZM-02 adapter to use with this lens. Pretty cool to have an autofocus 35mm f1.5 this small AF works pretty well on the Zf. Not at the level of native glass, but faster and more accurate than I'm able to manually focus on moving subjects.
I picked up a used copy of this lens a couple of weeks ago.
It has been a real pleasure to use. The image quality is nice, but from a pure ergonomics/size point-of-view, this is the nicest 35mm lens I've used. It doesn't have the bite of the 35/2 Ultron, but it doesn't have the lumpy/uneven focus throw. It's not nearly as sharp across the frame as the 35/1.4 Distagon ZM, but it's less than half the size.
I have been reading reviews of this lens and really like the images but not enough to move on from my 35 Nokton Classic SC which has been a joy to use.
AF works pretty well on the Zf. Not at the level of native glass, but faster and more accurate than I'm able to manually focus on moving subjects.
