Now that our full Sony A7r II test is complete, it’s time to continue with our reviews of interesting Voigtländer lenses to use on the camera. The former German brand has an interesting collection of compact lenses that go from extreme wide angle to fast medium focal lengths. These lenses are designed for the Leica M system but can easily be mounted to the Sony A7 series via a thin adapter (I have the Voigtlander VM adapter).
Voigtlaender (M mount)
Voigtländer VM lenses on the Sony A7r II, Chapter I: 12mm f/5.6 Ultra Wide Heliar and 21mm f/1.8 Ultron
When the original A7 and A7r were released in December 2013, one of the most popular topics was the use of adapted lenses including old SLR, Leica and third party M glass. Adapting M glass to Sony’s full-frame sensor, especially the shorter focal lengths, proved quite challenging. Since Sony’s sensors have a thicker cover glass, the light rays that come from the lens and pass through the cover can produce astigmatism (details on the edges of your image appearing blurred), colour shift and chromatic aberration. The severity of the results depends on the specific lens.
An Unlikely Trio: The Olympus Pen E-P5 meets the Nokton 50mm f/1.1 & Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5
Since buying the Sony A7, Mat has been spending all his spare time trying out different manual lenses designed for the Leica system. The first two he tried were the Summilux 35mm and 50mm in Lyon. Then, as soon as we crossed back over the Italian border, he rented the Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 15mm f/4.5 and the Nokton 50mm f/1.1, two lenses about which we’d heard nothing but great things. At the same time, we also picked up a Novoflex Leica to MFT adapter, which was lying sadly amongst the shelves upon shelves of Leica glass. It seemed wrong to deny it some shooting time on the Olympus Pen E-P5. 🙂