Hey everyone welcome back to the site and in today’s video we’re going to be reviewing Voigtlander’s new 28-millimeter Ultron spherical version 2. let me start by saying that it’s actually pretty dope and exciting to be one of the first people on youtube at least to be reviewing something as new as this lens I’ve never been close to being the first person to review camera gear nowadays.
so this is going to be very exciting if you’ve been desperately looking for a review on this new lens and your first impression is already like I could wait for bench height I wouldn’t blame you at all bench heist is a pretty good camera reviewer make sure you give this video a thumbs up if you support the direction that this channel is going on because we’re going to be focusing more on film photography concepts gear and all this other stuff I will be teaching some composition here and there as well and comment down below if you are a fan of this facial hair that I’m growing or you can comment shave the damn thing off.
so let me know there but without further ado let’s talk about this beautiful new lens that Voigtlander has created for us the first impression I had upon unboxing this lens was that it is absolutely tiny this is the most nimble setup I’ve ever owned in my life in terms of cameras the combination of my m6 and this lens is super unobtrusive it’s incredibly light I can throw it on my back I can even hold it in my pocket right now and just pull it out when I’m out doing my personal street photography work this is like not bothering me and not distracting me from my process at all although I do wish that the front ring on this lens was black to go with the more stealth look the silver chrome kind of sticks out but that’s just me being nitpicky for those of you who are shopping for this lens I believe there are different colorways of this lens I think there’s a full silver chrome and there might be another one.
I totally forgot but I went for this one because it was the most blacked-out version even though it’s not completely blacked out the build quality is very nice it’s an incredibly solid lens it has a nice little like heft to it obviously not hefty enough to pull the camera forward um it’s nice and clicky on the aperture although it’s a little bit lost in my opinion where you can actually bump it from f4 to f5.6 pretty dang easily so watch out for that or maybe it’s just my clumsiness whenever I’m like walking about and about the focus ring is pretty smooth as well it’s not too lose it’s not too firm it’s quick enough for me to snap focus whenever I’m trying to capture a canon moment whether I’m out with my friends or out in Chinatown or wherever.
it’s smooth enough to focus really fast if you’re unfamiliar with Voigtlander’s lineup of lenses they did actually have a 28-millimeter lens before this one and it was still called the Ultron is just not the spherical lens formula so the main differences that I can tell from just owning this I never owned the original Ultron but I know that this one is definitely smaller the original one had some viewfinder blockage and in the 28-millimeter frame lines it’s it would be nice to not have viewfinder blockage because like when you’re like looking through the viewfinder if that like thing is popping on the corner then it’s kind of annoying I can safely and gladly tell you that this lens has little to no viewfinder blockage at all I will show you some footage right here of what it looks like in the Leica m6 0.72 magnification viewfinder that thing does not really intersect or get in the way of the frame lines at all and that is super awesome because again.
if you’re shooting something that’s really fast-paced or just using any camera tool at all you don’t want the gear to get in the way you just want it to help you connect and assist with the scene around you so that you could better photograph the moment and this lens does just that all right enough about the looks and the build quality of the lens because Voigtlander seriously delivered on it I’m happiest about the fact that it doesn’t block the viewfinder so good job Voigtlander but let’s move on to the image quality because that’s obviously the more important part in picture-taking this lens is super duper sharp you’re never going to complain about that at all when you nail that focus at f2 it’s perfectly sharp at f 5.6 it’s sharp and same for f 8 and above the bokeh rendition is super cool.
it’s really swirly when you’re shooting wide open it has a nice little character to that but I will have to say and you’ve probably already noticed in the sample images that the vignetting is pretty noticeable especially at f2 and that might bum some people out especially for those who love to shoot wide open I mean if you’re going to look for a lens like this you’re probably either shooting in low light or you really love the shallow depth of field but the vignetting I there’s no denying it’s pretty noticeable the vignetting is digestible at f 2.8 and f 4 but it’s virtually gone by f 5.6 and definitely gone at f 8. but back to the positives of this lens it actually does super well with flaring there’s really like no interference with that it doesn’t pollute the entire frame it doesn’t like throw chromatic aberration all up in your face like a box of cheerios the distortion is pretty much non-existent.
so that’s super cool too even though I’ve never owned the original 28-millimeter Ultron from Voigtlander you could check out bench heist’s video on that if you really want full details of that I’ll link it right here but from what I’ve heard the corner sharpness and the image quality is pretty bad on that lens depending on like who you are obviously if you’re a pixel people you’re probably gonna hate the original Voigtlander lens for this, uh I mean corner sharpness I don’t really like pay attention to that and I guess like in the film photography world we just call that character but if I’m gonna try to empathize with the pixel peepers for just a second.
I would say that the corner sharpness is like it’s pretty good I think it’s fine, to be honest, there is like a little bit of fall off but it kind of adds like a nice natural softness not too clinical but if you want absolutely clinical sharpness and you got the dough then go for the Leica 28 millimeter submicron and if you don’t know what the price tag is google it right now come back to this video and be glad that this lens is as affordable as it is and as good as it is if I’m going to give this an honest opinionated score of how this image quality holds up I would say 8.9 out of 10. I would only say 8.9 is because that vignetting kind of does bug me uh when I’m in low light situations and that f2 really kind of like takes up a third of my image or it feels like it takes up a third.
so that kind of sucks but I’m hardly ever shooting in low light situations with film in general but I get it we can’t really change our iso like we can on digital cameras once we load in Porsche 400 we’re kind of like capped at a 400 iso and having a very competent f2 aperture or faster aperture, in general, it it would be very helpful if it didn’t vignette as heavily as it did on this lens but we don’t live in an ideal world and this lens is also dramatically cheaper than the Leica 28 millimeter submicron so you kind of get what you pay for but you’re also getting a lot for what you pay for out of this lens alright so I personally think that this is a very important topic to talk about 35-millimeter focal length versus 28-millimeter focal length I am a huge 35-millimeter focal length guy that’s my favorite focal length to work with the lens that I’m using right now is the 35-millimeter prime.
when i was on my old nikon digital setup the 35 millimeter lens was glued to my body and never really left and same goes for my film setup i concentrate on maxing out the quality of my 35 millimeter lens i’ll make a video on that very soon but if you’re unfamiliar with the 28 millimeter focal length which i kind of feel most of us are because most camera manufacturers don’t make 28 millimeter lens or at least push them out into the forefront one description i can give you is like if you were shooting 35 millimeter and you wanted a little bit more room for context then the 28 is perfect it’s the kind of like the happy medium in my opinion of the 24 and the 35 because it does give you like a wider perspective and it doesn’t really like compromise the reality or the authenticity of the image by like giving you like a dramatic distorted field of view that 24 can sometimes give you and you can still get in pretty close and crop just a tiny little bit on these 28 millimeter images so that you can kind of get that 35 millimeter look but for me personally there was a little bit of a learning curve to getting more comfortable with this new field of view.
because I’ve used 35-millimeter lenses and 24 for my wedding work like back in the day this newer focal length to me didn’t give me that much height but the width was just new and awkward enough for it to like throw off all of my compositions like my frames would start cutting off limbs on accident I would forget to like include some detail in the frame it was just really weird but I will have to say that the 28-millimeter field of view is perfect for street photography for me because of the zone focusing capabilities and also the ability to include a lot of contexts and giving more purpose into the framing I’ll make a video about this I won’t go too in-depth with it but 28 to 35 is just far enough for you to like really consider like which lens should I get and if I were to give like kind of like an opinionated suggestion recommendation on it.
I would say that if you’re more of a more slowed down person well photographing more slowed down things like maybe a family gathering where not too many people are running around or portraiture I would recommend the 35 millimeters and that’s solely based on my own experience you could definitely do that with the 28 and I would personally again very opinionated recommend the 28 if you’re capturing more like fast action stuff where you need like that extra field of view to capture the action is very canon moments or you simply just want more context that the 35-millimeter focal length can’t give you so the final verdict is whether I would recommend this lens to anybody and if you can tell and you’ve reached this part of the video.
I would definitely highly recommend this Voigtlander 28 millimeter Ultron spherical version 2 lens to anybody it you would definitely get a huge bang for your buck if you’re not really shooting at f2 or wide open on any like film photography gear then you’re going to love this lens especially if you shoot at a 5.6 as I do but if money wasn’t a factor for you and you’re in the market for a 28-millimeter lens I would say the Leica 20 millimeter submicron then the Leica millimeter merit a spherical version, not the non-spherical version that I owned and then I would say this Voigtlander 28 millimeter spherical.
but if money wasn’t a factor that would be my ranking thank you guys so much for watching through the end of this video I really love this little guy in my arsenal of lenses is great for the way that I use it and I hope that you can create some great work with it if you choose to purchase it as well Voigtlander I hope you’re watching this maybe we could partner on some future videos but make sure you like this video and subscribe for more and leave a comment down below on what you think about the whole like Leica lenses only or shopping for alternatives like Voigtlander and other brands and what do you think about the 28-millimeter focal length I would love to hear what you have to say but um thank you guys and girls for watching this video and I will see you in the next one peace.
