Updated November 2022

Introduction

Voigtlander’s 21/1.4 Nokton offers a remarkable combination of fantastic image quality and an impressive f/1.4 aperture. It also retails for $1049, which is a total bargain compared to the Leica 21/1.4 Summilux (retail $8995). Despite this value, I wasn’t too interested due to the immense size of the lens. Even the Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 was large for my tastes, and the Voigtlander 21/1.4 makes that lens look downright compact. However, I recently went on a trip to Death Valley, and decided to rent one to have the ultimate 21mm lens for landscapes and astrophotography. During the rental, I also got to take it to California Adventure for a day. I enjoyed using the Voigtlander 21/1.4 so much that I found myself almost overlooking its size and weight.

Build quality and mechanics

This lens is made entirely of metal and feels as solid as a Leica. The focus and aperture rings on mine are both buttery smooth.

Size and handling

This lens is so large compared to other rangefinder lenses that I would consider it a special-purpose lens. That said, its size is probably quite compact when compared with similar lenses for SLR/mirrorless mounts. In terms of handling, it balances surprisingly well on my M10 and the focus and aperture rings feel natural to use.

The hood is detachable and is nicely compact. One quirk is that the lens cap cannot be put on or removed while the hood is in place.

Viewfinder blockage

Shooting with a 21mm lens on a rangefinder camera brings me lots of joy because of the experience of using a hot shoe viewfinder. These viewfinders are extremely large, bright, and offer a completely unobstructed view of your frame. It’s a very zen experience to shoot with nothing in your view other than the framelines. But the Voigtlander 21/1.4 throws a wrench in this by sticking out in front of the viewfinder a significant amount. If you want an unobstructed view you can use live view on certain cameras, but that’s not as fun.

Minimum focus distance

Minimum distance is 0.5m, which is useful if you have liveview. It also allows for great-looking selfies:

Image quality

Distortion: The 21/1.4 has a small amount of complex wave distortion that I never noticed in my photos, even when the horizon is in the edge of the frame. Lightroom has a profile to correct it.

Vignetting: Using this lens uncoded at f/1.4 results in pretty extreme vignetting. I recommend selecting an in-camera profile or correcting the vignetting in Lightroom.

Chromatic aberration: There’s a trace amount of magenta/green color fringing in the edges of the frame, but Lightroom corrects this automatically.

Bokeh: The f/1.4 aperture allows for significant background blur, which is very special for a 21mm lens. The shallow depth of field combined with the wide angle creates a look that I personally love:

Focus shift: None.

Sharpness: I tested infinity sharpness at f/1.4 and f/3.4. I chose f/3.4 because the Leica 21/3.4 is a fantastic 21mm lens for landscapes, so it would be interesting to see how the Voigtlander looks at that lens’s maximum aperture.

At f/1.4, the Voigtlander already achieves peak performance throughout the center and mid-frame. The edges and corners show definite loss of micro-contrast, but f/1.4 is perfectly useable for landscapes in my opinion. At f/3.4 the lens is pretty much perfect corner-to-corner. I repeated this test at close distances (not shown) and the result was the same as infinity. This is a highly impressive performance, and possibly the best of any M-mount 21mm on an aperture-for-aperture basis.

Here’s a real-world sample at f/1.4, showing how clean the images look:

The edge isn’t quite perfect at f/1.4, but it’s close enough that depth of field will usually be the limiting factor for sharpness.

I didn’t end up getting any star photos that I particularly liked, but that definitely wasn’t the lens’s fault. At f/1.4, stars are rendered sharply with minimal coma even in the extreme corners. This is one of the best lenses for astrophotography available for M-mount.

Summary and recommendations

The Voigtlander 21mm f/1.4 is a pretty straightforward lens. It’s absolutely massive for a rangefinder lens, but excels in every other aspect. Its f/1.4 aperture is very useful and provides a unique style that I personally love. Its image quality is best-in-class. Construction quality and price are also excellent.

If you’re okay with the size and weight of this lens in your bag, I recommend trying one out. It’s a particularly good choice if you do lots of nighttime landscapes. Honestly, the size bothered me less than I expected when it was mounted on my camera, especially when I saw the images it made. It’s still too large for me to justify owning one, but I thoroughly enjoyed using it for the week that I had it.

There are several good alternatives for 21mm. The tiny Voigtlander 21/3.5 (review) sits at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of size and maximum aperture. This is a great all-around lens, but it has some field curvature that makes it a mediocre choice for landscapes. The Leica 21/3.4 is slightly larger than the Voigtlander 21/3.5 but is pretty much optically perfect. It’s the ultimate choice for landscapes if you don’t need a wider aperture than f/3.4. The Voigtlander 21/1.8 (review) is a nice middle ground between the tiny 21/3.5 and the huge 21/1.4. This lens is noticeably less sharp than the 21/1.4 at wider apertures, and is a half stop slower. But it’s significantly more compact and a bit cheaper too. It’s a great balance of image quality, speed, and size, and it’s the best choice if you care more about the wide-open bokeh look and less about corner-to-corner performance. It’s my personal favorite 21mm and I plan on buying it again soon.

Good
Image quality
Build quality
Price

Bad
Size and weight
Viewfinder blockage

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Additional reading

Phillip Reeve’s review (Sony version)

More sample images