Updated April 2025

Introduction

Voigtlander has been drastically expanding its lineup of 28mm lenses. Not too long ago, Voigtlander had virtually no 28mm offerings whereas Leica had a complete lineup including the 28 Elmarit, 28 Summicron, and 28 Summilux. In the span of just a few years, Voigtlander has released a competitor for each of these, the latest of which is the 28mm f/1.5 Nokton. And in the near future we will have a Voigtlander 28mm APO-Lanthar, for which there is no Leica counterpart.

I previously tried the new Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron and loved it. I’d been hoping that Voigtlander would also make a competitor to the 28 Summilux, which was never a serious option for me because it retails for $7,995 and rarely drops below $4,000 on the used market.

And then Voigtlander delivered exactly what I wanted: a 28mm f/1.5 lens that’s significantly smaller than the 28 Summilux, focuses to 0.5m, and retails for just $1000. The only other thing it has to do is perform well optically. I wasn’t sure what level of performance to expect, given that the Nokton lineup is a bit of a mixed bag. Most notably, the Voigtlander 35/1.5 Nokton was not as sharp as I hoped, and did not match the performance of the 35 Summilux FLE.

In this review we’ll explore just how well the 28mm Nokton performs. I don’t have a 28 Summilux or the Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron to compare, but I will be making intermittent comparisons to the Leica Q’s 28/1.7 Summilux (which is the best 28mm lens I’ve used) as well as my trusty 35 Summilux FLE (which is not a 28mm lens but is my benchmark for how sharp a fast wide angle lens needs to be).

About this lens

This lens comes in four versions: Type I (black), Type I (silver), Type II (black), and Type II (silver). The Type I is made of aluminum and is lighter. Type II is styled slightly differently and is made of brass, which makes it noticeably heavier. The Type II black version also uses black paint on brass which can produce desirable “brassing” over time. Other than weight and appearance, these versions all function the same. They all have focus tabs and focus to 0.5m.

Build quality and mechanics

Every Voigtlander lens that I’ve tried in recent years has had impeccable build quality and this lens is no exception. The construction is all metal and it feels as nice in the hand as any Leica lens. The focus and aperture rings are buttery smooth; using the focusing tab is a breeze. My only minor critique is that the optional hood uses a bayonet attachment, which typically aren’t as rock solid as Leica’s screw-on hoods.

This lens continues the recent trend from Voigtlander and Leica of not having exposed focusing helicoids at the rear, which is a nice touch.

Size and handling

The Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 is astonishingly small for its specifications. We could not have asked for anything better. All other fast 28mm lenses are significantly larger, including the 28 Summilux and the Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4. For reference, the Voigtlander 28/1.5 is almost identical in size to the 35 Summilux FLE.

Viewfinder blockage

There is a modest amount of viewfinder blockage which is mitigated with slower 28mm lenses such as the Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron or especially the Voigtlander 28/2.8 Color-Skopar.

Minimum focus distance

Dealing with a 0.7m minimum focusing distance is a frequent frustration for me with M lenses, especially since I like to take pictures of food. The 28 Nokton focuses to 0.5m, which allows for significantly better closeups on cameras with liveview:

Image quality

Distortion:
Minimal enough that I’ve never noticed it.

Vignetting:
There’s a modest amount of vignetting but nothing excessive. I’ve been shooting without an in-camera profile so I occasionally use a Lightroom preset to correct vignetting.

Bokeh:
Background blur has some harshness to it due to slight “soap-bubble bokeh.” This could be a downside for some people but it generally doesn’t bother me, and in fact some people seek out vintage lenses specifically for this type of rendering (e.g. the 8 element 35 Summicron).

To give an idea of how much background blur this lens is capable of, here it is compared directly to the Leica Q2 and 35 Summilux FLE:

Leica Q2

Voigtlander 28/1.5

Leica 35 FLE

The Voigtlander has and a narrow field of view and noticeably shallower depth of field compared to the Q2. The bokeh of the Voigtlander and the 35 Summilux look very similar; other than the slightly wider angle, it’s basically the same look.

Longitudinal chromatic aberration:
Longitudinal CA appears better controlled than other lenses in the Nokton lineup. I’ve yet to take a photo where it was noticeable.

Lateral chromatic aberration:
There is a hint of red/cyan lateral CA but Lightroom automatically corrects this, and it’s probably too small to be noticeable on film.

Sharpness, infinity:
As mentioned above, I’m comparing this lens to the Leica 35 Summilux FLE and the Leica Q2 to give some context for its performance.

Center:

Analysis: All lenses perform well in the center. The Voigtlander has a bit of purple glow at f/1.5 whereas both Leica lenses look basically perfect wide-open.

Mid-frame:

Analysis: The Q2 continues to look flawless, whereas both the 35 Summilux and the Voigtlander 28/1.5 have the slightest bit of fuzziness wide-open. Disappointingly, my Voigtlander 28 is not perfectly centered: the left side looks as sharp as the Summilux whereas the right side is noticeably fuzzier. At f/2.8 all lenses look flawless.

Corner:

I accidentally misfocused the Q2 for this series, but I know from experience that corner performance at f/1.7 is near-perfect (there is some resolution loss but primarily due to barrel distortion correction). The 35 Summilux FLE and Voigtlander 28/1.5 are both a bit hazy in the corners wide-open but sharpen up completely by f/2.8. This aspect of performance rarely matters unless you are doing astrophotography. Interestingly, the decentering of my Voigtlander affects the mid-frame but not the corners, which is why I did not need to include crops from both sides for this test.

Sharpness, 1m:

Center:

Analysis: All lenses look really good here, except that the 35 Summilux FLE has noticeable focus shift. The 35 FLE and Voigtlander 28/1.5 have very similar amounts of longitudinal chromatic aberration, whereas the Leica Q2 has almost none.

Mid-frame:

Analysis: Sadly, the Voigtlander’s decentering is worse here than at infinity. On the left side, mid-frame sharpness is as good as the 35 Summilux FLE’s, but the right side is soft at f/1.5 to the point where no area looks completely in-focus. The Leica Q2 looks flawless.

Corner:

Analysis: The Voigtlander does very well here and is possibly the sharpest of the three. The decentering seen in the mid-frame does not affect the corners. Unfortunately, wide-open corner performance is not nearly as important as mid-frame performance.

Quality control

I normally don’t comment specifically on quality control in my lens reviews. I do sometimes come across lenses that are poorly centered, but this issue can affect all lenses, including the most expensive ones from Leica. Focus calibration is also a frequent issue but I don’t like to attribute this to lens quality control, as I explain in this article.

The reason why I bring it up here is that I tried no less than four copies of the Voigtlander 28/1.5 and they all had decentering issues. This is super disappointing as this would otherwise be my dream 28mm lens. The sharp side is impressively good at f/1.5, especially considering how compact this lens is. According to Fred Miranda’s testing, it’s even as sharp as the 28 Summilux, which is significantly larger and 8x the price.

But after going through four improperly centered copies of this lens, I have to start wondering if perfectly centered copies even exist. If X is the fraction of copies that are well-centered, then the probability of me picking four at random and having no winners is (1-X)^4. That means that even if 75% of copies of this lens are poorly centered, I’d still only have a 1-in-3 chance of being this unlucky. Is the fraction of well-centered copies below 25%?

Summary and recommendations

The Voigtlander 28mm f/1.5 Nokton does so many things well. The form factor is downright impressive and significantly better than the 28 Summilux. Sharpness is on par with the 28 Summilux and 35 Summilux FLE. The rendering is pleasant, and vignetting, chromatic aberration, and distortion are all adequately controlled. Build quality is excellent, and the lens focuses down to 0.5m.

Unfortunately this is all soured by the fact that I could not find an optimal copy of this lens. One side was always softer in the mid-frame at f/1.5. Many people won’t notice or care about the degree of decentering I’m complaining about. I’ve had my own internal debate over whether it’s actually bad enough to be a dealbreaker. And if it’s not, this is a really excellent 28mm lens.

But I’m tired of thinking about this issue, and I would rather search for a well-centered copy of the Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron or perhaps the upcoming Voigtlander 28/2 APO-Lanthar. Shooting with the 28/1.5 has also taught me that for some reason, I don’t personally care as much about having the extra f-stop on 28mm as I do with 35mm. The 28mm f/2 rendering looks natural to my eyes, and is a nice complement to the bokeh-heavy 35mm f/1.4 look.

For those who don’t benefit from having f/1.5, my top 28mm recommendation is the Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron mentioned above. It makes great images and saves a little bit of size, weight, and cost compared to the 28/1.5. The upcoming Voigtlander 28/2 APO-Lanthar is supposed to be incredibly well-corrected with the drawback of being somewhat larger than the Ultron. It could be a compelling option as well, although the image quality of the Ultron is already excellent. The Voigtlander 28/2.8 Color-Skopar is also a well-regarded lens for those who don’t need f/2; I personally am not willing to give up that much depth of field control. Finally, the Leica 28/2 Summicron is difficult to recommend because of how good the Voigtlander 28/2 Ultron is, but the Version 3 could be a logical choice if a built-in hood and 0.4m focusing are priorities, and cost is not.

Good
Image quality
Build quality
Size and handling
Price

Bad
Quality control issues

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Other alternatives (not recommended)

Leica 28/1.4 Summilux ASPH
The only reason I see to buy this lens is theoretically better quality control from Leica, but Fred Miranda mentioned trying three copies and only one was well-centered. And for the price of one 28 Summilux, you could buy eight Voigtlander 28 Noktons, keep the sharpest copy, and use the other seven as paperweights. The Summilux is also larger, heavier, and limited to 0.7m focusing.

Zeiss 28/2.8 Biogon
Leica 28/2.8 Elmarit ASPH
These lenses aren’t bad but they’re more expensive than the Voigtlander 28/2 ASPH despite being one stop slower and having worse performance.

Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f/2 (pre-ASPH)
I’ve never used this lens. Although it offers an f/2 aperture and a very reasonable price, by all accounts it has significantly compromised image quality. In particular, it’s known to have very blurry corners at f/2.