Updated May 2025

Introduction

Voigtlander has been on a spree releasing impressive new lenses for M-mount, and one of these is an updated version of their 50mm f/1.5. The 50/1.5 II promises to deliver higher performance than its predecessor despite losing both size and weight, partly thanks to a double aspherical element. In this review we’ll see just how well the new 50/1.5 performs, and we’ll be comparing it against its closest Leica equivalent: the legendary Leica 50/1.4 Summilux ASPH (review). One might assume that the Voigtlander can’t possibly be as good. The Voigtlander is significantly cheaper, smaller, and lighter than the Leica. It also doesn’t have a floating group like the Leica does, which helps to control spherical aberration at close distances. But keep in mind, the Summilux’s design is 16 years older, and this new Voigtlander lens has a double aspherical element. Let’s see how they compare!

Size and feel

The Summilux is a slightly long and heavy lens but still handles well, and easily fits into any camera bag. Yet the Voigtlander is still roughly half the size, and less than half the weight. For travel, this is a clear advantage to the Voigtlander. I also enjoyed how the camera feels in hand slightly better with the Voigtlander. Do note that the other versions of the Summilux (black, black chrome) are lighter. Also, the Leica has built-in hood, which the Voigtlander lacks.

To emphasize just how compact the Voigtlander is, here it is compared to the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar ZM:

Build quality and mechanics

With all-metal construction, the Voigtlander feels just as solid as any Leica lens.

The Voigtlander focus ring has no tab, and is perfectly smooth but with heavy resistance, which is not my preference. The focus ring on my Summilux is stiff and slightly sticky, which is a common problem with the silver brass version. So neither lens is perfect for me (I like using a focus tab that moves easily like butter) but the Voigtlander’s focus ring feels better than the Summilux.

The aperture rings feel perfect on both lenses.

Image quality

Distortion: The Voigtlander appears to have some slight pincushion distortion in the corners. This amount of distortion doesn’t bother me.

Vignetting: Both the Voigtlander 50/1.5 and Leica 50/1.4 have significant vignetting wide-open, which is expected. But the Voigtlander has extra vignetting when used uncoded, so I recommend selecting an in-camera profile or correcting for vignetting with Lightroom.

Lateral chromatic aberration: Minimal/none.

Bokeh: Out-of-focus regions with the Voigtlander 50/1.5 look great wide-open. Many Voigtlander and Leica lenses have prominent “soap-bubble bokeh” but this is not really the case with the Voigtlander 50/1.5 II. Optical vignetting, however, is rather strong and produces a high degree of “cat’s-eye bokeh.”

Transition zones (areas just in front/behind the focus plane) are a different story. The Voigtlander’s transition zones often look hazy, as seen in this sample at f/1.5:

Longitudinal chromatic aberration (AKA spherochromatism): The Voigtlander also has a lot of green/magenta longitudinal CA. In this example with the Voigtlander at 0.7m, we can see both the haziness of the background transition zone as well as significant chromatic aberration, which causes areas of contrast to have a green glow:

For comparison, here’s a picture taken with the Summilux ASPH at f/1.4:

The Leica’s transition zones don’t have the haziness that the Voigtlander creates, and there’s also obviously better control of longitudinal chromatic aberration. This is unsurprising given that Peter Karbe describes the 50 Summilux ASPH as an apochromatic design.

Sharpness: infinity

Both lenses are sharp wide-open in the center and midframe (not shown). They also both get soft in the edges/corners wide-open, but the Voigtlander looks slightly worse to my eyes.

Given that the Voigtlander isn’t sharp across the frame at f/1.5, let’s take a closer look at another example at various apertures:

For distant subjects, the Voigtlander 50/1.5 really needs to be stopped down to f/4 for edge-to-edge sharpness. The Summilux also sharpens up edge-to-edge right at f/4.

Sharpness: 2 meters

Both lenses look great in the center wide-open. In the mid-frame, the Leica actually has quite poor performance at close distances, and isn’t even sharp by f/2.8. This is disappointing as the mid-frame is where your subject is placed when using the rule of thirds. The Voigtlander on the other hand has no trouble here with consistent sharpness across the frame even at f/1.5. I did more testing and found that at intermediate distances, the Voigtlander is sharp at f/1.5 all the way into the corners. Here’s an example at 3 meters:

Image quality comparison: 0.7m

The result at 0.7m is exactly as expected: the Leica’s floating group allows ideal correction for spherical aberration, which in the Voigtlander causes some contrast loss. As a result, the Leica is slightly sharper wide open at 0.7m. The Voigtlander’s spherical aberration also causes some minor focus shift.

Despite the Voigtlander being worse than the Leica at 0.7m, it’s still completely usable even at f/1.5:

Summary and recommendations

So how good is the new Voigtlander 50/1.5 II compared to the legendary 50 Summilux ASPH? Optically, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. The Voigtlander excels at mid-distances, where the image stays sharp corner-to-corner even at f/1.5. Interestingly, performance is different at far distances, where the periphery isn’t sharp until f/4. And at 0.7m, some spherical aberration is apparent at f/1.5. With the Summilux, although the center is always tack-sharp, there’s never much resolution to speak of in the outer half of the frame without stopping down to f/4.

Where the Leica excels is in its rendering. Transition zones look nicer with the Summilux, and longitudinal chromatic aberration is better controlled. Overall, I prefer the image quality of the Leica, but it’s close. And neither has the consistent image quality of a 50mm f/2 lens such as the Zeiss Planar or Voigtlander APO-Lanthar.

When aspects outside of image quality are considered, the comparison becomes much more favorable for the Voigtlander. It’s drastically smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the Leica. Taking this into account, it’s highly impressive that the Voigtlander’s image quality is neck and neck with the 50 Summilux.

An important question to ask is whether you actually need f/1.5. For my photography, a 50mm f/2 lens provides plenty of light and subject separation. For this reason, my current personal favorite 50mm lens is the Voigtlander 50/2.2 (review) which is delightfully tiny, impressively sharp, and focuses to 0.5m. Another very compelling 50/2 lens is the Voigtlander 50/2 APO (review), which is a little less compact but offers extreme image quality at a reasonable price.

Although I will stick to using a 50/2 lens in the long term, this 50/1.5 from Voigtlander is so small and fun that I still miss it from time to time. I don’t see many people shooting with this lens and I think it might be one of the most underrated lenses for M mount.

Good
Sharpness
Size and weight
Build quality
Price

Bad
Soft periphery at infinity until f/4
Messy transition zones
More longitudinal chromatic aberration than Summilux ASPH

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Other alternatives (not recommended)

Zeiss 50/2 Planar (review)
Leica 50 Summicron, non-APO (review)
I previously described these as role model 50mm lenses. They are still good lenses, but it’s become harder to recommend them given that they are more expensive than the Voigtlander 50/2.2. There are good deals on the 50 Planar on the used market but I would not recommend paying the full retail price.

Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron ASPH
This lens offers similar performance to the Voigtlander 50/2 APO and is slightly better in terms of size and ergonomics. But that’s not enough to overcome its price tag of over $8000.

Voigtlander 50mm f/3.5 Heliar
This lens offers optical perfection with a fairly limited f/3.5 aperture in a tiny but odd-looking package. For a similar price you can just get the Voigtlander 50/2.2, so I’m not sure who this lens is for.

Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar
Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 Heliar
These lenses use vintage optical designs and should only be used by those who intentionally want soft, dreamy images with lots of aberrations. They also have very strong focus shift, which makes them a pain to use on rangefinders.

Additional reading

Review by Bastian K
Fred Miranda’s review
Review by 47 Degrees
Massive 50mm comparison by 47 Degrees