LensTip.com

• small, compact and very solid casing,
• high build quality,
• sensational image quality in the frame centre,
• well-controlled chromatic aberration,
• not very bothersome distortion,
• negligible coma on the APS-C/DX sensor,
• well-corrected astigmatism,
• moderate vignetting on the APS-C/DX sensor,
• good work against bright light on smaller detectors.

Cons:

• weak image quality on the edge of the frame near the maximum relative aperture,
• high coma in the corners of full frame,
• very high vignetting on full frame,
• work against bright light on bigger detectors should have been better.

Is there any point of buying a lens like the Voigtlander Color Skopar 28 mm f/2.8 SL II at all? You can find the combination of 28 mm focal length and f/2.8 aperture in many zoom lenses designed for full frame and smaller sensors alike. It might be strange but it seems you don’t have to answer this kind of question at all – if you think that the existence of a 2.8/28 “pancake” is senseless you most probably don’t need it.

Please Support Us If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of course joining a „pancake” with a Canon 1D or Nikon D3/D4 class body doesn’t seem a very attractive solution – everything you gain using a small lens you lose taking a huge and heavy body. However, if you attach the Voigtlander to a much smaller and physically lighter cameras like the EOS 6D or D600 it makes a lot of sense.

Also if you put the tested lens on bodies with APS-C/DX sensors you will be pleased with the results because in such a case most of aberrations disappear and such a photographic set can be really small. Taking into account all the latest Canon launches the situation really looks promising. Attaching Voigtlander “pancakes” to a body of the size of the Canon 100D is tempting to say the least of it.

Sample shots

Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/2.8, exp. 1/3200 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 7.47 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/2.8, exp. 1/2000 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 6.1 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/2.8, exp. 1/1250 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 7.06 MB
Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/2.8, exp. 1/2500 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 8.21 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/2.8, exp. 1/4000 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 7.63 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/320 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 9.93 MB
Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/1250 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 9.01 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/1000 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 8.43 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/800 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 14.41 MB
Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/640 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 8.77 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/500 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 7.74 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/1000 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 8.52 MB
Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/160 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 11.33 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/640 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 9.3 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/320 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 9.58 MB
Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/160 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 15.91 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/160 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 9.24 MB	Camera: Canon 1Ds MkIII Parameters: 28 mm, f/11.0, exp. 1/250 s, ISO 100 File: JPEG, 5616×3744 pix, 8.37 MB