Voigtlander Nokton 50 mm f/1.2 Aspherical review - Vignetting

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Voigtlander Nokton 50 mm f/1.2 Aspherical

5 May 2020

Maciej Latałło

8. Vignetting

First let's check vignetting performance on the smaller APS-C sensor – appropriate thumbnails you can find below.

A7R II, APS-C, f/1.2	A7R II, APS-C, f/1.4

Small dimensions of the lens and its good fastness make vignetting a bit bothersome even on the smaller APS-C sensor. By f/1.2 brightness loss in frame corners amounts to 32% (−1.10 EV), and by f/1.4 it decreases to 24% (−0.79 EV). By f/2.0 the problems end as vignetting drops to an imperceptible level of 9% (−0.27 EV).

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After passing to the bigger, full frame sensor there are much more problems as photos, shown below, indicate quite well.

A7R II, FF, f/1.2	A7R II, FF, f/1.4

A7R II, FF, f/2.0	A7R II, FF, f/2.8

Light fall-off in frame corners are huge- by f/1.2 they amount to 71% (−3.62 EV), and by f/1.4 to as much as 67% (−3.22 EV). Such results are really weak. What's more, even by f/2.0 vignetting remains quite distinct, being 48% (−1.92 EV). A lot of reservations you can express concerning the performance by f/2.8 where brightness loss in frame corners reaches 37% (−1.33 EV). Unfortunately further stopping down the aperture influences this aberration rather weakly: by f/4.0 it reaches 31% (−1.06 EV), and by f/5.6 it gets to 26% (−0.87 EV). After employing f/8.0 and f/11.0 you don't see any changes in vignetting values.

Sony A7R II, JPEG, f/1.2

Below we present averaged out values of brightness loss shown in concentric circles as you move further away from the frame centre. The numerical value of every image, expressed in percents, shows an area limited from the top and right by 100% and from the bottom by the presented curve. The area indicates how much light overall is lost due to the vignetting effect. Please, don’t mix these percentages with the values given at the beginning of the chapter because they aren’t directly connected.

Voigtlander Nokton 50 mm f/1.2 Aspherical - Vignetting