Voigtlander 20 mm / F3,5 Color Skopar SL II Lens

I purchased this lens for travel use, primarily documenting architecture and everyday life in urban spaces. focus is noticeably sharper in the corners than most other wide angle options and the manual focus action is superb which made it a clear choice for my video and stills purposes. the form factor is really nice if you want a discreet solution that won't draw too much attention (i was in areas notorious for theft).the only downsides are pincushion distortion, the stock lens cap and the maximum aperture of f/3.5. if you're not shooting with straight lines at the corners the first isn't a deal breaker. the cap has poor fitment and doesn't secure very well. this is reflected in several other reviews, so it came as no surprise to me - easily remedied with a 52mm nikon cap. the maximum aperture isn't great for low light shooting, but this is typical of pancake lenses, so this is not an issue unique to this lens. these are hardly criticisms, just mentions.as a recap i would highly recommend this lens if you are looking for a sharp manual focus lens that has a great form factor for travel or any time space might be an issue. I would also recommend getting the screw on lens hood.

Superb lens. light-weight lens that delivers crisp, sharp images. Some distortion near the edges but, for such a lens, this is to be expected. I'm a huge fan of the Voigtlander lenses. I have the 20, 40, and 58mm lenses for Nikon mount and I've been very pleased with them all. A nice set of small, light-weight and versatile primes that are worth the price.

Colours are vibrant and clarity is wonderful. Manual focus takes time to get used to. Exposure works well on D5100, but I found it works best at -0.7 at f8 on a sunny day. Bokeh is not great. Good for street shots, macro and landscapes. Works great as a video lens. I have not tried the lens at night time.

very sharp lens even on the outer edges. i use it for landscape photography. i recommend it for any serious photographer who is particular about detail and sharpness. i use the Zeiss 18mm, Nikon 50mm 1.8 and 12-24 mm, the Voigtlander 40mm 2.0 and the 20mm. these are my favorite lenses for use and carrying around in a small bag.

Great lens. Now part of a whole set. Love these Cosina Voigtlander lens on my D750. Really great light combination!

Nice lens. Shot it on my D800 where it was a bit soft in the corners no matter what aperture used. The D800 is tough on lenses with its huge resolution...but sharpness isn't the only quality of a good photo...and this lens manages some very nice creamy dreamy shots at large aperture and at F8 its sharpish enough.

Great lens - exceeded my expectation - ultra sharp - even worked well with Fuji - X Pro2 (with adaptor, of course)

First of all to clarify: I'm using this lens for more than 2 years on an Nikon DX body (D300s) and this Voigtlander became my favorite lens, especially for street photography and walk around shooting(the other lenses I currently use are the Nikon 35 f/18 G and the Nikon 85 f/1.8 G)Is this lens sharp on a DX body? If you read the reviews for this lens and look at the MTF charts, it's just a moderately sharp lens.Comparing this to my Nikon 35 f/1.8 G DX it's definitely less sharp. Wide open it's guide sharp in the center, but a little soft at the corners. At f/5.6 you get a visible improvement on the corners and only at f/8 & f/11 it's reaching very good overall results. So based on this and explanation if you stop it al little down, yes it is a sharp lens.What are the strongest points of this lens?First of all it's extremely practical due to it's tiny size and weight. If you don't mind to carry around a lens with almost the triple size and weight, the Tokina 12-24 f/4 may be a better option for you ( I owned the tokina 12-24 for many years in the past, but I changed to this Voigtlander when I started to shoot more street photography than landscapes photos).Also if you shooting at the streets the Voigtlander looks like a small old-fashion lens and the people react better by not getting annoyed compared to when you pointing at the a relevant big fat zoom lens.Regarding the optical characteristics there are two strong points which had me impressed from the first test shoots and still are impressing me :The rich and contrasty colors and tones, that this lens is producing. It has it's unique character regarding this point it reminds me a 28mm Zeiss lens which a used on the old film days on a Contax camera.The second point is it's ghosting / flare resistance, which it's extremely good for a lens on this focal length. (I hate it when a loss a lot of contrast when I shoot in difficult light conditions. I had tried out to Nikon 20mm 2.8 D before deciding for the Voigtlander and the ghosting - very high- is the main reason I preferred to go for the Voigtlander)Manual Focus ? With the deep of field of this focal lengths, out on the streets I'm always pre-focus using zone system or if I have good daylight I'm using the hyper focal distance (for example with f/8 and setting the focus distance at 10 feet you get everything within the DOF from about 4.5 feet up to infinity). There is not faster focusing system than that, it's a ready to shoot 0 sec lag system and no AF technology that can outreach this old-fashion focusing method.When I have to actually manual focus, the green dot indicator is more than good enough to work with (would be not the case for longer focal lengths)Speaking about DOF, just a commend regarding DX and FX format: Yes FX format sensors clearly outperform any DX sensor at High ISO's. Also on portrait usually a small DOF is often wished and again here DX format is losing. My 85 f/1.8 lens has more DOF that a equivalent in FX format ~ 127,5 lens would have.But there are situations where a bigger DOF is required , like street photography and there the DX is a winner (on this voigtlander you get a field of view of 30mm equivalent focal length, with a DOF very close to the one of a 20mm lens on FX)Conclusion: If you want this lens for shooting mainly landscapes and if you don't mind to carry extra bulk, then I would propose to look at some zooms at the 12-24 range (like the Tokina 12-24 f/4 DX) due to the extra wide angle range, but if you are looking for a practical walkaround / street photo lens this is definitely a great little lensPSIf you know what you are looking for and what do you are excepting from a lens like this I do not see any negative points apart from two small details on the lens accessories:The included front lens cap does not fit the same securely as my Nikon lens caps are fitting (it's not bad or problematic, it's just that Nikon caps are fitting tighter and more securely) . Therefore a replaced the original provided front lens cap with a Nikon 52mm cap.The respectively hood is not included, and it's too expensive for just a small piece of metal. After searching I'm using a 52mm screw in metal hood from Nikon (the Nikon HN-3) which I found on local store for the one fourth of the price of that the Voigtlander hood is priced here and I leave it always on the lens. For DX format field of view it matches perfectly.