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Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 90mm f/3.5 SL (Nikon) - Review / Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Nikon / Nikkor (APS-C)
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Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published July 2007
Introduction
The Voigtlander (Voigtländer) APO-Lanthar 90mm f/3.5 SL is another representative
of the dying species of high-end lenses made and designed by Cosina. The SL series
has been phased out in favor of the Zeiss ZF/ZS/ZK series which is now manufactured in
the same lens plant. It is pretty obvious that the philosophy of these two
worlds (Zeiss vs Voigtlander) is virtually identical - the build quality is basically the same, both
lens series offer manual focusing only and even the outer design is fairly similar.
The build quality of the lens is excellent thanks to an outer metal shell and very tight
tolerances. The lens has a sturdy mono cam focus design and it extends when focusing towards
very close distances. The focus ring operates very smooth and exceptionally very well damped.
It takes a ~270 degree turn from infinity to the most extreme close focus setting (1:3.5
max. magnification). Due to the very moderate max. aperture it is a tiny lens but don't
expect it to be super light-weight. As you may have guessed the Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 is a
full-format lens and when used on an APS-C DSLR its field-of-view is equivalent to about 135mm.
The Voigtlander behaves like a Nikon Ai-S lens with manual focusing and manually
controlled (automatic) aperture. Therefore it is not compatible to base class Nikon DSLRs.
However, it handles like a breeze on the Nikon D200 and manual focusing is fairly easy
thanks to an active focus indicator in the viewfinder.
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | 135 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/5.3 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 6 elements in 5 groups inc. 1 APO element |
| Number of aperture blades | 9 |
| min. focus distance | 0.5 m (max. magnification ratio 1:3.5) |
| Dimensions | 58 x 64 mm |
| Weight | 390 g |
| Filter size | 49 mm (non-rotating) |
| Hood | optional, square-shaped |
| Other features | - |
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