Question? Does the Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 work on the M 240?

July 12, 2013 News 32

Question? Does the Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 work on the M 240?

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A question I get often is: Does the Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 still show color shift on the Leica M 240? The answer to that is a big fat yes, it will show color shift, but I feel the lens is worth it if you like to do B&W because this lens mated with the M works wonderfully for rich B&W images. Below are a few samples from this lens on the M240. The lens also does not work well on the M9 with color but on the M8 it is much better (due to the crop). The lens sells for $599 or so and is well worth it if you want a super wide for B&W 🙂 Perfect for the Monochrom!

You can see my OLD review of this lens on the Leica M8 HERE.

1st one, in color out of camera:

Notice the Magenta edges? This is what you can expect from the M9 or M 240 with the Voigtlander 15mm when shooting color. There is also quite a bit of CA.

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Set your mind to B&W and it is a different story. This is an EASY lens to use. It is RF coupled but since it is so wide with a large DOF you can easily set the focus and forget it.

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And finally, one from the Monochrom. 

I am glad I have this lens on hand as I really enjoy the B&W performance but I wish it offered good performance in color. Guess we cant have it all. For color wide work, the Leica 21 Super Elmar is where it is at 🙂

32 Comments

  1. In 2017 now, does the Voigtlander SUPER WIDE HELIAR 15mm F4.5 III work well on M9 or M10 cameras (for color also?) do you have a new article on the Voigtlander SUPER WIDE HELIAR 15mm F4.5 III?

  2. Steve,

    But what about the 12mm CV? On the GXR its great, but then again this is a crop.

    On the M9 the 12 CV still has some issues but far less than the 15mm.

      • With the 12mm on full-frame, you really have to keep things away from the very edges of the shot – or have only things which are further away or more distant at the very edges of the frame – otherwise the -s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d- perspective at the edges and corners looks terribly distorted and gruesome (stretched shoulders and hands, for example).

        (These things can mostly be corrected afterwards with editing software, but that can be long-winded and fiddly.)

        • I have the 12mm on my M240 and with corner fix it works brilliantly.
          I dont have the lens coded at all – and this seems to work better with CFix. I leave my m240 to auto lens detection so I dont have to keep changing it when I put my Leica glass on and off.
          Cornerfix works best when you have lens detection off OR the lens uncoded. This way you shoot one test image on white/grey and it’s done.
          I have had huge success with this after being really disappointed that the Magenta was so much more prevalent on the M than the M9. The coding doesn’t really seem to change much but corner fix is the way forward!

          • Hi satureyes,

            I can’t get live view with the 12mm. Can you? If yes, how did you do it?

          • You need a new adapter. The cheap adapters are hit or miss. Some will work with live view and others won’t but a new adapter (different brand) will help. I have 6 adapters, 4 work with live view, two do not.

  3. This is an amazing lens, probably one of the best wide angle lenses ever made. But, and it is a big but, it is designed for film, not digital.
    As these pics show even on the Monochrom the corners have blur.
    On film it is tack sharp corner to corner and also has no magenta issues.
    I have one and use it on the OMD and it has very bad corner blur due to the micro lenses of the sensor.
    It is much better on the 240 but even on the 240 it still has the micro lens corner blur.
    Really too bad.

  6. I do a lot of pro GoPro work for the movie industry/commercials. I don’t recognize those white things?

    Darn, not allowed to provide a link to my work

  7. I’m curious as to why the 21 Elmar is recommended if you can’t make the 15mm Voigtlander work for you. Why not the 18mm Elmar? It’s closer to 15mm plus it is fantastic. I use mine with the Zeiss 18mm finder which is much nicer than the Leica version (no multiple frame lines).

    • The 21 Super Elmar is an astounding lens with the color signature of the 50 Noct, 50 Cron APO. It is an amazing lens. I have reviewed the 18 and the Tri Elmar, both great as well. Me, my next Leica lens purchase is the 21 SE just for the color and optics that IMO, are better than that of the 18 or Tri Elmar.

      • the 21mm SE can’t be beat at that focal length. For wider, I prefer the 18mm Zeiss. It can take regular screw in filters without the clunky adapter which is great for long exposure shots. It’s a great value, small, and superb. At 21mm the Zeiss is also a good alternative (the f/2.8 one not the f/4.5 one as the f/4.5 one has color issues on digital). I’ve owned them all

      • My point is not about lens ‘quality’ characteristics but focal length. The 21 mm may be better than the 18 but it offers a narrower perspective and much narrower than the 15. The image captured will look very different.
        It’s like recommending a 28mm lens over a 21 because the 28 is sharper.

          • Strange indeed! 18mm SE is also sharper in the corner than 21mm SE… to me corner sharpness is the key factor to choose wide angel len because it is quite annoying for me to see blur corner in landscape photo… Colour and distortion can be tweaked in PP anyway.

    • the XF14mm would leave large black vignettes on a full frame M, and since the flange distance is 10mm shorter it would also only focus close

        • I’ve seen a few shots on a forum … and I would take this 15mm over the Fuji 14mm. Cheaper, lighter, smaller. I think it was softer in the corners, however it was better in other cases (particularly night photography).

          • When I get my FujiFilm X-M1 I look forward to testing my Canon 15 mm full frame fish-eye lens on it, with distortion removed in Photoshop or DxO

          • Why would Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 be better than Fuji XF 14mm f/2.8 for night photography?

  10. You need the WATE to go this wide or the Zeiss non RF-coupled 15mm. Why recommend the 21mm Leica that is a whole different focal length? Leica also makes an 18mm.

  12. Capture 1 has the custom lens cast correction that works perfect for this kind of issue. Just make custom lens corrections for each f-stop at each ISO and have your presets ready to apply as needed. I use a super wide lens on a technical camera with a phase one sensor and the color shift is many times worse than this. Lens cast correction cleans it up instantly. Even takes care of dust spots too!

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