The Voigtlander Heliar 75mm F1.8 is a rare representative of the family of 75mm lenses. In this shorter review I give you my impressions on how it performs on the Sony a7ii.

Specifications

Diameter	58 mm
Length	74 mm
Filter Thread	46 mm
Weight	427 g
Max. Magnification	0.12
Close Focusing Distance from the sensor	0.9 m
Number of aperture blades	10
Elements/ Groups	6/3

The Voigtländer 1.8/75 usually sells for around $430 used at ebay.com (affiliate link).
In Germany you can buy it used for around 400€ at ebay.de (affiliate link).

Image Samples

Just click on any image to get to the full resolution version.

What I like about it

The Handling

The Voigtländer 1.8/75 is very well built, rather small and it has a smooth focusing ring with a good transmission. So handling is very pleasant.

The sunstars

Thanks to 10 straight aperture blades you can get very well defined sunstars from f/5.6.

Flare resistance is generally good but you can get veiling flare as well as minor ghosting in critical situations. I didn’t use a hood though which might improve performance in this regard.

What I didn’t like

The Sharpness

The 1.8/75 is part of the Voigtlander’s classic line and it is indeed closer to classic portrait lenses which are usually a bit soft wide open though the Voigtlander has good contrast from f/1.8. At f/2.8 it is sharp in the center but it takes until f/4 until the center reaches an excellent level. For very good corners you should stop down to f/8.

I wasn’t too happy with the sharpness: I used it wide open most of the time and found the results a bit lacking. It is sharp enough for web sized images but doesn’t hold up well for bigger enlargements.

Click here to check my sharpness test.

f/1.8 is a bit softer than I would have liked

At f/8 there is nothing to complain about.

Chromatic aberrations

I had quite a few images which suffered from axial CA. The issue is very obvious especially wide open. Almost every other 85mm lens suffers from thi issue but I found it very obvious in the Heliar.

The Bokeh

The bokeh can be very smooth as in this image with an undemanding background:

But in more challenging situations bokeh is a bit more nervous than I like:

Alternatives

Olympus OM 100mm 1:2.8: Not quite the same focal length and speed but apart from the sunstars I like it better in any aspect and it costs a fourth of the Heliar.
Tokina 2.5/90 Macro: One of my all time favorite manual lenses. It is larger but it is sharper, has less CA, better bokeh and it focuses down to 1:2. The coatings of the Voigtländer are significantly more effective though.
Voigtländer Heliar 2.5/75: It’s smaller brother is significantly smaller and lighter and as far as I can judge also a better performer.

Conclusion

I wouldn’t recommend the Voigtländer Heliar 75mm 1:1.8 to photographers who look for a lens with similar performance to Voigtlander’s modern lenses like the great 1.7/35 or 5.6/10. It isn’t sharp enough at wider apertures for that and shows too many aberrations. It might be a decent option if you like a more classic look, after all there are very few alternatives when you look for a 75mm lens and it is very well made and not that expensive.

The Voigtländer 1.8/75 usually sells for around $430 used at ebay.com (affiliate link).
In Germany you can buy it used for around 400€ at ebay.de (affiliate link).
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