Voigtlander Ultra Wide-Heliar 12mm f/5.6 Aspherical M Mount Lens for Leica M - Black

This is a really special lens. This is one of the widest full frame rectilinear lenses I've seen (the widest being the 10mm.) Distortion is minimal and it's pretty sharp. As a disclaimer, I'm not the most scientific lens tester or a pixel peeper. On a Sony A7, it's mind blowing how much you get in the frame. Even on an APS-C sensor camera like a Sony NEX it's still an 18mm full frame equivalent, so that's still wider than any other lens I have. I've mainly been using on my infrared converted NEX-3N. It performs okay when shooting infrared black and white. There is a lot of vignetting that you have to compensate for in post production, but the good news is that there are no hot spots that I've seen at f/5.6 through f/11. It accepts 67mm filters, and I've even found that you can use a 58mm filter with a 67mm-58mm step down ring with no vignetting on an APS-C sensor. I love Voigtlander lenses because they're made so well and pretty much universally accepted on any mirrorless camera. I don't have to buy lenses from different companies for my different systems because now all I need is Leica mount adapters. Camera bodies come and go but I will have my Voigtlander lenses for years and years.

Seriously love this lens. It's a pretty good deal for a 12MM M mount lens, and the f5.6 doesn't really seem to be as limiting as I might have thought at first. I guess that's because it pulls light in from about a full 180 degrees.Focus ranges are very wide because of the small apertures, so it's easy to zone-focus and use.Very entertaining for panning movie shots, the super wide angle looks great.Very high build quality, focus and aperture dials are smooth. Glass is flawless. And it fits a 67MM filter.

If you are looking for the widest wide available for your rangefinder camera then this is it. Build quality on this lens is top notch. It is an all metal lens, with some nice heft and balance to it. I use it on my Leica MP, M9, and I've used it on my Olympus Pen EP-2. It's a sharp lens, but there is a bit of a fall off at the edges, and some slight vignetting at 5.6, but once you dial it up the vignetting go aways. Most super wides have the same issues. It's a great lens to use in architectural shots, and landscapes. This is not a fisheye lens, but gives you great depth of field all the way to infinity. You will need to keep the lens level when you shoot, just to keep the image from bowing. If you buy this lens, you will need to buy the 12mm view finder from Voigtlander as well. It really is too difficult to use this lens with out the view finder. Otherwise I'm really happy with the build quality and the performance of this lens.

What an amazing wide angle coverage! Though it costed me quite a lot, including the stupid customs duty in the country, but the superb lens just makes me forget it all.

Great lens for an APSC mirrorless system wit. h and adapter. Set it to infiinty and it gives new meaning to point and shoot.

I have used 12mm with NEX via voigtlander adapter. Though I currently do not use the combo, this is due to the fact that I decided to part with NEX and had nothing to do with the lens.Few things to know about the lens:1) It has a color shift in the corners. Not as bad as Voigtlander 21mm, but still noticeable in some cases. For landscape work I generally did not need to correct for it - oddly enough in the cases where it was noticeable it contributed and not detracted from a picture. But be aware of it.2) It has a pretty long minimal focus distance, more so than most DSLR wide angles I have used. This is a problem if you like to stick camera into someone's face (I do). This is a serious limitation and I would like for this to be fixed.3) There is a noticeable light fall-off to the edge.4) It is not the sharpest wide angle I have ever used.After listing all of these limitations why am I giving it 4 stars? Because results are great. It is a high contrast lens. Most people do not understand what that means. They will show you a resolution chart of some Tamron lens and claim that it is better than any Leica since resolution is great... Well, resolution is great, but what you perceive with your eye as sharpness is not the resolution but micro-contrast. This is where 12mm is great. I got many remarks about how sharp the images were, but they were not all that sharp - just had very good contrast.Overall I loved the way the lens rendered color and made everything look saturated and sharp.Mechanically lens is great - solid metal. It will be hard to switch to a consumer quality lens after handling lenses like that. They just feel 'real.'Check out my images that I added to the product gallery.