[Voigtländer 40mm f/2.8 Heliar Lens Review In this review, Ian takes a look at Voigtländer's strangest manual focus 40mm lens for full-frame Sony E mount cameras: The Voigtländer 40mm f/2.8 Heliar. Its retro design is tiny and collapsible. Is it the perfect manual focus standard prime for travel? We take it across Europe to find out.
Introduction
Sony's a7 series has become the world's favorite camera for adapting manual focus and vintage lenses. As the most affordable full-frame mirrorless cameras, the a7 line can be mounted with nearly any camera lens ever made. I've personally used many adapted lenses on my Sony a7S and a7II (full review) including lenses made for Pentax, Nikon, Canon and Leica mounts.
Voigtländer has released a very unique lens made specifically for adapting the Sony E mount system: the Voigtländer 40mm f/2.8 Heliar. It's a strange and unique lens in that it's a collapsible design reminiscent of the old Leica Elmar and Summicron collapsible rangefinder lenses of yesteryear.
Even stranger, the 40mm Heliar only focuses with the use of an optional helicoid close focusing Leica-M mount to Sony E mount adapter like the Voigtländer VM-E close focusing adapter. I already owned the more affordable (but less nice) Hawks Factory V5 adapter for my other Voigtländer lenses so that's what I decided to use for this review. The 40mm Heliar is a Leica mount lens but it can't be used on Leica cameras (you could mount it, but it would be stuck at infinity focus). It requires a Leica-to-Sony helicoid adapter in order to be able to focus. Weird.
Since the lens is so small, I saw this review as an opportunity to lighten my gear bag during a two-month trip through Europe this spring. I'm always looking for ways to keep my travels as light and compact as possible and there are few full-frame lenses as small as the 40mm Heliar for the Sony E mount. (My usual standard prime is the much larger Sony Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8, shown below next to the diminutive 40mm Heliar.)
After two months of ]