Voigtlander Nokton 35 mm f/1.2 X / Z review - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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Voigtlander Nokton 35 mm f/1.2 X / Z

7 November 2022

Maciej Latałło

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Chromatic aberration

The Voigtlander Nokton 1.2/35 X rather doesn't experience any problems with correcting longitudinal chromatic aberration. I used the word 'rather' because by f/1.2 images are so blurry that it would be difficult to notice anything. At the same time we didn't see any stronger colouring either so it seems only logical to think that chromatic aberration is kept well in check.

Voigtlander Nokton 35 mm f/1.2 X / Z - Chromatic and spherical aberration

What about the correction of lateral chromatic aberration? Let's glance at the graph,shown below.

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The aberration increases from near 0.05% at the maximum relative aperture to about 0.07% for apertures ranging from f/4 to f/16. All these values are low so you can say in this category the tested lens fares well.

Fujifilm X-T2, RAW, f/1.2	Fujifilm X-T2, RAW, f/8.0

Spherical aberration

In the first photo of this chapter it would be difficult to notice any focus shift effect. Still it doesn't mean such an effect is not present – the quality of image by f/1.2 is so weak that it can't be considered a reference point of any kind. There are no clear depth of field edges and it's not easy to say whether they shifted noticeably on stopping down the aperture by 1 EV or not.

We think the Nokton has some problems with spherical aberration and we have two arguments to support that claim. Firstly, images by f/1.2 feature characteristic ,mist'; secondly defocused circles of light we got before and behind the focus show some traits of badly corrected spherical aberration and they are easy to notice.