Thursday, June 23, 2011

Voigtlander Color-Dynarex 85 f/2.8

Introducing my last acquisition, a Voigtlander Color-Dynarex 85/2.8 in Rollei QBM mount, adapted to my 5DII replacing the original mount.

Voigtlander Color-Dynarex 85 2.8 on 5DII - _IGP5512


This fine lens was just taking some dust since some months in a show-window of one of my preferred local shops. After a discussion with some fine people on the MFLenses forum, i decided to buy it.

Once at home, i replaced the original QBM mount with an EF mount, which perfectly fitted the lens (and my camera).

After a few hours spent in the Jardin Royal in Toulouse here are some unprocessed sample shots, developed by Silkypix.

At f/2.8:

Voigtlander Color-Dynarex 85 2.8 at f2.8 - _MG_4683


At f/4:

Voigtlander Color-Dynarex 85 2.8 at f4 - _MG_4723


My impressions about this lens:

  • Pro:
    • The mount exchange requires a few minutes only and a precision screwdriver.
    • The lens is really easy to focus because of its excellent contrast (but i have an Eg-S focusing screen on my camera).
    • Excellent resolution starting wide open (be careful to the reduced DoF).
    • Great, well-saturated color rendering.
    • The lens doesn't hit the mirror of my camera when focused at the infinity.

  • Cons:
    • The diaphragm ring doesn't have half stops.
    • The shortest focusing distance of 0.85m is a bit long for my taste (but, after all, this is not a macro lens).


To appreciate the image quality of this lens it is better to display the full-resolution pictures available in this set of my Flickr photostream. The samples you are looking at here have been resized by Flickr, thus they have lost some of the original sharpness ...