Voigtländer has announced a new full-frame prime lens, the Portrait Heliar 75mm F1.8. It’s the company’s first lens with spherical aberration control. This feature means that you can control the look of the bokeh in the out-of-focus parts of your image.
Sony E mount
The Voigtländer Portrait Heliar 75mm is a full-frame prime lens made for Sony E-mount cameras. Although it is manual for focus and exposure, the lens does have electronic contacts. This means that lens usage data is included in the Exif data of captured images. The built-in distance encoder also enables support for 5-axis image stabilization in compatible Sony camera bodies. In addition, you can magnify the finder display by operating the focus ring with some cameras.
Design
Optically, the Voigtländer Portrait Heliar 75mm has a relatively simple design with just six lens elements across three groups. It features a wide maximum aperture of F1.8 with nine iris blades. This should give good low-light performance and a smooth, round bokeh. The aperture is controlled by a manual ring. In addition, the manual focus ring uses a full-metal helicoid unit. This has been processed and adjusted with high precision and high-quality grease to deliver a smooth operation for fine focus adjustment.
Spherical aberration control
At the front of the Voigtländer Portrait Heliar 75mm lens is a third ring marked “over” and “under.” This provides under- or over-corrected spherical aberration so that you can adjust the look of the bokeh in the out-of-focus parts of your image. If you turn the ring towards the “under” setting will give a softer image with less contrast and a rounder bokeh. Alternatively, the “over” setting gives a sharper, more contrasty look to the bokeh. However, both settings will affect the point of focus, so you will get the sharpest image of your subject with the lens left at the normal position.
What we think
The Voigtländer Portrait Heliar 75mm lens has a great specification, even without the spherical aberration control. It has a wide maximum aperture and a simple optical design, which should mean it will be great in low light. However, the ability to adjust the look of the bokeh means that you can get really creative with the Portrait Heliar 75mm. For video use, changing the bokeh while you shoot will allow you to create a unique look to your footage. Hopefully, Voigtländer will release the lens in more mount options over the coming months.
Availability
The Voigtländer Portrait Heliar 75mm F1.8 full-frame prime lens is set to release in June. At the time of writing, the company hasn’t confirmed a U.S. price. However, in the U.K. it will sell at £750 (excluding taxes), which is just over $1,000 at the current exchange rate. This figure doesn’t allow for any tariffs that may be imposed by the U.S. government.
