I remember many years ago falling in love with the idea of the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds. It gave us the closest thing to a super fast 35mm lens equivalent. At the time, I was working at B&H Photo in the social media department and used the company’s discount program to buy one. I remember putting it on my EP2 and falling absolutely in love with it. In fact, in my review, I stated that it renewed my faith and love in the camera system. Olympus, OM System, and Panasonic LUMIX have never made anything like this lens. And even today, I still consider it to be the single best lens for the Micro Four Thirds camera system.
Old adages like to say that the best camera and camera gear that there is are the ones that you’ve got on you. And in 2025, I don’t think that’s true at all. There’s so much camera gear out there and if anything, the camera gear that you have on you right now can simply just do the job. Today, we suffer from a major brain drain. We’re motivated by visual media way too much and we’re not using our imagination. To that end, we’ve got an obsession with realism that’s killing imagination.
But the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 forced you to imagine things. It has a manual focus operation that makes you actively become a part of making the image in a way that autofocus doesn’t give you. I like to say that it’s similar to giving yourself s have in the morning if you identify as a man. You can use an electric shaver, but you’re never going to get real consistency and evenness. But if you use a razor instead, you’ll work for the effect and you’ll get it. Manually focusing a lens so incredibly similar.
As I look through images from my previous review and with the Olympus Pen F, I’m still in love with what it’s capable of doing. The lens has character that’s signature to that era of lens making. It’s also well built and pairs excellently with older camera sensors.
That little bit of information I feel is key here. Older Kodak sensors made for Olympus cameras give off a look that you can’t really get anymore. Similarly, so does the EM5 — which had an earlier Sony sensor. The newer cameras and sensors simply just don’t look the same and I don’t want to have to do it all in post-production.
Tools like what Voigtlander made years ago truly need to be cherished. Amazingly, it’s still holding its value too!