The Voigtländer D23mm f/1.2 Nokton Z Aspherical is steeped in history. Voigtländer started making lenses all the way back in 1840, more than 180 years ago. The D23mm builds on a pioneering spirit and great attention to detail, being a thoroughly modern lens with real retro charm. Although the company has its roots firmly in Austria and Germany, the D23mm is made in Japan, due to Voigtländer being acquired by Cosina in 1999.
Factoring the 1.5x crop factor of Nikon Z DX (APS-C format) camera bodies into the equation, the lens has the same field of view as using a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera. This ‘effective’ focal length is widely favored by street photographers, who pride themselves on reacting to unfolding events and capturing definitive moments. Indeed, manual focusing is the convention for this type of photography, so you can set the focus distance in advance and shoot from the hip, so to speak. We’ll come back to that later.
