Voigtlander 28mm f2.8 Aspherical SL II-S Color-Skopar – Golden egg cups, surrealism and a new lens for an old film camera

This is a story about how I ended up knee deep in sea water on the coast of Sydney, Australia, trying to focus on a golden egg cup. It is a story about an experience with a new lens, rather than a technical review. I often don’t understand why my images turn out as they do, for better or worse, let alone have a clue what is going on inside the kit. It is an alchemy of film stock, light, movement, lens and camera settings, blunders and panic. 

It begins last year, when on a whim, I bought a manual Nikon F3 film camera in reasonable condition. I already had these Nikkor AiS lenses: a 24mm, a 35mm, a 50mm and a 105mm and I used them all, sporadically, on my Nikon FM2N.

Missing was a 28mm – and of course I convinced myself I needed one. The Voigtlander has a fabulous name (Voigtlander 28mm f2.8 Aspherical SL II-S Color-Skopar Lens for Nikon F) and it is also lighter, and smaller, with a retro build. And it is new. It’s great to see new lenses being produced for the F mount. The Nikkor 28mm 2.8 started production in 1981 and stopped in 2005, so a used one can be 44 to 20 years old. Very good ones are still two thirds of the price of a new Voigtlander. But should I stick with the Nikon kit or try a third party lens?

Both are pretty much equal in sharpness. The Voigtlander may be a bit brighter, and slightly warmer. I would have been happy with either but I was seduced by the Voigtlander and its smooth focus ring and less risk of damage, wear and dust and fungus over the years. Yes, I chose a younger model.

There are 34 rock pools in the Australian city of Sydney. They sit along the eastern edge of the beach suburbs, facing the ocean.  Many are cut into the sandstone, and flushed by the tide and the  waves – the last slaps of energy created in other worlds. People come to swim at dawn, to meditate, to save and be saved. To escape the summer heat and to defy the winter.  This is also Gadigal country and home to the Aboriginal people for 60,000 years before the English landed in 1778. They fished and sheltered here and looked out onto the same ocean. I was home last summer so I got down to the sea before dawn to witness the ritual of the very early plunge.

Sydney faces east so you are forced to shoot into the rising sun at least some of the time. I am also shooting film, to learn from experience, or my mistakes. I guess it was a bit like wet street photography with people moving past, diving in and wondering about the guy with the camera clinging to a rock with his toes. The edges are wet and slippery and there are waves which crash into the pools. It is madness. I imagine my F3 and the new lens with the fancy name following me into six feet of salt water.

I am obsessed  by the close focus of the Voigtlander, which is from the subject to the film plane, and gets very close to a pair of budgie smugglers. But you get the idea with this hand rail above. 

So, to the egg cups. In January 2025, there was an excellent exhibition of the surrealist artist René Magritte at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney. In a loose connection to his painting “Variation on Sadness” – which depicts a chicken inspecting an egg in a cup, with another new laid behind her – there were a pair of gold coloured egg cups for sale in the gift shop. I had to have them, and later decided to take them to the beach to experiment with the Voigtlander. This was not a serious test, but the images were fun and quite dreamy and surreal in their own humble way. I feel there is definitely a Voigtlander character to this lens with a warmer rendering. 

I also (intentionally and unintentionally) shot some images out of focus (below) which seemed to pull richer colours from the water and swimmers.

The Voigtlander has a CPU which works with Nikon F mount DSLRs so you can set the aperture on the camera back dial, and record exif data. It also sends focus data to control flash. The CPU also works with Z mount mirrorless cameras with a mount adapter. There’s also modern lens coatings on the new lens although the last production of the Nikkor had their  super integrated coating (SIC).

If you want a detailed comparison test with the Nikkor AiS 28m lens, then take a look at Thomas Eisl’s test. Voigtlander have also released a 55mm 1.2 lens for the F mount. And there is a comparable Nikon lens – but that is another story.

Camera: Nikon F3 HP
Film: Kodak Portra 400

Share this post: