Following the release of their 35mm, Thypoch has quickly established itself not just as another third-party alternative, but as a serious contender in the M-mount space. While the Thypoch Simera 75mm f1.4 is a masterclass in portrait compression and bokeh, the Simera 28mm f1.4 is their answer to the versatile, fast wide-angle—a lens designed for street, environmental, and low-light documentary portraiture.
Like its siblings, the 28mm f1.4 attempts to bridge the gap between the clinical sharpness of modern mirrorless glass and the soulful, tactile experience of classic rangefinder lenses. And I have to say, after reviewing this lens, it’s damn near as perfect as I could want.
Lens Specs
Focal Length: 28mm
Aperture Range: f1.4 – f16
Aperture Blades: 14
Optical Design: 11 Elements in 7 Groups (Includes 1 Aspherical, 3 ED, and 3 High Refractive Index elements)
Minimum Focus Distance: 0.4m (1.3ft)
Filter Thread: 49mm
Weight: Approx 340g
Mount: Leica M (Available for E/Z/RF/X via adapters or native mounts)
Available At:
Thypoch Simera 28mm 1.4 Type II – Amazon / B&H / Thypoch
Use Code: AlikGriffin for 5% off at the Thypoch Store.
Pros: Excellent vignetting control, excellent distortion control, great corner-to-corner sharpness. Very good CA control, excellent build quality and quality-of-life features.
Cons: Slightly on the softer side when shot at f1.4 with a 61MP camera, which could just be my copy, but it’s by no means “soft.”
Disclaimer: Thypoch gave me this lens. No strings attached. They did not require me to review it; however, I absolutely love this lens, so I had to. This lens is actually their older model, a very early reviewer sample. A few mechanical things have changed. Like, the focus tab has changed, and the springs on the lens hood aren’t working for me, so I’m going hood-free throughout this whole review. I did shoot with a Tiffen ProMist 1/4 filter for a lot of the street shots as well to see what kind of “film vibes” I could produce.
This is pretty much a one-lens-does-it-all lens, and it is now definitely one of my favorites.
Mechanical Precision: Build and Handling
The build quality here is exceptional, mirroring the high standards of their other lenses. It features all-metal construction and a weight that feels substantial yet not cumbersome. On an X-Series body or a Leica M, it feels perfectly balanced.
The Aperture Ring: You get the same click/de-click toggle found on the other Simera lenses. The clicks are firm and tactile, but for those shooting video or wanting a seamless transition, the de-click option is a welcome professional touch.
Focusing: The focus throw is smooth and well-damped. Unlike some earlier pre-production versions that featured an infinity lock, the retail versions that you can buy today have a cleaner focus ring with the crescent tab. So far, I notice that the focus throw and how the distance lines up match the Thypoch Ksana 21mm f3.5, and hopefully the new 28mm Ksana as well, so if you collect Thypoch lenses, you don’t have to relearn your focus tab muscle memory.
This lens also has the .7m haptic click that many film shooters absolutely love. For me, on this older copy, it’s a little too strong, since I find myself shooting at close range for portraits all the time. Given how strong it is, shooting at this distance is a little more difficult. This might vary from copy to copy. I notice my Thypoch 21mm f3.5 works much better.
The Depth of Field Scale: One of the most distinctive “Thypoch” design flourishes is the depth-of-field indicator—those little dots that reveal themselves as you stop down. It’s a clever, retro-modern way to visualize your hyperfocal distance, which is particularly useful on a 28mm lens.
Image Quality: Modern Sharpness, Classic Soul
The Simera 28mm f1.4 is impressively sharp. Thypoch has utilized a complex optical formula with multiple specialized elements to ensure that even at f1.4, you aren’t just getting “usable/extreme character” shots—you’re getting high-resolution performance.
Sharpness: Center sharpness is pretty good wide open. If this were a Nikkor or Canon lens, I imagine it would be a little sharper wide open, but Nikkor would also make the lens twice the size. Also, I will say, nailing focus at f1.4 is challenging with a manual-focus lens, and you hear me say this a lot: you don’t always want a manual-focus portrait lens to be too sharp wide open, because it makes it way more obvious when you miss focus by just a little. – I will die on this hill!
Personally, I also think having a slightly softer wide-open lens feels more cinematic. My Nikon Z 35mm f1.8 S is slightly softer than it’s supposed to be, and it’s still one of my favorite, most pleasant-rendering lenses I own. Not to say this lens is soft, it’s not.
Like the 75mm, there is a very slight “glow” or spherical aberration at f1.4 that gives skin tones a lovely, flattering quality, but the underlying micro-contrast is still very much there. By f2.8, the lens becomes tack-sharp across the frame.
Anyways, let’s look at that sharpness.
Center Sharpness
Overall, the sharpness is very good for an f1.4 lens, making it an impressively useful fast 28mm f1.4. F1.4 does shoot a little softer, but for portraits, I think this is ok. If you need that extra sharpness and clarity, click it to f2, and you still have incredible bokeh.
On the Leica M11 with the 60MP sensor, peak sharpness hits around f/5.6; by f/8, you start to see diffraction.
Keep in mind that I have a review sample that has been exchanged among multiple influencers, so your results with a new lens may vary.
Ignore the little color shifts here; I manually white-balanced each shot with a grey patch, and I guess a few were off.
Mid-Frame Sharpness
Mid-Frame sharpness is also very solid here. In this sample, I actually took a little closer to the edge, so it’s a little past mid-frame.
You’ll notice the diffraction hitting things a little more obviously here with the color card. I generally try to shoot my street photography at f8 with zone focusing. As you can see, you do get an overall hit not just to sharpness but to clarity and contrast at f11. If you have an older, lower megapixel camera, this won’t matter as much. But if you’re a street shooter, try to keep it at f8 for the best results.
Corner Sharpness
Corner sharpness is actually very, very impressive for an f1.4. This is a solid lens.
Vignetting
Some vignetting at f1.4, as you would expect, and it mostly clears up by f2. Pretty well controlled here overall.
Distortion
Very good distortion control. You can see some waviness as a byproduct of all the lens elements and all the math working together to correct for distortion, and you would probably never notice this in the real world. This is all pretty standard for a nearly distortion-free lens.
Chromatic Aberrations
Chromatic Aberrations are very well controlled, even under stress testing; we only see minimal fringing.
Here is a 100% crop of the worst case.
Art & Character
The Thypoch 28mm f1.4 isn’t a clinical lens by any means, and it’s not a super strong character lens either. But because of that super-fast f1.4 aperture and the 14-blade iris, you get some very artistic rendering when shot at the faster apertures. You’re not getting a super-high micro-contrast lens, but because Thypoch uses such great coatings, you do get some really nice color and rendering without the ‘glow’ or ghosting from light scattering within the inner elements. This lens’s performance is overall very stable, but very capable.
Flaring
Flaring is very well controlled; only in extreme situations at certain angles does this lens flare. In general, Thypoch seems to have some of the better coatings among third-party brands.
Bokeh: For a 28mm lens, achieving “creamy” bokeh is difficult, but the f1.4 aperture combined with the 14-blade diaphragm does a remarkable job. The fall-off is smooth, and the out-of-focus highlights stay circular even when stopped down slightly. It doesn’t have the “busy” or “nervous” background look often found in cheaper wide-angles.
Note: It’s hard to nail f1.4 perfectly all the time. And f1.4 is a touch softer, so if you really want to click in the clarity, shoot f2, and it still looks great and adds a little more sharpness and clarity, that’s lovely.
Bokeh is clean and fairly rich and vibrant, with little swirl or cat’s-eye effects.
Color and Contrast: The coatings on the Simera series are excellent. The colors are punchy and saturated, leaning slightly towards a warm, modern palette. It handles flare quite well. Even contrast looks great when shooting for black and white.
Here in this sample, I’m using a Tiffen ProMist filter at 1/4 power, and it still looks amazing.
Thypoch Simera 28mm f1.4 Bottom Line
If the 75mm f1.4 is the specialist, the 28mm f1.4 is the workhorse. It offers build quality that rivals Voigtländer and image quality that approaches that of the “German names” at a fraction of the cost.
For photographers who want a fast, tactile, manual focus experience without sacrificing the resolving power of modern high-megapixel sensors, the Thypoch 28mm f1.4 is an easy recommendation. It’s a lens that feels like an instrument, and the images it produces have a distinct “bite” and character that is hard to find in first-party autofocus glass.
For portraits, you get a beautiful, creamy rendering at f1.4; then, by f2, all the extra clarity and contrast click into place, giving you a very versatile artistic tool. Stopped down, this lens is absolutely stellar for street or landscape work because of its consistent sharpness across the frame.
Thypoch 28mm f1.4 vs Other Options I Own
Overall, the Thypoch Simera 28mm f1.4 is the coolest 28mm lens I own. For manual focus M-Mount lenses, my two favorite 28mm lenses now are the Zeiss Biogon 28mm f2.8 and this one. I would go with the Zeiss if I really wanted to lean into a high contrast look, or if I was exclusively shooting film, where I wouldn’t really want f1.4, and I would choose the Thypoch for everything else.
Thypoch also has a new 28mm f2.8 Ksana pancake lens that I haven’t tried yet, but it looks fairly similar to the tiny Brightin Star 28mm f2.8, but with a little built-in hood. Now, I love that Brightin Star as a super-compact pancake, but my problem with it is that the front element is so exposed that it constantly collects fingerprints. Also, I tend to accidentally move the aperture ring too much. It looks like the Thypoch Ksana 28mm f2.8 solves this problem at the cost of a slightly larger size. I’ll definitely try to grab a copy in the future, considering how well the Thypoch Ksana 21mm f3.5 performed as a pancake.
I also had the Voigtlander 28mm f2 Type-II Black Paint for a bit. Even though it’s an f2 lens, it really only delivers acceptable performance at f2.8. If you consider it an f2.8 lens, it’s also a lot of fun. And there is a Voigtlander 28mm f1.5 lens that looks promising, but you don’t get a .7m haptic click or the fun depth-of-field scale.
Thypoch 28mm f1.4 Sample Photos
These are all shot on the M11, and for some of the street photos at night, I’m using the Viltrox Z2 flash and a Tiffen ProMist 1/4 filter. If you see any shots with that magical glow, this Tiffen ProMist filter is why. I use this lens a lot, so I experiment with a lot of different configurations.
Note: A lot of the metadata will say I’m using a Leica lens, I’m not; it’s just the way the M11 works. You have to pick a lens for it to be able to guess your aperture and give you digital image stabilization.
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