I plan to replace some stolen Leica lenses.The 35 Summicron RFand 90 Tele-Elmarit. I am considering the 35mmf1.7/35mmf2.8/ and a 90mmm.The first 2 lenses by Voigtlander.The 90 by Konica.I do PJ and weddings,celebrations and events.I need actual users replies.How good? What negative faults?

-- jason gold (jason1155234@webtv.net), August 16, 2000

Answers

Jason,

You might want to look at this site. It is by Erwin Puts who is a European Leica Guru. He is partial to Leica, but he finds the lenses pretty good. When you read any negative comments, remember that he is comparing these sub 500 Dollar lenses to models that go for 4 to 5 times as much.

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/japan/voigtl01.html

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), August 16, 2000.

I keep coming back to see if someone who has actually shot with the lenses listed in your question, but no one has posted yet. I have the 25mm lens, and it is very good. For the money, its a really nice little wide angle, and very well made.Sharp, contrasty, low distortion, high resistance to flare. I would be surprised if the other lenses do not spec out very high in the field as well. Cosina went all out on these lenses, down to the nice circles that the aperture makes at the various f stops. The screw to m adapters are a minor thing and I can live with them, but I'd still would have rather had a real m mount lens. Hope to hear from some other voigtlander lens owners.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), August 17, 2000.

I have read three magazine tests on the Konica lenses. The 50 seems to be a real top class lens, but the 90 flared quite easily in two of the tests (the 3.rd doesn't seem to have checked flare at all). I buy too many magazines to remember exactly which they were, but I'm 90 % sure that two of them were Brittish "Practical Photography" and German "Foto Magazine".

-- Peter Olsson (peter.olsson@lulebo.se), August 18, 2000.

I have the 15 and the 35/1.7. Both are excellent. I don't have a Leica 35 to compare with, but the new lens wide open is solidly better than the 35RF Summilux I had years ago, when I compare prints from then and now- - - but that was a very early Summilux, not a modern lens. The 15 is, of course, amazing, especially since it has no competition. My next purchase will be the 25, but I do wish it was a stop faster, so that it could compete with the Leica 24 in some meaningful way--I'm just not sure f/4 is fast enough for me in that length, but I'm not ready to spend the extra to get the Leica 24/2.8.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

Thanks for all your help.I had a 35mm Summilux years ago.I hated it.The out of focus was very disturbing.The flare problem on Konica needs re-think.In a perfect world I`d get Leica lenses.Their cost is simply too high.It cannot be justified esp in pro work.I do not get that kind of fee. I have old Pentax screw mount lenses and their multi coating is still unbeaten.I wish my Leica lenses were equally flare resistant!I`ve heard about the 15 and 25 lenses.They are too wide.In fact I beleive a slr is a better tool for such wide angles.One can compose with so much more accuracy!True you cant focus but then that what the numbers on the lens are for!

-- jason gold (jason1155234@webtv.net), August 18, 2000.

Question: are there any plastic aspheric elements in the cosina lenses? They may look pretty and be good, but how long will they last? I have a 90 tamron, sharp but there are streaks inside the elements which I attribute to plastics, poor manufacturing techniques, and we are talking famous Tamron. You get what you pay for.

Wlad

-- Wladimir Schweigert (sgert@golden.net), August 25, 2000.

A post from the LUG you might find germane:

---------- From: TTAbrahams@aol.com Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 17:38:28 EST To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Leica] Cosina vs Leica (glass)

The tests of the Ultron, Nokton and Color-Heliar versus the equivalent Leica lenses confirm my opinions of these lenses. Both the Nokton and the Color-Heliar have become fixtures on my cameras. The Nokton on a M6HM and the Color-Heliar on a M6TTL 0,85. The Ultron 35/1,7 I have an ergonomic problem with, it has a strange (to me) barrel, very thick in the back portion and then tapered towards the front. It is a little larger than I want my 35 to be. I have the 35/1,4 Asph and although big and clumsy, it is a spectacular performer, so when I need a fast 35, that's what I use. For "normal" shooting I tend to stick with the 35/2 Summicron (3rd generation) or the 35/2 Asph. The Ultron is somehow left hanging between these choices. Performance wise it is no slouch though. As good as the 3rd generation Summicron (and that is high praise) and, apart from wide-open, close enough to be used instead of a 35/2 Asph. Of course, if I was using a lot of LTM cameras, the Ultron would be a good choice as it allows you to adapt a new, high quality lens to these older designs. The new 35/2,5 Color-Heliar is more ergonomically correct for my style of shooting, very quick focus and, although a bit softer than the 35/2 wide-open, an extremely competent performer across the board. The Nokton is the 50 high-speed lens to beat. It is very good and fully usable wide-open. The "double"-Aspheric design gives a nice "snap" to wide-open shots. It is lightweight compared to the 50/1,4 Summilux and a bit more compact. It works very well on a M2 or M3 but on the IIIF/IIIG the barrel is intruding a bit in the finder (but so would a Summilux 50 in screwmount). Combine the Nokton with a M2 and the 1:1 finder 50mm finder from Voigtlander and you have a "street shooting camera" second to none. The 75/2,5 is a lightweight alternative to the 75/1,4 Summilux. It's performance is not up to the 75/1,4, but we are also looking at $400 (and the facility to use this lens on a LTM camera) and $2000+ as well as 250 grams versus 600 grams. The 75/1,4 Summilux is in my opinion one of the milestone lenses in the Leica lens system and when you need that speed, there is no substitute. It is heavy and you certainly are aware of the fact that you are shooting with a fast lens. It requires a steady hand and a perfect focusing ability to get the most out of it, but when it works, watch out! The 75/2,5 is a different lens altogether. It is small, short and comfortable. It gives you a bit more reach than the 50 and is very handy. I always bemoaned the lack of a small, light lens in the 75mm length in Leica's program and I lobbied for years to get Leica to produce the 75/2,4 APO (a rare military lens) for M-users. The 75/2,5 might not be APO, but it is certainly sharp and contrasty enough for any application. It has a slight softness wide-open that makes it very pleasant as a portrait lens, enough depth of field to focus on the eyes and get the nose sharp too. You can also get a great bright line finder for it from Voigtlander/Cosina. As for the Cosina's know-how on glass manufacturing. They are one of the premium manufacturers of glass in Japan as well as being the foremost manufacturer of Aspherical elements for the Japanese camera industry. Most of the other manufacturers order the Aspherical elements from Cosina and put them in their lenses, even some of the biggest names and most renowned lenses from these companies have Cosina Aspherical elements in them! This is a very Japanese way of doing thing, rather than trying to invent the wheel in every factory, they will buy the needed pieces from someone who already knows how to do it and who can supply the material to what ever specifications the user need. Most of the Japanese camera industry is more of a Quality Control and assembly function and a fair bit of the parts come from small and medium sized subcontractors. There are only a couple of companies in Japan that cut lens focussing helicoils and they supply most of the camera manufacturers, the same thing goes for rangefinder parts. Cosina looked carefully at the Leica CL and CLE finders for their Bessa-R. The basic design was good but they also added stuff like better frames, higher contrast etc. They simply made use of improvements that have occurred in the last 20-30 years and applied it. This allows them to be very competitive when it comes to pricing as well as use design parameters that takes into account what the sub contractor is making. Quite often the subcontractor, who is an expert in the field, can suggest improvements and cost cutting measures that in the end benefit both the product and us, the consumer. A perfect example of this "parts" camera is the Hasselblad X-pan/Fuji-TX-1. If you look closely at the camera, you recognize parts from Contax G series, from Canon and several other cameras. The unique parts are chassi, covers and the rangefinder magnification system. The shutter is a Copal; electronics look very much like the ones in the Bessa-R and exposure compensation, LC-displays etc could be dropped into a Nikon F5/Canon EOS or Minolta 9 without looking out of place. Considering that the X-Pan sells for just about what a M6 with 50/2 costs (and for that you get 2 lenses), it proves that this way of manufacturing works. There is also an inherent Japanese tradition of making small productions. They do recognize that not everybody wants everything and if you build a small run of something, you have to price it so that you get the costs back and make a profit. Case in point is the Ricoh 28/2,8, the 21/2,8 and the Minolta 28/3,5 as well as the Konica 60/1,2 and 50/2,4 lenses. These were built in small series (in case of the 60/1,2, only 800 made) and sold out quickly. Neither of the manufacturer lost money on these products although most likely they did not make huge profits either, but the product name was kept "alive: in the camera magazines and discussed among the optical experts. The Konica Hexar RF is a similar case, if it is not a sales success, it will probably stay around for a while, Konica will sell enough to recoup investment and then drop it. The more I see of the Japanese manufacturers, the more impressed I am. Look at the car industry there. They build and sell the Figaro (a 1950's retro sports car, complete with a Fiat Topolino type top, white plastic knobs on a 50's style radio, which of course also can play CD's!), the S-Cargo, a small city type delivery van, cute and practical, the Nissan chassi and 2/3 sized Jaguar 3,4 Mark II looking sedan etc. I get the feeling that they actually are enjoying themselves in their design departments! When it comes to Cosina/Voigtlander, this is the pet-project of Mr. Kobayashi, the President of Cosina. He likes Voigtlander cameras and also Leica's. he could not find a Snap-Shot Elmar (a prototype lens made in the 30's) so he had his team design the 25/4 Snap-Shot Skopar. He thought the Hologon was overpriced and under-performed so he had the 15/4,5 Heliar designed. There was a bit of a slowdown in sales of Nikon FM-10/ Olympos 2000 cameras (which Cosina built under contract to Nikon and Olympos), so he had that one redesigned to be a modern 1G, but with a built in meter! The Bessa-R is the same thing, Cosina is building all these LTM lenses and it would be fun to make a rangefinder camera that fits them, but with modern meter/shutter technology. I am deeply envious of him, imagine having a camera factory and a premium optical manufacturing facility at your disposal and the position to have them build your dream cameras or lenses. The mind boggles at the prospect! Tom A

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), August 26, 2000.

....and.....

---------- From: TTAbrahams@aol.com Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 22:17:05 EST To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: [Leica] Cosina lenses

I have been using the Cosina/Voigtlander lenses for quite a while now and I will put down my highly subjective opinions of these.

Heliar 15/4,5: Best deal there is! A 15mm rectilinear lens with a great finder for less than $400! It is cheaper than the finder for the 16/8 Hologon for Contax G1/G2 and far more useful. Wide-open there is some softness at the edges, but ones you are stopped down to f5.6/8 it's performance is exemplary. There is some vignetting, but this is a function of the extreme wide-angle rather than the lens itself. In any case, the fall off is less than a Hologon without its center-filter. Highly useful lens, incredible depth of field and once you have learned to keep knuckles and shoes out of the frame, great fun to use! Works well with the M6 meter, but some care has to be taken not to meter too much sky, due to the extreme angle of view.

25/4 Snap-Shot Skopar: It might look like a toy but it is a very sharp, moderate wide-angle. It has certain endearing characteristics, the click stops at 1m, 1,5m and 3m makes it a great street shooting lens. I would have liked it too have rangefinder coupling, but it is still easy enough to use. Handles very well and is sharp, contrasty and kind of cute! It is a bit too small for using on a M-body, but suits the screwmount camera perfectly (or the Bessa-L). At $300 with the finder, it is a bargain. It is better than a 25 Canon and an improvement over the 28/5,6 Summaron. The finder is the same type as the 15, very bright and clear, some curvature in the finder and no brightlines. What you see is approximately 93% of what you get.

35/1,7 Ultron: Competent 35mm lens and usable wide-open. I find it a bit too big for a 35 and I have not got used to its barrel-size. On the other hand, it is a very good optic, performance is similar to the pre-ASPH 35/2 and it allows the user of the Barnack-Leica's (Japanese designation for screwmount Leica's) access to a high quality, fast and reasonably priced 35. The Aspheric glass makes a difference in wide-open performance, sharp and contrasty. The 35 finder that Cosina released before Christmas is a joy to use. Same housing as the 15/25 finders, extremely bright view. Proper framelines and even a parallax compensating line at the top. Better than the $400 SBOII finders that Leica made 40 years ago and at $140 a bargain to boot.

50/1,5 Nokton: I did a subjective test a week ago. I shoot with the 50/1,5 Nokton, 50/1,4 Summilux, 50/1,4 Nikkor (in screwmount), 50/1,4 Canon (also in screwmount). The weather co-operated by being truly miserable, rain, grey overcast, some snow/slush and a couple of days with sunshine. Using Tmax 400 and processing in FX-37 (a bit edgy grain, but sharp) the clear winner was the Nokton with the Summilux and the Canon as second and the Nikkor trailing (Now the Nikkor has had a hard life and the glass is slightly less than mint!). The Nokton has become my standard lens for winter-weather shooting. Wide-open it is remarkably sharp and snappy. It is a very comfortable lens to use, barrel size and "heft" is very well balanced. As it has a 52mm filter size I have found use for those old Nikon filters that has been cluttering up the filterdrawer too. Supposedly the later lenses have a slightly deeper hood, but I have not had any problem with flare on mine. At around $600 it is a better deal than a used Summilux 50. It is not a substitute for either the Summicron 50 or the Noctilux, but for the times when you need a stop more but you don't want to haul the Noctilux around, it is perfect! There is also a nice 50-brightline finder available for this lens. Superbly built and it comes in black paint too!

75/2,5 Color-Heliar: This is a small, compact and very reasonably priced "long" normal. Its performance is on par with the Tele-Elmarit 90/2,8. It has a slightly soft rendering at 2.5/2.8 but gets quite snappy at 4 and above. It is a tiny lens, slightly longer than a 50/2 and lightweight. It is not as sharp or as contrasty as the 90/2,8 Elmarit-M, but it is lighter and smaller (and you can put it on your Barnack-Leica). Sometimes there are pieces of equipment you like for no particular reason, the 75/1,4 is sharper, the 90/2.8 Elmarit-M is probably better and the 90/2 APO-Asph is considerably better, but the 75/2,5 feels "right". It is small enough that you can stick in a pocket and leave it there until you need it, without feeling that you are dragging a heavy 'lump' with you. It is now my preferred "long" normal for a walk in the downtown. Combining it with an M body with the 35/2 on it, you can have a nice portable shooting kit. Cosina also makes a 75 finder, same barrel as the 50 finder and the same bright view with framelines clearly visible. It is also one of the lowest priced Cosina/Voigtlander lenses at around $375/400.

My feeling is that the Cosina products are well designed well made and represent a tremendous value for the price. They are not substitutes for the Leica optics, but rather complements the lens line. It also allows us to use the older Barnack-cameras with modern, high quality lenses as well as allowing us to put the same lenses on our M-cameras. All the lenses that I have are the black versions and on some of them I have noticed a tendency to chipping in the paint, particularly around the hood edges. Coatings are holding up well to my somewhat haphazard way of cleaning them (wipe them off with a lens-cloth, using R.O.R if I am at home, otherwise I breathe on them for light cleaning, spit on them for more hard-to-clean spots!). So far no marks, permanent spots or scratches. The "feel" of the focussing on all of them is remarkably smooth and the 35/1,7 has a wonderful short throw, you go from infinity to 0,8 m in a quarter turn. Very fast and easy to catch moving subjects. All my tests have been with black/white film (apart from a couple of rolls of Astia and Provia in Tokyo last September) so I will not judge color rendition or the variations thereof. I haven't got the 35/2,5 or the Bessa-RF yet but it should be here shortly and I will let the LUG know as soon as it has arrived what my initial impression is. Would I shoot a commercial job with the Cosina lenses? Yes, particularly with lenses like the 15/4,5 or the 50/1,5, the 25/4 is no match for my 24/2,8 Asph, nor is the 75/2,5 a match for the 75/1,4 and in my mind, nothing matches the 35/1,4 Asph. If it was a job that required critical color-work I might do a check on the corrections required to match the lenses, but for a black/white or color-neg. job, the Cosina are more than up to the task. Keep in mind that this is a subjective opinion of one person and it is from a user point of view. For the detailed nuts and bolts analysis do what I do, read Erwin's stuff! Tom A

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), August 26, 2000.

Here are some pictures taken with the Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 lens, on a Bessa R. All shots were handheld:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=63145

Regards

-- Mahesh Venkitachalam (mvenkit@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Mahesh,

Thank you very much for your post. I have heard that the 35mm f1.7 was close to the performance of the last Non-Asph 35mm Summicron, but yours were the first photos that I have seen made with it. I particularly like the window light picture of the statue and the painting with the bare lights in the frame. The lens looks as if there in no problem with flare.

If others are viewing the pictures, don't forget to click on the pictures for an enlarged view...(bigger than the screen!). You can really see the details. Nice lens! Nice pictures!

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), October 28, 2000.