I was just about to order the Voigtlander 25/4 Skopar lens when I noticed I could get the Bessa-L body basically thrown in for a little more money. Have any of you shot with this combo? Since the 25/4 has to be scale focused anyway it struck me that I could just leave it on the body and not have to change lenses.

Also, how is the quality of this lens.

Sorry if this has been covered before.

-- Jim Tardio (jimtardio@earthlink.net), August 22, 2001

Answers

The lens is well corrected, sharp, contrasty, with nice color reproduction. You'd have to pick up one of the new expensive super lenses to get anything better. It is only a f4.0 which limits its low light use. I have had good luck scale focusing even close up, but I had a lot of practice as I shot with a Minox 35 for 15 years. (it's a whole lot easier scale focusing a 25mm f4.0 than a 35mm f2.8 on the Minox). The finder shows too much at the top, and as recommended by a few other users, I put a thin band of black tape over the top 1/8 inch and now the finder shows a more accurate framing. Hate it when stuff gets cut off at the top-especially heads. I put an M adapter on mine and use it mostly on the CLE.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), August 23, 2001.

Amazing lens for the price. I use it with an adapter on my Hexar RF and if you cover up the frame lines the built-in finder of the Hexar is about 25mm exactly! Scale focusing is a snap coming from someone who used a Hasselblad SWC for street photography.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), August 23, 2001.

To answer your question I have the Bessa L and it is quite light and handy for use with all your Cosina/Voigtlander wides. However the 25mm finder is too wide. A suggestion is to get the new Leica 21-28 zoom finder to use with your Bessa - L.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), August 23, 2001.

I did a comparison between the 25 and the non-ASPH Leica 21 f/2.8. At f/4 the Leica was marginally better at the center and the corners were about equal. At f/8 they were essentially identical in sharpness (if anything the 25 was a little better??!). I found the 25 a little harsh in contrast for slides (Velvia) but nice and snappy for negatives.

Regarding the Bessa-L body, which I owned with a 15mm for 6 months: it works OK but has VERY strong backlash when rewinding film - I would get about 2/3rd rewound and the crank would jump out of my hand and all the slack inside the cassette would unravel, so I'd have to wind- wind-wind-wind to take up the slack and continue rewinding. Eventually I had to switch to 24-exposure rolls because it was such a chore to rewind 36 exposures against the backlash.

I also had a couple of jams with the secondary 'light-tight' shutter. I was able to unjam it by slapping the front of the camera hard into my palm, and eventually learned to leave the camera UNCOCKED, which prevented the jams.

I can recommend the lens - if you already have a Leica or Konica body that you can mount the 25 on, avoid the Bessa-L body.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), August 23, 2001.