Voigtlander ULTRON L 28mm F1.9 Aspherical

Voigtlander’s early aspherical, large-aperture wide-angle lens

A review of the Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f/1.9 used with a Leica M digital camera.

Photo example

Taken with Rollei 35RF and KODAK Kodachrme64 (PKR) and scanned with DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO

Photo with LEICA M9

1．Usage

The ULTRON 28mm F1.9 (first-generation 28mm Ultron, hereafter Ultron 28) is one of the early Voigtlander lenses, with a refined lens barrel and smooth helicoid rotation. When used with the R-D1, LEICA M8, and LEICA M9 rangefinders, it can capture the focus position with sufficient accuracy, has abundant peripheral light, and does not feel any peripheral light falloff in the shooting results. When the aperture is narrowed slightly, it has sufficient resolution even at the periphery.

The lens is completed with the standard attached crepe-finished hood, and in this form it is the most beautiful lens in the history of Cosina Voigtlander, and I think that the value of the lens is halved without the hood.

It uses an L39 mount, so it can be used with old Barnack Leicas and Japanese-made Leica copy cameras. As described later, it is a large lens, so when attached to a Barnack Leica, the camera gives a slightly exaggerated impression.

2．Lens overview

The ULTRON 28mm F1.9 (original 28mm Ultron) is a wide-angle lens with a large aperture and maximum aperture of F1.9, released by Cosina Voigtlander, using the L39 screw mount (hereinafter referred to as L39).

When used with an M-mount camera, an L/M conversion ring is required.

In order to achieve a large aperture, the lens is long, with a total length of 6.3 cm when the hood is attached, which is almost the same as the 6.45 cm of the L39-mount version of the Color Heliar 75mm F2.5, also with the hood attached, making it a large lens.

It uses the L39 mount and is linked to the rangefinder. The minimum shooting distance is 1.0 m, which is the standard value for Barnack Leica.

The original Voigtlander ULTRON is 50 mm / F2, and this lens has a maximum aperture of F1.9, so it is assumed that it was named only because of its close aperture value to the original Ultron’s F2.

The lens configuration diagram is taken from the PDF distributed by Cosina.

3．Comparison with competitors

There are three generations of Cosina Voigtlander’s large-aperture 28mm lens. The second generation is the VM-mount ULTRON 28mm F2 (released on August 5, 2008) which does not use aspherical lenses, and the third generation is the ULTRON Vintage Line 28mm F2 Aspherical (released on June 10, 2021) which again uses aspherical lenses.

Each of the three generations has a different lens barrel design and lens configuration, which is interesting.

I’ve read that the first generation was not very good at handling the aspherical lenses and the bokeh was stiff, but in my own use I have never seen any images with any noticeable defects.

Compared to the Leica Summicron 28mm F2, which has almost the same specifications, it is an easy lens to buy as it can be purchased at about 1/5 to 1/10 of the price.

Specification and Competitor

Items	First Ultron	2nd Ultron	3rd Ultron	Summicron 28mm ASPH.
Aspherical lens	Use	No use	Use	Use
Focal length(mm)	28	28	28	28
Max aperture	1.9	2	←	2
Min aperture	22	←	←	16
Leaf blade	10	←	←	10
Lens Construction	7elements 5groups	10elements 8groups	10elements 7groups	9elements 6groups
Min distance(m) (distance meter linked)	0.7	←	←	0.7
Lens length(mm)	63.1(Hood included/L39)	51.2(without hood/M-mount)	36	40.8(M-mount)
Max diameter(mm)	55.8	55	51.4	53
Filter Size(mm)	46	46	39	46
Weight(g)	265	244	190/230	270
Release date	2001.4	2008.8.5	2021.6	2000.
Price(Yen/No-tax)	75,000(Silver) / 78,000(Black)	75,000(Black)	100,000 (common to all 3 types)	–