Voigtlander ULTRON L 28mm F1.9 Aspherical
Review of the Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f/1.9 used with a Leica M digital camera.
Table of contents
Photo example
- Taken with Rollei 35RF and KODAK Kodachrme64 (PKR) and scanned with DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO
Photo with LEICA M9
Review
ULTRON 28mm F1.9 (first generation 28mm Ultron) is a large-diameter wide-angle lens released by Cosina Voigtlander.
The original Voigtlander’s ULTRON is 50mm / F2, and this lens is completely unrelated except that it has an aperture of F1.9 and is close to the original Ultron’s F2.
The COSINA / Voigtlander lens is sometimes called a poor man’s Leica, but this lens is no exception, and it is an easy lens to buy as it is available at about 1/5th the price of the SUMMICRON 28mm F2 with almost the same specs.
There are no inferior specs including the image quality, the lens barrel is elegantly made, the helicoid rotates smoothly, and it has enough accuracy to be used with the R-D1, LEICA M8, and LEICA M9 rangefinders.
There was plenty of peripheral light, and when I stopped down a little, there was sufficient resolution to the periphery.
Also, the crepe hood that comes standard is very cool, and the value would be halved if it wasn’t included. Personally, I think that the ULTRON 28mm F1.9 (first generation 28mm Ultron), including the lens and hood, is the most beautiful lens in Cosina Voigtlander’s history.
COSINA/Voigtlander’s large-diameter 28mm lenses have been leased for three generations, and apart from the first generation introduced here, they have the following characteristics.
・The second generation is the VM mount ULTRON 28mm F2 (released on August 5, 2008), which does not use an aspherical lens.
・The third generation is the ULTRON Vintage Line 28mm F2 Aspherical, which again uses an aspherical lens (released on June 10, 2021)
It is interesting that the lens barrel design and lens configuration are different for each of the three generations.
I’ve read that the first generation’s handling of the aspherical lens wasn’t the best, and that the bokeh was hard, but as far as I’ve used it myself, I’ve never seen an image with any noticeable defects.
Specification
| 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) | – |
Reference links
Update history
- 2024.1.29:Added photo examples of PKR
- 2023.9.11:initial draft
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