Voigtlander COLOR HELIAR SL 75mm F2.5

75mm medium telephoto lens for SLR cameras

A review and Photo example of the Color Heliar 75mm F2.5.

Gallery

The examples were taken with the SONY α900 and SONY α7sII.

Review

Overview
Usability
Add info

1．Overview

The Voigtlander Color Heliar SL is a 75mm focal length SLR lens.

The lens consists of 6 elements in 5 groups, and the minimum focusing distance is 0.7m.
The filter diameter is 49mm and is attached by screwing it onto the front of the lens.

Lens hoods are available separately: the bayonet-type square LH-75, which can also be used with the Apollanther 90mm and Apollanther 180mm, and the cylindrical LH-75S.

2．Usage

The image is sharp even at full aperture, the periphery is well rendered, and the bokeh in front and behind is not bad, so I don’t know why it is not popular, but I personally like it.

The Color Heliar SL 75mm is not popular among Voigtlander SL lenses, and although there are few of them on the used market, the price does not rise.

There are almost no lenses with a focal length of 75mm for single-lens reflex cameras, and even if you look, you will only find Russian cine lenses and lenses for the Pentax 645. As for the closest focal length, Pentax sells a 77mm K mount, and Sigma sells a 70mm lens, which is a rather odd focal length. Due to the high performance of zoom lenses, prime lenses have been out of favor, but I can’t help but hope that unique prime lenses will continue to be sold in the future.

I purchased the PENTAX-K mount version of this lens, but after removing the aperture pins, I used it with the Sigma SD9 and SD10. Details are written on the SD9 and SD10 pages, but the mount shape of the Sigma SA mount is the same as that of the Pentax K, so the lens can be attached to the camera if there are no unnecessary protrusions. Since the flange back of the SA mount is 1.5 mm shorter, it becomes infinity at about 6m, and close-up performance decreases. When the SD9 and SD10 were released, Sigma SA mount lenses were rarely seen on the market, and I was in a frenzy looking for lenses that could be used with the camera. If the difference in flange back was acceptable, it was important to attach it to the camera first, and Pentax K mount lenses, which have the same shape as the SA mount, were valuable.

The decrease in close-up performance due to the difference in flange back can be compensated for by using an extension tube, and since other companies’ lenses can be used from infinity, I enjoyed shooting with them attached to the SD9 and SD10.

As expected, this was the only lens for which the mount was modified, and I used M42 screw mount lenses via K-M42 adapters and SA-M42 adapters for the rest. Since this lens has a modified mount, I couldn’t sell it as second-hand, so when I got my hands on a Sony α900, I took the α-mount connecting parts from a junk lens, modified them, bolted them to the lens, and converted it to a Minolta α-mount, which I’m still using today.

3．Add info.

The SLR version of the Color Heliar 75mm has the same lens configuration as the L39 screw mount version, but the minimum shooting distance is 0.7m, which means the SLR version can get closer, and because the flange back is longer, it can be used with other mount cameras via various mount adapters.
As the most versatile lens, if you have the M42 mount version, you can use EOS, PENTAX, SIGMA, Yashica CY mount, etc. via a mount adapter.

This lens is less popular than the Apollanther 125mm in the same series and seems to have a low market evaluation.
It has also been excluded from the renewal target of the manufacturer Cosina, and no successor lens to this lens has been released for the SL series only.
It is in contrast to the Color Heliar F2.5, which has the same lens configuration, and the Heliar Classic F1.8, Nokton F1.5, and Ultron F1.9 have been released as rangefinder lenses with the same focal length of 75mm.

There are no fundamental issues with operation, but what bothers me is that the focus ring rotates counterclockwise, which is the opposite direction to that of Leica R-mount lenses, which I often use as manual focus (MF) lenses.
With autofocus lenses, I don’t use MF that much so the direction in which the focus ring rotates doesn’t bother me, but with MF lenses, it is the main focus of the shooting operation, so I am careful not to carry lenses from different manufacturers that rotate in different directions at the same time.

Specification

Items	ULTRON	COLOR HELIAR	APO LANTHAR	Macro APO LANTHAR	APO LANTHAR
Focal length(mm)	40	75	90	125	180
Max aperture	2	2.5	3.5	2.5	4
Min aperture	16	22	←	←	←
Leaf blade	9	←	←	←	←
Lens Construction	5群6枚	←	←	9群11枚	7群9枚
Min distance(m)	0.4	0.7	0.5	0.38	1.2
Lens length(mm)	29.5(Ais)	40.2(Ais)	57.6(Ais)	88.2(Ais)	79(Ais)
Max diameter(mm)	63.5	←	←	76	65.6
Filter Size(mm)	52	49	←	58	49
Weight(g)	255	250	390	690	485
Release date	2002.05	2000.07	2002.03	2001.06	2003.08
Price(Yen/No-tax)	¥45,000	¥50,000	¥55,000	¥95,000	¥65,000

The following is a list of early COSINA / Voigtlander brand lenses for SLR cameras. Two lenses, 15mm and 12mm, are excluded from the table below because they are special lenses that are used with the mirror up.