[Leica] Voigtländer Color Heliar 75 User Report

[apbc <apbc@public1.sta.net.cn>]

Just thought I would add my observations from my first few rolls taken with the Cosina/Voigtländer 75mm/2.5. 

This is an excellent lens that is in my opinion fully up to the Leica standard. It has exemplary sharpness and a smooth natural tonal rendering that makes my b/w nicely printable and colour glow. Now having said this I would say it is not quite the magical lens thge 75 Summilux is. I have had the latter for many years and when I use it I am always impressed by how much more information is felicitously rendered by it compared to the lenses I use most of the time. Of course it is a fine low light lens but IMHO it is special in bright light too, taming impossible contrasts quite well EXCEPT in night shots where it picks up a number of disconcerting internal reflections in street scenes with point source lighting in the frame. The 135 Tele elmar is guilty of this IME too. Not so the Color Heliar which seems pretty flare proof even with single coated filters.

I found the rendering at full aperture very good, not bitingly sharp but not the clear drop from the mid apertures visible in say the Summilux 75 or 50 or even the Summicron 50 for that matter. It is a very usable setting in all cases however. Vignetting is not detectable in normal shooting. Evenness of sharpness and contrast is excellent. Colour rendition appears slightly warmer than the 15 and 25 Cosina lenses: i.e. closer to the Leica M standard of today but still a tiny bit cooler IMHO. Not at all obvious though. There is certainly the 'roundness of image' I like in other Leica lenses and find lacking in the Canon EOS lenses I have used for most of my professional work over the last 8 years. I would deifne this in terms of natural contrast, colour saturation and sharpness that holds up in enlargments rather than the harshness that some 'sharp' lenses excel in.

In all I would say it is a keeper and a very good deal.

On the mechanical side I am sorry to say the picture is not so good: the black paint finish is wearing off after a few days' (professional) usage revealing an appalling brass colour: just like my old M4 black enamel which makes Jim Marshall's look pristine. Why they couldn't make it of zinc which just crumbles on impact and goes pustular when worn I don't know :) Pity my M4 doesn't have a 75 frame. 

The lens hood and cap are made of what appears to be metal: HAHAHAHA don't they know that real Leica extremities moved to plastic years ago and made sure that weird sizes (got that right with 43mm filters) must be accompanied by lens hoods that don't work with non-Leica filters (i.e. everything except UV, YG and Orange)?? Mine works with B+W, Hoya and Leica filters. Still the cap fits (over the hood) and although I miss the struggle with soft plastic jammed on the end of the lens or the non struggle of soft plastic not gripping the filter rim or the non-availability of a cap for my hoods it still seems like a Leicaworthy experience.

The only real shortcoming of this lens IMHO is that the focussing ring has rather shallow 'scallopping' and is a little slippery compared to either the current Leica style or the earlier 'scallopping' on say 50 summiluxes and summicrons.

The rangefinder cam and the aperture and focussing rings are all spot on and with the original Voigtländer LTM-M adapter the lens lines up perfectly on my Ms with the focussing and aperture indices at the top. I wish the cam on my 90 Summicron had been so accurate and that the index on my late model 50 and 35 Summicrons had held true in use. Still, early days, this lens may turn out to have been made with whale oil (it is Japanese after all) or have a plastic inner barrel (like the 35 Summicron M or the 50 Summicron R) or even to be an imposter from the ludicrous land of Sigma. In the meantime even if it melts it will have got me some great shots and costs less than the last lens service fee I got from Solms...

Briefly I would say that the Cosina/Voigtländer lenses seem to me to be much closer to the Barnack idea of what Leicas are for than the ever growing size of M lenses of recent years (not to mention the almost laughable excess of the R8 and recent R lenses). Sure we are impressed by the optical and mechanical quality of the Solms creations but surely the whole point of 35mm from Barnack's point of view was that it is compact and portable yet capable of producing adequate quality for most practical purposes. Solms seems to think that 50% extra weight for 20% extra enlargability or some other excuse for engineering over practicality is the way to go. I disagree and would venture to suggest the market in general thinks likewise.

Soon I will redress the balance and tell you all how much I love the R system which I have been cautiously moving into over the last few months...but I shall also relate why EOS will remain my main professional system despite my love of Leica optics (of which I have used all but a couple of the M series and quite a few Rs).

Bests from Shanghai

Adrian



Adrian Bradshaw
Editorial and Corporate Photography
Shanghai, China