[Leica] Cosina lenses

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

 I have been using the Cosina/Voigtlander lenses for quite a while now and I 
will put down my highly subjective opinions of these.

Heliar 15/4,5: Best deal there is! A 15mm rectilinear lens with a great 
finder for less than $400! It is cheaper than the finder for the 16/8 Hologon 
for Contax G1/G2 and far more useful. Wide-open there is some softness at the 
edges, but ones you are stopped down to f5.6/8 it's performance is exemplary. 
There is some vignetting, but this is a function of the extreme wide-angle 
rather than the lens itself. In any case, the fall off is less than a Hologon 
without its center-filter. Highly useful lens, incredible depth of field and 
once you have learned to keep knuckles and shoes out of the frame, great fun 
to use! Works well with the M6 meter, but some care has to be taken not to 
meter too much sky, due to the extreme angle of view.

25/4 Snap-Shot Skopar: It might look like a toy but it is a very sharp, 
moderate wide-angle. It has certain endearing characteristics, the click 
stops at 1m, 1,5m and 3m makes it a great street shooting lens. I would have 
liked it too have rangefinder coupling, but it is still easy enough to use. 
Handles very well and is sharp, contrasty and kind of cute! It is a bit too 
small for using on a M-body, but suits the screwmount camera perfectly (or 
the Bessa-L). At $300 with the finder, it is a bargain. It is better than a 
25 Canon and an improvement over the 28/5,6 Summaron. The finder is the same 
type as the 15, very bright and clear, some curvature in the finder and no 
brightlines. What you see is approximately 93% of what you get.

35/1,7 Ultron: Competent 35mm lens and usable wide-open. I find it a bit too 
big for a 35 and I have not got used to its barrel-size. On the other hand, 
it is a very good optic, performance is similar to the pre-ASPH 35/2 and it 
allows the user of the Barnack-Leica's (Japanese designation for screwmount 
Leica's) access to a high quality, fast and reasonably priced 35. The 
Aspheric glass makes a difference in wide-open performance, sharp and 
contrasty. The 35 finder that Cosina released before Christmas is a joy to 
use. Same housing as the 15/25 finders, extremely bright view. Proper 
framelines and even a parallax compensating line at the top. Better than the 
$400 SBOII finders that Leica made 40 years ago and at $140 a bargain to 
boot. 

50/1,5 Nokton: I did a subjective test a week ago. I shoot with the 50/1,5 
Nokton, 50/1,4 Summilux, 50/1,4 Nikkor (in screwmount), 50/1,4 Canon (also in 
screwmount). The weather co-operated by being truly miserable, rain, grey 
overcast, some snow/slush and a couple of days with sunshine. Using Tmax 400 
and processing in FX-37 (a bit edgy grain, but sharp) the clear winner was 
the Nokton with the Summilux and the Canon as second and the Nikkor trailing 
(Now the Nikkor has had a hard life and the glass is slightly less than 
mint!). The Nokton has become my standard lens for winter-weather shooting. 
Wide-open it is remarkably sharp and snappy. It is a very comfortable lens to 
use, barrel size and "heft" is very well balanced. As it has a 52mm filter 
size I have found use for those old Nikon filters that has been cluttering up 
the filterdrawer too. Supposedly the later lenses have a slightly deeper 
hood, but I have not had any problem with flare on mine. At around $600 it is 
a better deal than a used Summilux 50. It is not a substitute for either the 
Summicron 50 or the Noctilux, but for the times when you need a stop more but 
you don't want to haul the Noctilux around, it is perfect! There is also a 
nice 50-brightline finder available for this lens. Superbly built and it 
comes in black paint too!

75/2,5 Color-Heliar: This is a small, compact and very reasonably priced 
"long" normal. Its performance is on par with the Tele-Elmarit 90/2,8. It has 
a slightly soft rendering at 2.5/2.8 but gets quite snappy at 4 and above. It 
is a tiny lens, slightly longer than a 50/2 and lightweight. It is not as 
sharp or as contrasty as the 90/2,8 Elmarit-M, but it is lighter and smaller 
(and you can put it on your Barnack-Leica). Sometimes there are pieces of 
equipment you like for no particular reason, the 75/1,4 is sharper, the 
90/2.8 Elmarit-M is probably better and the 90/2 APO-Asph is considerably 
better, but the 75/2,5 feels "right". It is small enough that you can stick 
in a pocket and leave it there until you need it, without feeling that you 
are dragging a heavy 'lump' with you. It is now my preferred "long" normal 
for a walk in the downtown. Combining it with an M body with the 35/2 on it, 
you can have a nice portable shooting kit. Cosina also makes a 75 finder, 
same barrel as the 50 finder and the same bright view with framelines clearly 
visible.
It is also one of the lowest priced Cosina/Voigtlander lenses at around 
$375/400.

 My feeling is that the Cosina products are well designed well made and 
represent a tremendous value for the price. They are not substitutes for the 
Leica optics, but rather complements the lens line. It also allows us to use 
the older Barnack-cameras with modern, high quality lenses as well as 
allowing us to put the same lenses on our M-cameras. 
 All the lenses that I have are the black versions and on some of them I have 
noticed a tendency to chipping in the paint, particularly around the hood 
edges. Coatings are holding up well to my somewhat haphazard way of cleaning 
them (wipe them off with a lens-cloth, using R.O.R if I am at home, otherwise 
I breathe on them for light cleaning, spit on them for more hard-to-clean 
spots!). So far no marks, permanent spots or scratches. The "feel" of the 
focussing on all of them is remarkably smooth and the 35/1,7 has a wonderful 
short throw, you go from infinity to 0,8 m in a quarter turn. Very fast and 
easy to catch moving subjects. All my tests have been with black/white film 
(apart from a couple of rolls of Astia and Provia in Tokyo last September) so 
I will not judge color rendition or the variations thereof.
 I haven't got the 35/2,5 or the Bessa-RF yet but it should be here shortly 
and I will let the LUG know as soon as it has arrived what my initial 
impression is.
 Would I shoot a commercial job with the Cosina lenses? Yes, particularly 
with lenses like the 15/4,5 or the 50/1,5, the 25/4 is no match for my 24/2,8 
Asph, nor is the 75/2,5 a match for the 75/1,4 and in my mind, nothing 
matches the 35/1,4 Asph. If it was a job that required critical color-work I 
might do a check on the corrections required to match the lenses, but for a 
black/white or color-neg. job, the Cosina are more than up to the task. 
 Keep in mind that this is a subjective opinion of one person and it is from 
a user point of view. For the detailed nuts and bolts analysis do what I do, 
read Erwin's stuff!
Tom A