The Voigtlander-brand lens lineup started as L-mount lenses in 1999 and they were renewed as M-mount lenses in recent years. As the series seemed to be completed, they started another line called the "Vintage Line" with the Nokton 50mm F1.5 Aspherical VM, which was based internally on their previous L-mount version and externally on the rare original Nokton 50mm F1.5 made in the 1950's. The new Ultron 35mm F1.7 Aspherical VM is the second lens of the Vintage Line. Although they also had the L-mount version of the same lens before, this new one came with new optics designed for digital. They seem to have the same characteristics and design philosophy in the face of their lens design charts; they both use a concave front element and an aspherical rear element, the new one has 9 elements in 7 groups, being one more than the previous L-mount version. I think this is quite a generous design for a fixed-focal 35mm lens. The lens barrel has the same Vintage Line design and the front side of the barrel looks slimmer than the L-mount version. Around the constricted part, it has an aperture ring to the front and a helicoid ring to the rear, which significantly improves handling. The silver version is made out of brass. Because of its high-quality finish and the exquisite workmanship, this version deserves to be introduced as a craftwork. And, people will want it because of that. Now, let's check the image quality.

( Photography / Text : Naz )

Taking advantage of the F1.7 high-speed, I took some night shots. I focused to infinity and shot wide open. I was amazed by the high image quality that I could tell even on the small rear monitor of the camera. It's extremely sharp wide open, bringing out the high performance of the Leica M' sensor without low-pass filter.

Another shot wide open. I focused on the joint between the tiles in front of the person. There's no exaggeration of the front and back bokeh, and the focal plane dissolves smoothly.

When shooting during the daytime without a ND filter, you are forced to use the shutter speed around the fastest at F1.7. And, if the camera has a high base ISO, you must stop down a bit, too. The bokeh is clear and beautiful, but it looks slightly double-lined depending on the situation, even though it never looks distracting. The 3D separation is good. Falloff is visible wide open, but it seems to be pretty much settled by stopping down by 1 step.

Because of the stable image quality regardless of aperture value, you will be changing aperture just to control the depth of field. I stopped down to F8 to gain the depth of field. The lens depicted the moment when the wave became splashes. Click here to check the minuteness of the original image (approx. 19MB).

The coating seems to be quite effective in resisting the backlight. I took many shots in different lighting conditions, but I found no shots with ghosts and flares.

 

The Ultron is an M-mount lens, but can get close to 0.5m, which is shorter than the focus distance rangefinders support, and may surprise SLR users. However, the extra 0.2m is quite an advancement for rangefinder lenses whose minimum focus distance is 0.7m (modern Leica lenses) and 1m (old lenses). And, you can enjoy its advantage with the Leica M cameras with a CMOS sensor and mirrorless cameras that support liveview. Table-top photography was difficult with Leica cameras whose minimum focus distance is long, but you can shoot the whole table with the angle of view of a 35mm lens (although you cannot get close to each dish). The lens wonderfully rendered the texture difference among wood, cloth, paper, metal, glass, toast, butter, carrot la paix, salad, dried objects, and wet objects.

Because the perspective isn't strong, you can capture scenes naturally taking it easy.

Another shot around 0.5m. With liveview, I could check the focal plane, the position of the watermelons, and even the reflection of the water surface. This is not a typical way of shooting with a rangefinder, but I appreciate that I can now take a different approach that I couldn't use before.