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Review Date
June 6, 2009
Overall Rating
 5 of 5
Value Rating
 5 of 5
Used product for
Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review
4.00 of 5, 1 votes
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Reviewed by
Paul Mysterioso
, Intermediate
Price Paid
$299.00
at KEH
Photography Experience
6-10 years
, Other
Summary
I use a 35mm lens as my standard wide angle lens, but sometimes the 35mm isn't wide enough. I'd read many good reviews about the Cosina Voigtlander lenses and, finding the 25mm Snapshot Skopar used at KEH, decided to purchase this ultra wide lens.
The construction is outstanding, very solid and compact. Although it is not rangefinder coupled, with this wide a lens you'd be hard put to get anything out of focus! The viewfinder does not have brightlines but you don't really need them. The aperture is click-stopped and you can set it to half stops, a very handy feature. The focus is click-stopped at 1, 1.5, 3 meters and infinity, another handy feature.
The lens itself is very sharp with little fall off at the edges and no vignetting. There was very little distortion, too.
I'd definitely recommend this lens to anyone wanting an ultra-wide lens for their LTM camera.
Strengths
Solid construction, small, extemely sharp lens.
Weaknesses
At f/4 it's probably not best for ultra-low light situations. Cosina Voigtlander discontinued this lens in favor of a ranegfinder coupled model.
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Review Date
June 21, 2004
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
1 to 3 months
Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5, 2 votes
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Reviewed by
HMausolf
, Intermediate
Price Paid
$220.00
at ebay
Photography Experience
21+ years
, Outdoor
Summary
I use this gorgeous little lens on my Leica M2. It's well built, lightweight and very useful. It's not coupled to the rangefinder, but having click stops at 1, 1.5 and 3 meters as well as the well made dof-scale makes focussing easy. The viewfinder is extremely crisp.
Picture quality is fine. There is only slight vignetting at f/4, but it seems gone by stopping down to f/5.6.
You have to use a little adapter ring when using thge lens on an M-Leica, and mounting the lens is not too easy due to the narrow grip.
All in all I'm very pleased, as the original Leica 24 mm lens costs much, much more than the Voigtländer/Cosina 25 mm, but overall quality is up to Leica standards.
Strengths
Build quality, picture quality, very low price.
Weaknesses
Mounting the lens with adapter to an M-Leica
Similar Products Used
Other M-lenses (50, 90 mm), Sigma 1.8/24 mm on Canon EOS.
Customer Service
Not yet needed
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Review Date
June 22, 2003
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5, 2 votes
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Reviewed by
victor bentzvi
, Professional
, from israel
Price Paid
$240.00
at b&h
Photography Experience
2-5 years
, Fine Art
Summary
a real snapshot lense and much more. the only thing i would like about this lense is 1 or 2 f/stops more. but theres a flah in that cases.
in street photography that im working on now theres i feel that every thing moves (i dont mean blure objects etc.) i use it mostly with ilford hp5 rated on 800. the quality is superb at all f-stops. the close distance perfomance is superb too. the click stops on the focusing knob is one of the most usefull things for snapshot photography. its not rangefinder coupled but theres no need for it. just make a few exercises for better feel of distance and with its natural depth of field there will be no problems. it comes with the viewfinder for hot shoe conection. its very usefull. but the great thing about this lense (for me at least) is that in many cases im not looking at all in the viewfinder (niether the accessory nor the finder on the body which gives a field of 28mm lense). i wanted it mostly for that. after some studies i am able to control bothh the composition and the perspective without looking in the finders. its very importent in snapshot when u want to get very close to people (so close that u can almost touch them). using it on the waist level gives the best results in my opinion.
the only better lense for snapshot is the leica 24mm (about $2000), but this one has click stops. u cannot imagine how useful it is for this kind of photography.
theres no need for adapter with the r2 body, but one more adapter is very useful for fast changes of lenses.
Strengths
great lense. superb optical quality. snapshot is a good name for it, but i would also call it - ''intuition''
Weaknesses
f4, but from the other hand its small size is very importent.
Similar Products Used
28mm from zeiss and nikon. have a few frames with leica 24mm
Customer Service
none
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Review Date
September 17, 2002
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
3 Months to 1 year
Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5, 4 votes
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Reviewed by
Nick R
, Expert
, from Kenilworth, UK
Price Paid
$0.00
Photography Experience
21+ years
, Outdoor
Summary
Having bought the 15mm, I thought I would try one of these. Big mistake! I've since bought 3 other Voigtlander lenses and an M6 to mount them on!
It's a lovely lens. Handles well, looks great, and is very sharp.
Strengths
Excellent optically, very, very cheap, small, light - in short, great!
Weaknesses
Not rangefinder coupled, L39 screw.
Similar Products Used
Loads!
Customer Service
Excellent. I lost the lens cap, e-mailed Prisma Europe to ask where to get a replacement. They sent me one FOC - a small touch, but a nice one.
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Review Date
August 14, 2002
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
More than 1 year
Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1 votes
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Reviewed by
mphillips12000
, Professional
, from Richmond, VA
Price Paid
$275.00
at KEH
Photography Experience
21+ years
, Fine Art
Summary
This was the first of my Voigtlander lenses, and the one that sold me on the Bessa system. I'd used 24mm lenses with various SLR's (Canon and Nikon), but was blown away by the difference between those retrofocus designs and the tiny Voigtlander lens. The Snapshot-Skopar euals the sharpness of the pricier Nikkor, but is far superior in contrast and freedom from distortion. The click-stop focus settings are very handy for from the hip street shooting. The only downside is the finder (while sharp and bright) is a little vague in its edge coverage, depending on how your eye is centered behind it.
Strengths
Absense of flare and barrel distortion.
Tiny, light-weight.
Click-stop focus settings more useful than I'd imagined.
Weaknesses
The finder coverage is a bit 'hit and miss' along the edges
Similar Products Used
Canon 24mm f/2.8 FD
Nikkor 24mm f/2
Customer Service
None so far
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