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Voigtlander Ultron 40 mm f/2 SL II Aspherical

Voigtlander Ultron 40 mm f/2 SL II Aspherical
9 November 2010
Arkadiusz Olech

1. Introduction

Originally posted 2010-08-09 on Optyczne.pl

Manual lenses, produced nowadays, enjoy quite a wide circle of fans. Among these fans, in spite of appearances, there are not only people with fond memories of good old times when there were no autofocus lenses on the market at all. A part of contemporary users of manual devices might not remember at all the situation from a quarter of a century ago; they use manual instruments in full consciousness, knowing pretty well the advantages of autofocus lenses.

Why, having at hand quick, silent and accurate ultrasonic autofocus motors, we decide to work with manual devices instead? Certainly a bigger responsibility for set parameters is one of the assets. The sharpness is positioned exactly where we want it to be, not where a heartless autofocus mechanism puts it. However, this greater responsibility also means that all the mistakes lie at our door. Build quality, comfort of work and the range of the focus ring are undoubtedly important factors too – because of them manual lenses have a soul. Apart from that, these instruments are often constructed with greater care than the lenses from the same price segment featuring autofocus. “Manuals” are devoid of electronics, plastic and rubber parts. Just metal and glass- as simple as that. They are a joy to work with as you know the device in your hand will perform equally well even in 20 or 30 years’ time.


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Small wonder different announcements of any new manual Zeiss, Leica or exactly Voigtlander lens evoke a huge response of our Readers. Exactly such a response was triggered by the information that the Polish company FoxFoto has become the distributor of Voigtlander brand name lenses in Poland. Following this wave of interest we decided to borrow for tests the Voigtlander Ultron 40 mm f/2 SL II Aspherical and present the results in this article.

You are also invited to get acquainted with our test procedure, described in the article "How do we test lenses?" If you feel it’s still not enough, please go to our FAQ section where you can find some further explanation.


Voigtlander Ultron 40 mm f/2 SL II Aspherical - Introduction



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