Voigtlander Ultron 27 mm f/2 review - Summary

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Voigtlander Ultron 27 mm f/2

8 January 2024

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

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Pros:

small, shapely, very solid barrel made entirely of metal,
excellent image quality in the frame centre,
imperceptible longitudinal chromatic aberration,
slight lateral chromatic aberration,
lack of any serious problems with spherical aberration,
practically zero distortion,
slight astigmatism,
sensibly-looking out-of-focus areas,
decent performance against bright light.

Cons:

weak image quality on the edge of the frame near the maximum relative aperture,
very high coma,
distinct vignetting,
significant focus breathing.

Even though the list of cons of the Voigtlander Ultron 2/27 features as many as four positions, our summary of its test is going to be very positive. Why? Firstly, in such a small, optically simple construction, you simply cannot avoid some flaws. As a result nobody sensible would expect here outstanding resolution on the edge of the frame, perfect coma correction, or negligible vignetting. Secondly, the Ultron 2/27 surprised us in a very positive way in many very important testing categories.

Such a simple optical construction, additionally devoid of ED elements inside, managed to correct both variants of chromatic aberrations really well, curbed down distortion, and fought effectively both astigmatism and spherical aberration. As a result the Ultron is able to provide very good images in the frame centre up from the maximum relative aperture. It would be foolish to expect anything more.

The price of the Ultron 2/27 might be a problem though. Currently it amounts to almost $600. On the one hand you deal here with a very solidly build, metal lens made in Japan by a very renowned producer. On the other hand such small lenses can be sold by other manufacturers for a sum several times lower. Is the Ultron 2/27 worth the money? I suppose everybody has to answer such a question themselves.