Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Heliar 50mm f/3.5

Cosina Voigtländer · LTM + Leica M · 2001 · Heliar, 5 elements in 3 groups

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Voigtländer Heliar 50mm f/3.5 · Voigtlander HELIAR 50mm F3.5 · HELIAR 50mm F3.5 101th model · Voigtlander Heliar 101 50mm f/3.5 · Heliar 101 Years 50/3.5 · Voigtlander Heliar Vintage Line 50mm F3.5 VM · HELIAR Vintage Line 50mm F3.5 · Voigtlander 50mm f3.5 Heliar VM · Voigtlander 50/3.5 Heliar collapsible LTM · フォクトレンダー ヘリアー 50mm F3.5 · HELIAR 50mm F3.5 101周年 · ヘリアー ヴィンテージライン 50mm F3.5 VM

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Heliar 50mm F3.5 101th model — Leica screw, collapsible (2001) LTM 2001–2001 — 2,000 planned: 500 sets in each of four colours, per CameraQuest, which expected Japanese demand to double the figure; Cosina publishes no number
Heliar Vintage Line 50mm F3.5 — VM bayonet, rigid (2016–2024) Leica M 2016–2024 — —
  1. The 2001 production figure is Stephen Gandy's alone (CameraQuest, the US importer): 500 sets per colour, 2,000 in all, with his own caveat that Japanese demand might double it. Cosina's page gives no number. Single source.
  2. Specifications for both versions are Cosina's own, from its discontinued-products pages: 5 elements in 3 groups, 10 blades, f/3.5–f/22, 27mm filter; 1m and 150g for the 2001 lens, 0.7m and 187g for the 2016 lens. The 1m close focus of the 101 is also Gandy's figure.
  3. The same optics went into the Nikon rangefinder as the S Heliar 50mm f/3.5 of 2005, a rigid lens without its own helicoid that came only in the Bessa R2S Special Set for the Nikon Historical Society; it is catalogued separately as s-heliar-50mm-f35.
  4. The 101 lens was never sold alone, so it has no list price; the Navy Blue set was $1,050 at CameraQuest in December 2003. The yen price in the table is the 2016 VM lens's.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Five elements in three groups — the 1900 Heliar layout, a Cooke triplet with both outer singlets split into cemented doublets — in a 35mm-format lens for the first time
  • 27mm filter thread on both versions, a size Gandy called not so easy to find
  • Clickless aperture ring on both, f/3.5 to f/22, ten blades; on the VM lens the ring rides the rotating front, on the 2001 lens the barrel collapses

Heliar 50mm F3.5 101th model — Leica screw, collapsible (2001):

  • Collapsible chrome barrel styled on the 50mm f/3.5 Elmar, with an Elmar-type focusing lever and push-button infinity lock; 42.2mm extended, 23.2mm collapsed, φ47mm, 150g
  • Chrome only, engraved with real cut engravings rather than stencilled lettering; f/3.5–f/22 with no click stops, 1m close focus, 27mm filter
  • Came only inside the Bessa-T Heliar 101 Years set — Navy Blue, Olive, Grey or Black body, matching 1:1 50mm brightline finder, chrome hood, screw-to-M adapter — never sold on its own

Heliar Vintage Line 50mm F3.5 — VM bayonet, rigid (2016–2024):

  • VM bayonet and a rigid, non-collapsing barrel with a stepped conical profile: φ52mm × 43.2mm, 187g
  • Polished metal finish broken by two matte-black bands; blackened metal hood and clip-on metal cap supplied
  • Rangefinder coupled to 0.7m against the 2001 lens's 1m; the whole front rotates as it focuses, so the clickless aperture ring turns with it

Specifications

Formula
Heliar, 5 elements in 3 groups
Construction
5 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Filter
27 mm
Years manufactured
2001–2024
Country
Japan
Coating
Multi-coated
Material
All-metal barrel
Original price
¥65,000 ex-tax for the VM Vintage Line lens at its November 2016 release (today ¥72,000); $529 in the US. The 2001 screw-mount lens came only inside the Bessa-T 101 set, $1,050 at CameraQuest

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
Minimal
Distortion
Negligible
Optical formula — Heliar, 5 elements in 3 groups

History

Heliar is the oldest name Cosina revived, and this is the lens that revived it: a five-element, three-group Heliar — the 1900 design, a Cooke triplet with both outer elements split into cemented doublets — computed for 35mm for the first time and put into a collapsible chrome barrel modelled on the 50mm f/3.5 Elmar. Cosina released it in November 2001 for the Heliar’s 101st anniversary and never sold it on its own: it came inside the Bessa-T Heliar 101 Years set, a Bessa-T in Navy Blue, Olive, Grey or Black paint with chromed brass fittings, a new 1:1 50mm brightline finder, a chrome hood and a screw-to-bayonet adapter, all in a presentation box. Stephen Gandy, who imported the sets, put the plan at 500 of each colour, 2,000 in all, and thought Japanese demand would double it; Cosina’s own page lists a single month of production and no figure, so the count rests on Gandy alone. The lens itself is 150g, 42.2mm long extended and 23.2mm collapsed, with a 27mm filter thread, ten blades, a clickless ring from f/3.5 to f/22, an Elmar-style focusing lever with an infinity lock, and a close focus of 1m. Popular Photography’s March 2002 test, which Gandy quotes at length, called it possibly the best lens the magazine had ever tested, and that sentence has followed the lens ever since.

The same optics reached the Nikon rangefinder in 2005 as the S Heliar 50mm f/3.5, again only in a set and again catalogued on its own page, and then came back to Leica M in November 2016 as the Heliar Vintage Line 50mm F3.5 — a rigid lens this time, VM bayonet, ¥65,000 ex-tax and $529, with a stepped conical barrel of polished metal broken by two black bands, 187g, 52mm across and 43.2mm long, rangefinder coupled to 0.7m instead of 1m, and the same 27mm filter and clickless ten-blade diaphragm. Cosina ended production in a notice of 17 July 2024, alongside the Nokton 50mm f/1.2 and several other Vintage Line lenses. Telling the two apart takes no expertise: one collapses and has a screw thread, the other does not and has a bayonet. The 2001 lens on an M body is always on an adapter, and the adapter decides which frame comes up; the VM lens brings up the 50mm frame on its own.

Reviewers of the VM lens split the same way Hamish Gill titled his review: two halves. The optics get no argument. Gill, shooting it on a Sony A7RII and on HP5+ and Portra, found the rendering organic rather than clinical, with high micro-contrast, minimal chromatic aberration, negligible distortion and the separation people call 3D pop; Leica Rumors found it small, light and sharp with accurate colour and no focus shift, barrel distortion or fringing worth reporting. The barrel gets all the argument. The aperture ring has no clicks and sits on a front that rotates as the lens focuses, so its markings travel out of line and must be looked at to set; the focusing ring is narrow; the polished finish mirrors the sky and hides the tiny engravings. Gill called the design unnecessarily indulgent and its limitations a by-product of it, and kept the lens for the pictures. On the 2001 version the objections are different — the 1m limit, a finder without eye relief for spectacle wearers, a lens that must be pulled out and twisted before use — and the praise, from Popular Photography and from Gandy, is if anything louder.

Buying either means buying a small production. A loose 101 lens should still have its chrome hood and cap — CameraQuest was selling replacements at $75 apiece, which says how often they go missing — and the collapsing tube should lock cleanly at both ends; a set should have the matching finder and the adapter as well as the body. The VM lens is the practical choice — coupled to 0.7m, no adapter, current enough that examples are unworn — and the check is for the aperture ring, which with no clicks can be knocked off its setting in a bag. Neither version has a 27mm filter in most shops’ drawers, and the hood must come off to fit one.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Heliar 50mm f/3.5
Voigtländer 50mm f/3.5 Heliar adapted to a Fujifilm X-T1, March 2014 — the version is not stated, but the date is two years before the VM lens existed (Tom Hart) — Tom Hart, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Heliar 50mm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $600 across 22 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $410–$970). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 35 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 · Heliar 50mm f/2 (Heliar Classic) · Heliar Classic 50mm f/1.5 · Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical · S Heliar 50mm f/3.5

Sources (11)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.