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

Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical

Cosina Voigtländer · LTM + Leica M · 1999

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Voigtländer Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical · Voigtlander Ultron 35mm F1.7 Aspherical LTM · Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f1.7 L39 · Voigtlander Ultron Vintage Line 35mm F1.7 Aspherical VM · Voigtlander 35mm f/1.7 Ultron VM · Cosina Voigtlander Ultron 35/1.7 · CV 35/1.7 Ultron · ULTRON 35mm F1.7 Aspherical · フォクトレンダー ウルトロン 35mm F1.7 · フォクトレンダー ULTRON 35mm F1.7 Aspherical · フォクトレンダー ULTRON Vintage Line 35mm F1.7 VM

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Leica screw mount, silver or black paint (1999–2007) LTM 1999–2007 — —
Vintage Line, VM bayonet, silver brass or black aluminium (2015–2019) · 9 elements in 7 groups with an aspherical element, designed for digital sensors Leica M 2015–2019 — —
  1. Two lenses under one name. The 1999 screw-mount Ultron is 8 elements in 6 groups, 39mm filters, 0.9 m, 203 g; the 2015 VM Vintage Line Ultron is a new 9-element, 7-group design, 46mm filters, 0.5 m, 330 g in brass or 238 g in aluminium. Family specifications are the 1999 lens's; the variant row carries the 2015 figures. Cosina's pages are the source for both, CameraQuest for the distinction.
  2. Cosina's discontinued-product page for the 2015 lens is headed 'NOKTON Vintage Line 35mm F1.7' in its page body while its title, specification and JAN codes read ULTRON; the lens was never sold as a Nokton.
  3. Prices: yen figures are Cosina's list prices excluding tax; $379 (2005 page) and $390 (2002 list) are CameraQuest's for the screw-mount lens; $779 is the 2015 US price in Phillip Reeve's review.
  4. End-of-production dates rest on Cosina's discontinued-product pages alone, with CameraQuest confirming April 2007 for the screw-mount lens.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Filter thread tells the two apart at once: 39mm on the 1999 screw-mount lens, 46mm on the 2015 VM lens
  • Screw mount against VM bayonet; the 1999 lens on an M body is always wearing an adapter
  • Close-focus engraving: the scale stops at 0.9 m on the 1999 lens and runs to 0.5 m on the 2015 lens
  • Both have 10 aperture blades, half-stop clicks and f/16 as the minimum aperture

Leica screw mount, silver or black paint (1999–2007):

  • Engraved ULTRON 35mm F1.7 Aspherical; 39mm thread screw mount, styled on the first-version 50mm f/1.4 Summilux with a convex front element
  • 39mm filter thread, screw-in hood supplied with a metal cap that fits over it; 55 mm across and 47.7 mm long with the hood, 203 g
  • Close focus 0.9 m, rangefinder coupled; half-stop clicks f/1.7–16
  • Silver anodised (JAN 4530076 130319, ¥65,000) or black paint (130302, ¥68,000)

Vintage Line, VM bayonet, silver brass or black aluminium (2015–2019):

  • Engraved ULTRON 35mm F1.7 Aspherical with the VM bayonet; barrel styled on the 1951 West German screw-mount Nokton 50mm f/1.5, matching Cosina's VM Nokton 50mm f/1.5 of 2013
  • 46mm filter thread, screw-in metal hood supplied; 53 mm across, 50.9 mm long
  • Silver is chrome-plated brass at 330 g; black is anodised aluminium at 238 g
  • Close focus 0.5 m on the scale, rangefinder coupled to 0.7 m
  • JAN 4530076 130326 (silver), 130333 (black)

Specifications

Formula
Symmetrical wide-angle type with an aspherical rear element, 8 elements in 6 groups (1999); the 2015 VM lens is a new 9-element, 7-group design
Construction
8 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/1.7–f/16
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
0.9 m
Dimensions
55 × 47.7 mm
Weight
203 g
Filter
39 mm
Years manufactured
1999–2019
Country
Japan
Coating
Multi-coated
Original price
¥65,000 excluding tax in silver and ¥68,000 in black paint (1999); $379–390 in the United States. The 2015 VM lens ¥135,000 silver, ¥115,000 black, $779 (today ¥72,000–¥75,000)

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Vignetting
heavy wide open
Flare & ghosting
hard to provoke
Distortion
negligible
Optical formula — Symmetrical wide-angle type with an aspherical rear element, 8 elements in 6 groups (1999); the 2015 VM lens is a new 9-element, 7-group design

History

The Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical was in the second wave of Cosina’s Voigtländer revival. The Bessa L and its two finder-only wides came first, in early 1999; that August Cosina announced three rangefinder-coupled lenses in Leica screw mount — the 35mm f/1.7, the 50mm f/1.5 Nokton and the 75mm f/2.5 Color-Heliar — months before it had a rangefinder body to sell them with. Stephen Gandy, who imported them, called the 35 the first aspherical 35 ever made in Leica thread: eight elements in six groups, symmetrical in type with an aspherical rear element, multi-coated, ten blades, f/1.7 to f/16 in half stops, 39mm filters and a screw-in hood, 203 g, focusing to 0.9 m. Cosina styled it on the first-version 50mm f/1.4 Summilux and sold it for ¥65,000 excluding tax in silver anodising or ¥68,000 in black paint; it was $379–390 in the United States. Gandy’s users rated it the equal of the pre-aspherical 35mm f/2 Summicron and short of the aspherical one, and it stayed in the range until April 2007.

Sixteen years later Cosina used the name again for a different lens. The Ultron Vintage Line 35mm F1.7 Aspherical of August 2015 has a VM bayonet, nine elements in seven groups designed for digital sensors, 46mm filters, a scale that runs to 0.5 m with the rangefinder coupled to 0.7 m, and a barrel styled — Cosina says so — on the West German screw-mount Nokton 50mm f/1.5 of about 1951, which makes it the companion to the VM Nokton 50mm f/1.5 of 2013 that wears the same dress. The silver version is chrome-plated brass and weighs 330 g; the black is anodised aluminium at 238 g; they cost ¥135,000 and ¥115,000, or $779 in the United States. It lasted until November 2019, which left Phillip Reeve’s site asking why the sharpest M-mount 35 faster than f/2 had been discontinued. The two lenses are told apart in a second by the filter thread, 39mm against 46mm, and by whether there is a bayonet under them.

The reviews of the 2015 lens are unusually unanimous about what it does well and where it does not. Phillip Reeve, on a Sony a7, found it very sharp across most of the frame from f/1.7 with better bokeh than almost any other 35, negligible distortion and ghosting that was hard to provoke, and named it the most exciting lens he had reviewed that year; his one real complaint, a pronounced field curvature, is a Sony problem — the lens has a flat field on a Leica M. Steve Huff put it beside the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 ZM and gave the Zeiss a shade more sharpness at f/1.7 and the Voigtländer the bokeh, the smaller size and $1,300 of the price. Matt Osborne called it the sharpest 35 he has used and bought one; Joeri van der Kloet found it the little sister of the 50mm f/1.5 Nokton in look and rendering, with heavy vignetting its only optical fault and the retro focus ring its only ergonomic one. Everybody mentions the vignetting wide open.

For a buyer the split is between the two lenses rather than within them. The 2015 lens is the better optic on every account here and focuses closer, but it has been out of production since 2019. The 1999 lens is smaller, cheaper and fits a Barnack Leica, a Canon or a Bessa R directly — it needs the 35/135 adapter ring on an M body so the right frame appears — but it focuses only to 0.9 m and Osborne, who went looking for one, found every example on offer hazed and passed on reports of the optical block working loose; a screw-mount Ultron should be bought after a look through it against a light. The 1999 lens weighs the same in either finish; the black 2015 lens is anodised aluminium and weighs nearly a hundred grams less than its chrome-plated brass twin.

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 Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical
A Leica M4 wearing a 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical Ultron (_Ocean7_) — _Ocean7_, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical
The 2015 VM Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical at left, beside three SLR-mount Voigtländers (Daniel Lu, 2026) — Daniel Lu (dllu), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Ultron 35mm f/1.7 Aspherical? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $440 across 12 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $390–$540). First day tracked.

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

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

Related: Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 · Nokton 35mm f/1.2 Aspherical · Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 · Nokton Classic 40mm f/1.4 · Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical · Ultron 28mm f/1.9 Aspherical · Ultron Vintage Line 35mm f/2 Aspherical

Sources (13)

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.