The Voigtländer Color-Heliar 2.5/75

Voigtländer 2.5/75 The Voigtländer Color-Heliar 75 mm / F 2.5 SL is one of Cosina's Selection (SL) series of high-quality manual focus SLR lenses. These are available for a number of mounts: Canon FD, Contax, Pentax, Nikon, Minolta MD, and Olympus OM.

I like this lens, even though it is rather slow for its focal length. Apart from moderate color fringing toward the edges, I have not found optical problems with it. And the bokeh seems quite good, too.

Bokeh test images: only this lens, 75-80mm lenses, comparison of 75mm - 90mm lenses.

Positive things:

Small.
Appears to be very well built and solid.
Color seems to match Nikkors.
Rounded, 9-bladed aperture.
Focuses in the ‘right’ direction - in contrast to most other third-party lenses.
Unique focal length.

Weak points (nothing important, just nitpicking):

49mm filter thread requires an step-up ring to use 52mm filters.
Have to grip front barrel for mounting and removing lens - Nikon lenses have exposed barrel between focusing and aperture rings.
Rather heavy: 430g vs. 310g Nikkor 2/85.
Focusing action is a little too stiff.
Silver filter thread might cause reflection in subject.
F2.5 is rather slow for this focal length.

For more information about the Voigtländer lenses, see:

Stephen Gandy's site (scroll to the bottom for the SL lenses).
Erwin Puts review of Voigtländer lenses in Leica rangefinder mount, including the 2.5/75.

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