The CV lens families

[Jamie Pillers]

I'm curious about the naming of the CV lenses. The names "Color Skopar", "Heliar", and "Nokton" on a number of focal length lenses seems to imply that there's something in common about each "family". Is that so? Can I assume that if I like the 'signature' (contrast, color characteristics, bokeh, etc.) of, say, my 40mm Nokton lens, I can then assume that the 35mm and 50mm Noktons will please me equally?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Speed. It's akin to system Leica uses. The designs can differ wildly, but:

Nokton: f/1.4 or faster

Ultron: medium-fast (f/1.7, f/1.9)

Color-Skopar: Slower than Ultrons

Heliar: Slow and wide

All names are of course old Voigtländer names: the 50/1.5 Nokton was the first modern rare-earth superfast (for the Prominent), Color-Skopars were the 'cooking' line, and Heliars were a bit up-market of Color-Skopars.

Cheers,

R.

 

[maggieo]

Heliar: Slow and wide

My 50/2 Heliar Classic begs to differ.

 

[ferider]

My 50/2 Heliar Classic begs to differ.

The 75/2.5, too 🙂

Jamie, all I can say is that

- all Color Skopars that I tried (21, 28, 35) behave similarly; they are also similar in signature to the 15 Heliar.
- the two Ultrons behave similarly.
- the 40 and 50 Noktons are very different. I would think, due to design, that the 35 and 40 Noktons are very similar, too (haven't tried the 35). The 50 Nokton is similar in signature to the two Ultrons and the 75 Heliar.

So there is some relation between family members, with exceptions 🙂

Roland.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I've been thinking about selling my 40 Nokton and getting the 35 for a bit wider view. I'll wait a few months to see what the 35 Nokton users report about its 'signature'... to see if its a Summicron at CV price. 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Fender, Dear Maggie,

You're right, of course. Sorry!

But the point holds good that the designs bear no relation to the names, though if I recall, one or two of the Heliars (the two mentioned, in fact) are more or less similar to the original Heliar design.

Maybe I should have said, 'Heliar: residual category'.

Cheers,

roger

 

[rxmd]

I'm curious about the naming of the CV lenses. The names "Color Skopar", "Heliar", and "Nokton" on a number of focal length lenses seems to imply that there's something in common about each "family".

Most probably not. To me it seems that Cosina licensed the Skopar, Heliar, Nokton and Ultron names together with the Voigtländer name and is now assigning them at will. Noktons tend to be faster lenses, Skopars tend to be smaller lenses, Ultrons seem to be fast-ish lenses and that's it.

There appears to be little family coherence. The Skopars are all somewhat similar, but the Heliars are vastly different, the Ultrons are completely gone, and there are two 35 Noktons.

Philipp

 

[Jamie Pillers]

So I guess I can't assume that if I get great image quality with, say, the 28 Color Skopar, that I'll get the same contrast and color signature with the 50 Color Skopar?

 

[ferider]

Not sure, Jamie. The 28/3.5 is a very special lens 🙂

Probably used for most of my favorite photos.

 

[maggieo]

The 21, 28 and 35 Skopars are very similar in look and form factor and are all fantastic.