p.1 #2 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Interesting about the 28 and 35... The 28 was a very good lens (if you got a good copy), so it's a bit surprising to see it discontinued so soon. Maybe too much overlap now with the APO and also f/1.5 and 2.8 options. I guess the Type I will continue to be available? Wondering if there's a v3 coming, eventually...
Browsing Cosina's news announcements, which I haven't done for some time, I noticed the VM 40/2.8 and 75/1.9 are also discontinued.
p.1 #3 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
rscheffler wrote:
Interesting about the 28 and 35... The 28 was a very good lens (if you got a good copy), so it's a bit surprising to see it discontinued so soon. Maybe too much overlap now with the APO and also f/1.5 and 2.8 options. I guess the Type I will continue to be available? Wondering if there's a v3 coming, eventually...
Ultron 28/2 Type I as well as 35/2 Type I were discontinued already in July 2024 so no versions remain in production.
I think they might have discontinued these because they have lots of different lenses at same focal lengths in production currently. I wouldn't personally expect v3s very soon.
p.1 #5 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
OK, I missed, or forgot about the Type I discontinuation (my interest was more for the Type II). When I just checked their site they still have it shown alongside the Type II versions. It's a bit confusing.
p.1 #6 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
rscheffler wrote:
OK, I missed, or forgot about the Type I discontinuation (my interest was more for the Type II). When I just checked their site they still have it shown alongside the Type II versions. It's a bit confusing.
When the different types are optically identical and part of the same product listings they usually keep the product listings as long as any of the types remain in production and they add note saying that Type # was discontinued in some specific month/year.
> Type I was discontinued in July 2024.
> Type II was discontinued in Nov 2025.
Once all versions are discontinued they'll remove the whole product listing from their main pages after some time, but it (Japanese product page only) will be later accessible from their archives page (https://www.cosina.co.jp/archives/).
p.1 #9 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
rscheffler wrote:
Interesting about the 28 and 35... The 28 was a very good lens (if you got a good copy), so it's a bit surprising to see it discontinued so soon. Maybe too much overlap now with the APO and also f/1.5 and 2.8 options. I guess the Type I will continue to be available? Wondering if there's a v3 coming, eventually...
Browsing Cosina's news announcements, which I haven't done for some time, I noticed the VM 40/2.8 and 75/1.9 are also discontinued.
I was very surprised by the 28/2 II Ultron as well. Aside from the new CV 28/2 APO, I would rank it as the second-best 28mm f/2 lens available. It's noticeably smaller than the APO, with less frameline blockage, and it even came in silver. Sure, the APO is technically superior, but in real-world use, it's nearly impossible to tell their images apart unless you're pixel-peeping. The 35/2 Ultron had more of a character look in the rendering to me, but I'm still surprised to see it discontinued.
p.1 #12 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
burchyk wrote:
21/4: wonderfully compact and lightweight, good IQ on film.
.
Great too on M10r. As is the original CV 15mm 4.5.
What is interesting in the past they were terrible on digital Ms, but the changes that Leica has made to the microlenses on their M sensors have given surprising results.
10r w CV 15 4.5.
On my M240 or M9, there would have been crazy colour shifts and smearing towards the sides.
p.1 #13 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Fred Miranda wrote:
I was very surprised by the 28/2 II Ultron as well. Aside from the new CV 28/2 APO, I would rank it as the second-best 28mm f/2 lens available. It's noticeably smaller than the APO, with less frameline blockage, and it even came in silver. Sure, the APO is technically superior, but in real-world use, it's nearly impossible to tell their images apart unless you're pixel-peeping. The 35/2 Ultron had more of a character look in the rendering to me, but I'm still surprised to see it discontinued.
Cosina will know best how well the 28/2 was selling recently. In the span of a few years (or so it seems) they went from zero 28mm M mount lenses to at least four. In a way, cutting the f/2 now makes some sense given how crowded their 28mm offerings are. Less overlap now and each option has very distinct features relative to the others. Perhaps they'll wait a few years for latent demand to pick up and release a v3 with an improved formula and refreshed design. Given it's Cosina and despite their unpredictability around these matters, I'd be surprised if a lens as good as the 28/2 v2 isn't eventually revised and re-released.
p.1 #14 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
rscheffler wrote:
Cosina will know best how well the 28/2 was selling recently. In the span of a few years (or so it seems) they went from zero 28mm M mount lenses to at least four. In a way, cutting the f/2 now makes some sense given how crowded their 28mm offerings are. Less overlap now and each option has very distinct features relative to the others. Perhaps they'll wait a few years for latent demand to pick up and release a v3 with an improved formula and refreshed design. Given it's Cosina and despite their unpredictability around these matters, I'd be surprised if a lens as good as the 28/2 v2 isn't eventually revised and re-released....Show more →
I get that, but the CV 28/2 II Ultron is such an exceptional lens (so close to the APO in image quality) that I didn't think it would be discontinued unless a version III was on the way, maybe with a new barrel design, smaller size, or even better corrections. Honestly, I would have expected the 28/2.8 Color-Skopar to be dropped before the Ultron. But as you said, they probably have their own internal reasons for it. Either way, I'm definitely not letting go of my 28/2 II Ultron anytime soon!
p.1 #16 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Fred Miranda wrote:
When Voigtlander discontinues a popular lens, do its used prices tend to hold up or even rise over time?
Aside from the bigger and better corrected APO-Lanthar versions, has Cosina announced any replacements for the 28mm or 35mm f/2 Ultron lenses?
In Japan the 2nd hand prices of discontinued popular CV lenses have usually held steady near the original prices if demand is good and supply is rather limited but it's rare for the prices to go up significantly (could happen with some limited edition lenses).
There haven't been any replacements announced for these Ultrons now but when Cosina make new versions of lenses they usually discontinue the old ones first and then announce new versions about half a year later.
After these discontinuations, there are no regular Ultron VM lenses (only 90mm APO-Ultron VM and a bit in APS-C mirrorless) remaining in Cosina's active lineup, since 75/1.9 was also discontinued recently. I think there is not much that could be improved over the previous versions if they made new versions of these right away and somehow I don't think they are planning replacement versions for next year. They seem to have slow new production runs of popular lenses (like with the 28/2 APO-Lanthar) and trimming the lens catalog down a bit could be one way to ease that for the future.
Nov 07, 2025 at 08:15 PM
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p.1 #17 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
RoamingScott wrote:
It's sad to see an Ultron die so a gross little Nokton can live
That doesn't seem to be what they are doing. It seems to be that the Ultrons are not quite as small as the Color Skopars, don't perform as well as the APO-Lanthars, and don't have the wide aperture of the Noktons. I would think that could leave them as balancing these concerns, but apparently Cosina doesn't think so.
At 28mm we now have these lenses in production for Leica M mount:
f/1.5 Nokton
f/2 APO Lanthar
f/2.8 Color Skopar
I think this lineup makes a lot of sense and personally I think all three are excellent lenses but very different in what they provide. I think the f/2 Ultron overlapped a lot with the Color Skopar, small and excellent especially stopped down, but it has so much vignetting that I found myself always wanting to stop down to f/2.4, so not a lot of advantage over the Color Skopar
Obviously they make more 35mm lenses, but Voigtlander has always made a lot of 35mm lenses and I don't expect that to change. The three Noktons are all pretty different, and I don't expect them to stop making any of them soon. They give shooters choice if they want to have wide aperture. The two Color-Skopars offer options for a very small lens from really small to tiny. Again shooter have choice at small size. The APO Lanthar does what it does and provides an excellently performing lens with a moderately fast aperture. I wouldn't be surprised to see a MK II before long to make it a bit smaller but it does what it does exceptionally well.
It seems to me what Cosina is doing is giving us a choice between wide aperture, super small size, or top level performance. We can get any one of those, but the Ultrons that balance those characteristics they have mostly stopped making. For Leica M at least.
p.1 #18 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Having just sold my 28mm Nokton, due to its size and weight, I am now in a market for a compact 28mm lens. While I have discounted the 28mm Ultron as not being small enough, I still can't ignore what Bob Tonelli was mentioning in a video: that the Ultron is a much better proposition money vs speed when compared to the smaller Color Skopar (150-200 EUR more for a 1 stop faster lens, given the same high IQ for both lenses). But, I guess, the Ultron was a direct competitor to the newly released APO lens (while being significantly smaller). Now there is no "mid size" 28mm lens left in the Voigtlander's lineup.
p.1 #19 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Desmolicious wrote:
...
Great too on M10r. As is the original CV 15mm 4.5.
I've been using the older ltm 15, 21/4, 25/4 in various combinations, along with the newer 40/2.8 a lot lately.
As far as used prices go, I saw some drop in the 28/2 v.I when discontinued (I picked one up) but the price bounced back to near what it usually was (a slight discount over new) after the 28/2 v.II was released - prices per MAP Camera. Anyway, used prices on many discontinued VM stock seem to hold value. Map Camera had a run of CLA'd Summars a while back that were priced to sell. There are deals, you just have to check the offerings periodically...
p.1 #20 · Cosina Voigtländer revived 28/2 Ultron II, 35/2 Ultron II
Both Ultrons Type I (28mm and 35mm) were aluminium vs brass for the Type II. Type I had the "stick", Type II had the tab.
My wish list for the "Type III":
- matte black or matte silver;
- no chrome ring;
- lightweight aluminium;
- deeper tab;
- if close focus, please leave about 90 degrees for the "normal" distances;
