4. September 2002
The Voigtländer Bessa R2 - a review
Voigtländer is originally an old Austrian company (established in 1756 in Vienna!) and later owned by German companies. The company has a long story in areas of optics and cameras. However, the company is no longer existing in it's original form and cameras with the Voigtländer brandname are now produced by the Japanese company Cosina.
In 1998 they started producing the Bessa L - a rather strange retro-camera without neither rangefinder nor viewfinder but along with quite good lenses. The 15mm and 25mm lenses introduced can be used without focus-aid because of the great depth of field. The L has a Leica screw-mount type lens thread.
Later came the Bessa R - a real rangefinder camera still with the screw-mount but now with focusing aid in a traditional rangefinder camera. Then in 2001 came the Bessa T - the first Bessa with the Leica M-mount bayonet. The Bessa T doesn't have a viewfinder but does offer a rangefinder. Sounds strange perhaps and I will urge you to follow the links below to read and see more about the Voigtländer system.
All cameras has a mechanical shutter with speeds from 1 sec. to 1/2000th plus B (no batteries required). 1/125th flash sync and TTL-metering with LED readouts.
A great amount of lenses ranging from 12mm to 90mm is now available from Voigtländer as well as most of the Leica M lenses.

Bessa R2
Then in February this year (2002) the Bessa R2 was introduced. This camera features both the Leica M-mount and has a "real" rangefinder and viewfinder as we know it from Leica M cameras.
I've been following the Voigtländer system for some years now and in my opinion the R2 combines all the good things from the previous models and forms a real "Leica entry level camera" if you will (I didn't say "Leica-killer" because it isn't, but more on that later).



A few specs.:
• Vertical moving metal focal plane shutter with speeds from 1 sec. to 1/2000th plus B.
• Flash sync at 1/125 sec or lower.
• TTL center-weighted average metering with LED readouts in the viewfinder.
• VM-lens mount.
(It's an all-manual camera!)

So, with this camera you get the opportunity to use the highly rated new Voigtänder lenses (with an adapter from the screw-mount to the M-mount) as well as (most) Leica M lenses.





The Lenses
I wanted to try out the Super Wide Heliar Aspherical 15mm f4.5 lens which had received very good reviews.

In fact when introduced it was so well received that some say it actually "created" the new Voigtländer system. It's a very wide lens only surpassed in the Voigtländer system by the Ultra Wide Heliar Aspherical 12mm f5.6. While I find the 12mm to be perhaps too extreme for me, the 15mm seemed very interesting. The 15mm is not coupled to the rangefinder and since you have so great depth of field anyway you really don't need it.

Of course the build-in viewfinder can not cover the entire 110° view of the 15mm lens, so an additional viewfinder is needed, which is simply attached to the hot-shoe on top of the camera.
This lens seems to produce pictures with a very pleasing warm tone to them. If I take a whole slide-film and compare the colors with a slide film made from my Nikon lenses (just comparing the entire sheets of frames against a light source) I immediately see a warm tone, where the Nikon lenses seems to produce a more neutral tone.
Keeping the horizon level with such a wide lens is actually more difficult than I imagined especially when shooting water-horizons where it becomes very evident if you tilt the camera just a little bit. Spirit levels can help solve this problem and you can actually get a spirit level to mount in a secondary hot-shoe. I do not have this accessory, so I can not comment on it's use.
The light fall-off in the corners (vignetting) isn't too severe. Actually I was surprised to see how little there is. Pictures are astoundingly sharp, especially when you stop a little bit down. I haven't really investigated deeply into this, but it seems that the corners get a little bit soft wide open. I think I'm being picky here, because reviews have been very favorable - I still need to test more. Please follow links below to get to more knowledgeable comments on this.
Built quality is superb and it's a small, lightweight lens.
There's a fixed sun-shade attached and no filter-thread.
I've used this lens for two different landscape photo trips (a small one in Denmark and a bigger one in Norway) as well as architectural work (examples from all are shown on this page).

I needed a more normal lens as well, because I also wanted to use the camera as a "snap shot" camera perhaps for street candids, family snap-shots etc.

I therefore got the Ultron Aspherical 35mm f:1,7 lens as well. Some people regard a 35mm lens to be a "normal" lens for a rangefinder-type camera and the Ultron seemed to offer very high image quality (according to reviews). So far I've only used the Ultron on very fast b&w which perhaps might not do the lens justice, since the films are so grainy. You can see some examples here on this page.

While I haven't really got the pictures to back up any comments on image quality I'll just comment on the build quality of this lens instead. Since I bought this lens for candid style shoots or perhaps, like shown here, interior shots, it might be a while until I have a good amount of fine-grained images to judge the actual image quality. Of course any image will always benefit from a good lens....
Anyway, this lens is oozing quality. It's a quite heavy built lens, with an old Leica style focusing barrel. The aperture dial is equally nice to handle and in fact the built quality of this lens seems even better than that of some Leica lenses (yes, I'm sorry Leica fans, but that's really how I see it and how it feels...).
This lens also comes with a sun-shade, but has a 55mm filter-thread as well.

Leitz glass
And then of course you can use most Leica optics:

Bessa R2 with 50mm Summicron

In Use
Compared to Leica M
This is a camera that must be compared to the Leica M system. You can not help it, because it in some respect is a "Leica replica"
I only have limitied experience with Leica M cameras, however the use of the Bessa R2 can perhaps best be compared to the Leica M6 TTL. It's an all manual camera with TTL metering. On the Bessa however, you get 1/2000 sec. which the Leica M's lack. It can sometimes be handy to get that extra stop, but an even more usable feature would have been the aperture priority mode of the new Leica M7 (Auto-mode).
Some find the viewfinder to be brighter than the Leica M - I tend not to agree on that. At least the rangefinder itself isn't quite up to the Leica standard.
While the superimposed picture in the rangefinder lines up perfectly in the horizontal plane when focused it doesn't line up perfectly in the vertical plane, giving a slightly blurred image inside the rangefinder area.
The picture below shows the problem. I've focused on a picture-frame hanging on the wall, and you can see in the rangefinder, that the corner of the frame is perfectly aligned horizontal, but not vertical. If this is just a bug in my camera I don't know.


The framing aid inside the viewfinder moves to compensate for parallax-errors when you focus - just like a Leica.
On the top of the camera you select what kind of lens you are using and you then get the proper framing aid in the viewfinder. This is unlike Leica which selects the framing aid itself depending on which lens you attach.

The shutter is quite noisy too. Perhaps not so much compared to an SLR, but certainly compared to a Leica M.
While the Leica M shutter goes "click" the Bessa shutter goes "CLONCK" (especially when photographing architecture inside an empty cathedral!)
But I dare to say, that I find the camera a bit easier to handle than a Leica M. Ergonomics are better and it's a bit lighter.

Otherwise
Comparing the camera to Leica might be unfair, since the price is only about 1/4rd or 1/5th the price of a Leica M6 TTL.
So as a rangefinder camera in itself I must say that I really like this camera.
The quality or the feeling of quality certainly has improved over the former model R. It has a very nice rubber-covering and "splatter paint" finishing on the top.
Especially the rubber covering gives you a good grip on the camera and this is perhaps the main reason why I find it easier to handle than a Leica M (?)
At about 800-900$/Euro I must say though that I find the camera somewhat overpriced. OK, it features a Leica M-mount at a very low price indeed, but I think you can buy more features and quality by selecting a low-end modern SLR - but that was not what I was looking for!
If you have ever used an old fashioned SLR, you now what the Bessa feels like. Take away the sound of the mirror itself and you have a Bessa R2. Film-load is done from behind the way we know it from a (mechanical) SLR.

Why?
Why did I buy the Bessa R2?
Well, mainly for the reasons mentioned above; I could get a real rangefinder camera at a low price featuring the Leica M-mount. I regard this as my "snap-shot" camera as well as a special wide-angle camera for landscape and architectural subject matters.

A dead shutter
I must mention here, that the shutter on my first Bessa R2 got stuck after just a few films and I had to get the camera replaced with a new one. I have never read or heard about this problem before (and I think all Bessas uses the same kind of shutter), so I was probably just in bad luck.

Examples
Here you will find examples of the pictures I've taken.
Super Wide Heliar Aspherical 15mm f4.5


Ultron Aspherical 35mm f:1,7


The "German Image"
Cosina is certainly trying to maintain a "Made in Germany" image on the Voigtländer system although everything is made in Japan.
Already on the boxes for the body and the lenses you'll see German (and English) text. The manual starts out in German and on the camera body itself you'll see this engraving:


- As well as this one at the bottom:


Maintaining a German image when in fact only the brand name(s) are German, makes the camera a bit "cheap" in my eyes (a "wannabe" if you like). I don't fancy this much myself, but if it sells more cameras then what the heck. Who cares where it's build anyway, it's a good camera with high quality lenses...

Conclusion
Stepping back a bit and looking at the current rangefinder cameras from Leica, Voitgländer and Konica, the Bessa R2 is, mainly because of the low price, a very interesting camera. It's old technology and certainly a "retro" type of camera, but with the M-mount you get the opportunity of using the vast amount of high-quality (the best?) Leica M lenses. From old to new. You can in other words enter the Leica M system at a much lower price than ever before and still use a real rangefinder camera!
So, even if you are a die-hard Leica fan, you must admit that this camera is interesting and opens up for many new rangefinder users, simply because of the lower price.
If you still find the M-lenses to be pricey (they are!) you can get impressive quality from the Voigtländer lenses at a much lower price - some will say, that the lenses are of supreme quality, I have no way of telling. I can only say that I'm very impressed and satisfied myself.
I'm absolutely a rangefinder beginner, but as such the Voitländer system seems to fit me perfectly.

In the future...(?)
If Voigtländer could make a quite, electronic shutter and add AE program mode, they could have a really serious competitor to the Leica M body.
As it is the Leica body still holds a few esses in it's hand especially with the new M7.

Links
The www.cameraquest.com does such a nice job in reviewing all the Bessa cameras and showing details. While I've been trying to describe my own experiences with the Bessa R2 you should really visit these pages for more information and interesting details:
• The Bessa R2
• The Voigtläner system

Cosina:
• Visit the Cosina site (Japanese and English)

Luminous-Landscape:
• Read a review of the Voigtländer 12mm f/5.6 Aspherical Ultra-Wide Heliar
• Read a review of the Voigtländer Bessa-T

[NEW]
02.02.2004
A Bessaflex TM has been available for some time now. It's an "SLR Bessa" and it features a 42mm lens mount.

27.09.2002
In my report from Photokina 2002 you'll find information about the new Rollei 35RF which is based on the Bessa R2!