Voigtländer

Optical heritage since 1756 — the oldest name in photography

Voigtlander is the oldest optical company in the world. Let that fact settle in. When Johann Christoph Voigtlander began making optical instruments in Vienna in 1756, the American Revolution had not yet happened. Mozart was an infant. The company has been making lenses and cameras for nearly 270 years, and in that time it has produced some of the most remarkable optical instruments in photographic history, including the first mathematically calculated photographic lens.

History

The Voigtlander story spans more than two and a half centuries of optical innovation. Johann Christoph Voigtlander established his workshop in Vienna in 1756, initially producing scientific instruments and opera glasses. His grandson, Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtlander, transformed the company into a photographic powerhouse in the 1840s when he collaborated with mathematician Joseph Petzval to produce the first photographically calculated lens. The Petzval portrait lens of 1840 was sixteen times faster than the lenses used by Daguerre, reducing portrait exposure times from minutes to seconds and making portrait photography commercially viable for the first time. This single achievement arguably did more to popularize photography than any other technical development of the nineteenth century.

The company relocated from Vienna to Braunschweig, Germany, in 1849 and continued to innovate throughout the next century. Voigtlander produced a remarkable range of cameras, from large-format studio instruments to innovative folding cameras and compacts. The company's lenses, marketed under names like Heliar, Skopar, Ultron, and Nokton, earned a reputation for exceptional optical quality and distinctive rendering characteristics that photographers prized for their ability to create images with a particular three-dimensional quality and beautiful bokeh.

The mid-twentieth century saw Voigtlander at perhaps its creative peak. The Vitessa, introduced in 1950, was a brilliantly eccentric 35mm camera with a plunger-style rapid film advance and an Ultron f/2 lens that remains one of the finest standard lenses of its era. The Bessamatic SLR offered interchangeable Voigtlander lenses in a well-built body with a leaf shutter. The Vito B became one of the most popular compact cameras in Europe. These cameras combined Voigtlander's centuries of optical expertise with genuinely innovative mechanical design.

Ownership changes in the 1960s and 1970s saw the Voigtlander brand pass through several hands before landing with Cosina of Japan, which has revived the name for a superb range of manual-focus lenses in Leica M-mount, Nikon F-mount, and other popular mounts. These modern Voigtlander lenses, including the legendary Nokton 50mm f/1.5 and the pancake-thin Color Skopar lenses, have earned a passionate following among photographers who value optical character over clinical perfection. The Voigtlander name, the oldest in optics, continues to stand for lenses that render the world in a way that is uniquely, recognizably beautiful.

Notable Cameras

Vitessa

The Vitessa is one of the most distinctive cameras ever made. Its defining feature is a spring-loaded plunger on the top plate that simultaneously advances the film and cocks the shutter with a single push, allowing extraordinarily rapid shooting for a manual camera. The Vitessa's Ultron 50mm f/2 lens is widely regarded as one of the finest standard lenses of the 1950s, producing images with a rendering quality that photographers describe as "three-dimensional." Colors pop, skin tones glow, and the transition from focus to blur has an organic smoothness that modern lenses struggle to replicate. Using a Vitessa is an experience like no other: the plunger advance, the bright viewfinder, the satisfying click of the Compur shutter, and the knowledge that you are shooting through an Ultron, all combine to make photography feel like a physical pleasure.

Bessamatic

The Bessamatic was Voigtlander's entry into the SLR market, and it took a characteristically unconventional approach. Instead of a focal-plane shutter, the Bessamatic used a leaf shutter in the lens, allowing flash synchronization at all shutter speeds, a feature that other SLRs could not match. The camera accepted interchangeable Voigtlander lenses, including the superb Color-Skopar, Septon, and Super-Dynarex designs, each offering that distinctive Voigtlander rendering. The Bessamatic is a photographer's camera in the truest sense, rewarding skill and intention with images of genuine beauty.

Vito B

The Vito B was Voigtlander's compact masterpiece, a small, elegant 35mm viewfinder camera that sold in enormous numbers across Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Its Color-Skopar 50mm f/3.5 or f/2.8 lens delivered images far sharper than any camera this affordable had a right to produce. The Vito B was the camera that European families took on holiday, the camera that recorded first communions and birthday parties and summer afternoons by the lake. It is common, inexpensive, and wonderful. Every vintage camera collection should include one.

All Models in Archive (5)

Compact

• Vito B - 1954-1960
• Vito II - 1949-1954

Rangefinder

• Vitessa - 1950-1960

Slr

• Bessamatic - 1958-1969
• Ultramatic - 1962-1968