Voigtlander 15mm 3.5

I am toying with the idea of putting the Voigtlander 15mm 3.5 underwater mounted to a Bessa L. I have no idea how to go about this. Any clues?

When did the Bessa L come out? Mid-90's? It was such a late-comer to the game. I highly doubt there were any housings made.

I love the camera... about to get a R4M with a 21mm... the perfect street shooting machine (a poor substitute for underwater shooting but the only thing I can do).

Also - they only made the 15mm in f4.5.

Yes - 4.5 is correct. Hopeless with numbers! I am fairly certain (positive!) that I will have to make the housing. I have heard Doubilet used an Aquatica 3 for an xpan. I think the huge throat of that housing is crucial as the camera will need to be mounted in this opening rather than back in the body of the housing.

Your basic problem will be choosing a relevant port and focus - focus will be dependent on the virtual image created by the port and may have to be empirically worked out. There is also a 12mm lens....

Its an interesting idea but in all honesty I'm far from convinced that its worth the expense and difficulties which need to be overcome even though a Bessa should fit in virtually any old SLR housing. If you could use a full frame digital camera it would make things easier but with Leica's M9 being the only one available at around £5k it's not much of an option at present.

Thanks for the input, Paul. I agree it is completely silly. However I am impressed with the images from this lens. Have you seen such? More interesting to me; have you ever used the 12mm 5.6?

Hey Tonhil,

I have used the lens quite a lot (and the Bessa-L). While I was impressed that a $400 lens could do what it did... I think there are better optics out there. I would love to see a comparison of the Voigtlander 15 4.5 and the Zeiss 15 2.8. I really love my Zeiss 21mm 2.8 zm. I don't even mention Leica due to the obscene prices.

I also think that this wouldn't be worth the effort unless you are just completely obsessed with that camera and lens combo. If you want, perhaps you could do something with the Voigtlander 15mm with the new Olympus OM (ED5 or something?). Dr. Mustard did a review of it and it looks to be a great camera. There are adapters out there that will take M-mounted glass too.