Topic: Impressions of the A.Schact Ulm Travegon 35mm f3.5 LTM lens

[Kai-san]

A little while ago I found an A.Schact Ulm Travegon 35mm f3.5 LTM lens at an agreeable price. I had been looking for a 35mm lens in LTM mount that was less soft than the Jupiter 12. A.Schact Ulm started making lenses in the late 50's and kept it going to sometime in the 70's. As the name implies they were located in the university city of Ulm, Western Germany. At some point they started cooperating with Wirgin which also had the Edixa brand. The lenses made for Edixa are marked Edixa, but are otherwise the same design as A.Schacht lenses.
The Travegon 35mm lens was made in several mounts like M42, Exacta and LTM. It is a well built lens, nicely finished in black polished paint with zebra striped focus and aperture rings. It's length from filter ring to flange is 51mm, max diameter 50mm and it weighs in at 195g. It has clear markings and the focus scale is in both meters and feet, from 1m/3.3ft to infinity (the minimum focus distance of the M42 lens is 0.5m). The DOF scale is very nice too, but it has a red dot at f11 that puzzles me. It's too far away from the focus mark to be the IR setting. The focus movement is very well damped, on par with a modern Zeiss lens.
The aperture range is f3.5 to f22 with 8 blades (the standard M42 version has 6 blades). The front of this lens spins around when you focus, so there are two aperture scales on opposite sides of the lens. Setting the aperture is easy with very distinct clicks for each setting. Just be aware that it has half stops between 4, 5.6 and 8 (see picture).
The front glass is quite a bit recessed, so with some care it could be used without a hood. It is hard to see if there is any coating on this lens, but it is said to be single coated. The filter ring is M48 (M49 on the M42 version), not the most available size. A step up ring to M52 or M55 is a good idea. Mounting this lens on a Sovjet rangefinder throws the focus mark 10 degrees to the right. On the Canon P and Yashica YE it is smack in the middle.

[Kai-san]

Last Sunday I mounted the Travegon on my Leningrad RF and loaded up with a roll of Maco TS Eagle film. I shot it at 1250 ISO and developed in Xtol for 20 minutes at 20C. This film is quite contrasty, I have not added any contrast in post. The sharpness seems OK, but I have not shot it wide open. Some Sovjet rangefinders might require shimming of the lens, but as I will use this on other RF's I will not bother. The lens seems well suited to architectural shots, not much barrel distortion. These pictures are shot without filter and lens hood, for the next trial I hope to get a hood for it. This lens is said to work nicely with colour, have to try that as well. This time of the year there is little colour around here, so first of all I'd like to test it with a more normal B&W film.

To be continued. 

[Francois]

Definitely looks surprisingly good...
I sometimes wonder why lenses like that are not more common?

[Kai-san]

I think the small companies that made lenses in this period are generally not very well known today. The other thing is the fact that these lenses were not made in large numbers. A search on ebay today turned up eight of these while a search for Jupiter 12 gave more than 400 hits. This is also reflected in the prices; the cheapest Jupiter 12 is offered for 30 USD while the cheapest Travegon had a price tag of 350 USD. I paid less than 200 USD for mine, and I try to keep below that limit when it comes to LTM lenses. After all I have not paid more than 200 USD for any of my LTM cameras.

[Francois]

I tend to be ultra low budget, so most of my gear tends to be on the cheap end.
One of my best is an Industar 61, not exactly expensive.
The most I paid for a camera and lens is 150CAD, it was my Nikon F90x.
I did buy a new camera when I was young, but that's it.

[Jeff Warden]

Last Sunday I mounted the Travegon on my Leningrad RF and loaded up with a roll of Maco TS Eagle film.

I for one have never heard of the lens, the camera, or the film. All three! The world is a big beautiful place.  :-)

Thanks for sharing this!

[Flippy]

I have two of these in Exakta mount (early, silver barrel version). I like them, but can't remember what photos I've taken with them. unfortunately, on the old versions, the ergonomics are terrible and the focus ring likes to chew up fingers. It's also a unique design for a wide angle lens, with six elements in three pairs. Schacht is probably the only West German lens company that doesn't suffer from internet hype - there's few internet threads on them, and I've never got into a bidding war on ebay over one. I also have the 1.8/50 Travelon in M42, and it's decent, but nothing special.

[Bryan]

Schacht did make lenses in the Lordomat mount.  I've been eyeing them for a while, I would like to have a wide and telephoto lens for my Lordomat. 

[Kai-san]

Yesterday it was in fact not raining (at least in the morning), so I shifted the Travegon to my KMZ Drug camera and loaded it with Kodak T-Max 400. The Drug has a Leicavit film advance, shutter release on the front and a nice clear viewfinder; although the RF patch is a little weak. The first two pictures were shot wide open (f3.5), the shoes at f4.0 and the bridge at f5.6. The last one is shot against the light and has some flare at the top. I still have not got a lens hood, but I've got a 48 to 52mm step-up ring coming in next week. The film was developed in Xtol 1+1 for 9 minutes.