Kobalux's compact reportage wide — the 28mm f/3.5 in Leica Thread Mount.
The Kobalux 28mm f/3.5 in Leica Thread Mount is a compact Japanese wide-angle from 1985, made by Kobayashi Seiki and sold under the Kobalux name (also marketed elsewhere as Avenon). It is a modern screw-mount wide from the mid-1980s, produced for L39 and adapted rangefinder bodies as a small, sharp reportage wide.
It is a manual-focus rangefinder-coupled lens with a 28mm focal length and a maximum aperture of f/3.5. The barrel is very compact, and the lens couples to the rangefinder for focusing, with a 28mm accessory finder or in-body frame lines used for composition.
The 28mm view is a classic street and reportage focal length, and the small Kobalux is easy to carry and discreet in use. Rendering is even and contrasty, and stopping down to the middle apertures gives broad depth of field with tidy corners for landscape and documentary work.
As a relatively modern lens, used copies are usually mechanically sound, but check for clear glass, smooth focus and a positive aperture, along with any cleaning marks or haze. It adapts to Leica M with an LTM-to-M ring and to mirrorless cameras via a simple adapter, with a matching finder or the camera screen used for framing.