{"id":9263,"date":"2019-03-04T19:03:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T00:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=9263"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:32:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:32:17","slug":"review-voigtlander-21mm-f-3-5-color-skopar-sony-e-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-voigtlander-21mm-f-3-5-color-skopar-sony-e-mount\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar (Sony E-mount)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I mentioned it when I reviewed Voigtl\u00e4nder’s excellent 40mm f\/1.2<\/a>:  Voigtl\u00e4nder has been killing it of late.  Cosina has managed to take a brand that had been dormant for a while, and resurrect it with a wide variety of unique manual focus lenses for both Leica M mount and now Sony E-Mount.  Today’s reviewed lens, the Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar, joins a Voigtl\u00e4nder lineup for Sony mirrorless cameras that now totals 8 released lenses (9 if you include the rather unique 40mm f\/2.8 that has a dedicated M-E adapter), with two more on the way later this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar on the Sony A7 III<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Voigtl\u00e4nder has had a 21mm Color-Skopar in their lineup for years and years, and more recent iterations have become known for excellent image quality in a very small package.  The new Sony E-mount version of the 21mm Color-Skopar is a refined design that improves on their previous 21mm f\/4 for Leica M.  The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm has a retail price of just $699, which is less than half the price of its closest competition, the Zeiss Loxia 21mm f\/2.8<\/a>.  That Zeiss lens was the best overall wide-angle lens I’ve ever had the pleasure to use.  While I didn’t expect the Color-Skopar to match or exceed the Loxia, could the Voigtl\u00e4nder approach that level of performance in a smaller and cheaper package?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven\u2019t read my reviews before, I do not generally perform resolution tests or make charts to track quality measures. I take a real world approach to my reviews and evaluate how a lens or camera handles and works for me in regular use.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar shares the same design language as all the other E-mount Voigtl\u00e4nder lenses.  The lens has a completely metal body, finished in a satin black finish with a fairly broad scalloped focus ring and knurled aperture ring at the front of the lens.  The 21mm f\/3.5 is a very small lens, at just over 1.5 inches long, and the same diameter as the lens mount.  While fairly dense for its size due to the metal and glass construction, the 21mm f\/3.5 is also a fairly svelte 230g.  In both size and weight, it’s a considerably smaller package when compared to the Loxia 21mm f\/2.8, which is nearly double the length and nearly double the weight, at 2.8 inches long and 394g.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar on the Sony A7 III<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lens is a great option for those times you want a quality wide-angle lens in the smallest possible package. You don’t sacrifice build quality to achieve that size either, as the Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm is extremely solidly constructed, with no flex or looseness anywhere on the lens body.  The focus ring is extremely well damped and buttery smooth to operate.  The aperture ring at the front of the lens is very thin, but operates with wonderfully tactile clicks at each 1\/3 stop change in aperture from f\/3.5 to the minimum aperture of f\/22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 is very compact. The larger, but still compact 40mm f\/1.2 is on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 21mm f\/3.5 comes with a small metal lens hood that provides a bit of shading of the front element, and perhaps more importantly, a bit of protection for the front element. It’s a screw-in type hood, but the inner ring near the lens is the same diameter as the filter threads, allowing the same lens cap to fit inside the hood.  As the hood is roughly the same length as the lens cap, there is almost zero increase in size when keeping the hood affixed in storage.  While I tend to leave the metal hood for my 40mm f\/1.2 at home, I keep the hood attached to the 21mm f\/3.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The metal lens hood is small but provides some shading and front element protection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like all of the Voigtl\u00e4nder E-mount lenses, the 21mm f\/3.5 is an all-manual affair, with manual focus and aperture, but has lens contacts that electronically transfer information to the camera body.  This allows for auto-magnification of the focus point (provided you have your camera set up to do so), as well as transmission of distance data, allowing for the full 5-axis image stabilization using the in-body stabilizers on Sony bodies that have them. While manual focus may not be for everyone, I really enjoy using high quality manual focus glass.  Ultra-wides in particular are quite easy to use with manual focus, and the same is true for this 21mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With price and size firmly in its favor, the big question is can the Voigtl\u00e4nder hold up optically when compared to the other major manual focus 21mm lens for Sony E-Mount: the Loxia 21mm.  And the answer is that it holds up surprisingly well.  As you’ll see, I would still give an edge to the Loxia for overall image quality, but the differences aren’t huge.  You’re getting about 90% of the performance of the Loxia for half the price and size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 is a very sharp lens.  Starting at f\/3.5, the 21mm Color-Skopar is very sharp in the central 2\/3 of the image, with the edges and corners falling off a bit.  When focused at medium distances, the field of focus is rather flat, and the lens produces images with good resolution all the way to the edges of the image frame.  At infinity, I found a good bit of field curvature, such that focusing to the hard stop is needed, and at this focus distance, the edges aren’t super sharp wide open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, stopping down a few stops increases center sharpness to excellent levels and the edges and corners to very good levels, even at infinity.  It’s not quite as sharp as the Loxia 21mm, but, at least on my 24MP A7 III, it’s honestly pretty close. It’s very impressive image sharpness for such a tiny lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When focused near the minimum focus distance of 0.2m, the lens maintains good sharpness centrally, but falls off fairly rapidly towards the edges. In these situations, you’ll want to stop down a stop or two if edge sharpness is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ohio House – Sony A7 III with Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color Skopar @ f\/8, 1\/8s, ISO 640<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 draws similarly to other recent Voigtl\u00e4nder lenses, producing images with very pleasing color and contrast with a lovely tonality. I love the color response from the Voigtl\u00e4nder lenses, and that same great color is present here as well. Comparing to the Loxia 21mm, the Voigtl\u00e4nder isn’t as biting when it comes to contrast, and local contrast is a bit more muted in comparison.  Which is more pleasing will depend on the photographer’s preference and the subject matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21mm f\/3.5 has a bit of lateral chromatic aberration, but it’s easily corrected in post-processing.  Longitudinal CA can be seen upon close inspection if shooting very close up at wide apertures, but that’s a niche case for a lens such as this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

With a modest f\/3.5 maximum aperture and a super-wide focal length, the 21mm f\/3.5 isn’t going to knock out the background, except at very close focus.  However, the Color-Skopar does have a very short minimum focus distance of just 0.20m, allowing for some dramatic wide-angle closeups that can produce ample background blur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ivy – Sony A7 III with Voigtlander 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar @ f\/4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh is somewhat unremarkable. There is some unevenness with specular highlights, but nothing too objectionable, and the overall rendering is relatively smooth, but no one is going to mistake this lens as a bokeh machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 has a bit of barrel distortion, as one might expect for a small wide-angle lens, but it honestly is far less than I expected. A Lightroom adjustment of +2 to +5 will bring any residual distortion under control, but I don’t feel the need to correct it in the majority of situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One definite weakness, however, is vignetting, where the Color-Skopar shows fairly significant falloff in the corners, even when stopped down.  There is currently no Lightroom profile for this lens, so any correction must be done manually. The profile for the Leica M-Mount 21mm f\/4 color-skopar corrects the vignetting in the correct areas of the image frame, but is far too strong, so applying that vignetting profile at around 33% results in fairly good correction of any residual vignetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Winter Sunrise – Sony A7 III with Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar @ f\/16, 1\/800s, ISO 100<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 21mm f\/3.5 is a bit finicky when it comes to flare.  In most cases, even with the sun in the frame, flare performance is quite excellent.  Veiling flare is extremely well controlled, and for the most part, ghosting is also under control.  However, if the sun is placed close to the center of the frame, it can induce fairly substantial ghosts very close to the light source, such as can be seen in the shot above.  You will see in the second to last image of the Image Samples on the next page, however, that a very slightly different composition taken at the same time as the shot above shows no significant ghosting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most Voigtl\u00e4nder lenses, the 21mm Color-Skopar produces pronounced sunstars around point light sources.  Due to the 10-bladed aperture, 10-pointed sunstars are prominent in the image when stopped down by any amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, I was very impressed with the optical quality of the Voigtl\u00e4nder 21mm f\/3.5 Color-Skopar.  It’s a lens that can produce extremely pleasing images, with very good sharpness, great color and contrast and fairly minimal aberrations, save for vignetting.  All of this in an extremely compact package that’s also half the price of its closest rival, the Loxia 21mm f\/2.8.  If comparing these two manual focus lenses, I’d say that the Loxia is a bit sharper, and has a stronger contrast profile, but these are not enormous differences.  If you want the best of the best, the Loxia will still be the way to go, but I think for the majority of shooters, the quality of the Voigtl\u00e4nder will easily satisfy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n