The Voigtlander M Pivot Part 2: Voigtlander Color-Skopar 21mm f/4 VM P.

I mentioned hypocrisy in my last post. More accurately with more information I changed my mind. An important distinction now that I think about. What we should all be able to do. I had thought loftier brand M mount lenses would cost more than the examples discussed here. Most did actually.

The bogeys were the lenses I already had in my possesion. Wrote my own post…

…and one for 35mmc about them. Then the ZEISS 50mm f/2 was the first interloper.

The Artisan lenses remained. Largely because finishing a ZEISS M wide/normal/portrait lens trio would be expensive. I fully acknowledge that the $500 starting prices for ZEISS lenses are reasonable, especially compared to native Leica lenses, but this is still more than I wanted to spend.

Sure, you can find some less expensive Leica lenses out there like the 90mm f/2.8 and 135mm f/2.8. But those lenses did not interest me. 75mm is a nice sweet spot for a rangefinder portrait lens. And the balance of Leica lenses are far too pricey for me. And new Leica lenses are out of the question. Worth it? Yes. Am I willing to pay that much? No.

As I have stated before I am here for the full frame rangefinder thing, not a certain brand where applicable. For digital cameras this leaves Leica and Pixii. For lenses, I am happy to shop elsewhere.

I am also interested in Thypoc lenses. They seem wonderful, are reasonably priced, and the reviews have been good. But there is one issue for me. Voigtlander lenses exist. More importantly in this scenario used Voigtlander lenses exist. A lens landed at my local camera shop that I traded three lenses for, the Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 VM.

It is awesome! And also started something. I could not stop shopping for lenses to complete a proper Voigtlander prime trio. You see, while both ZEISS and Voigtlander are made by Cosina, which might explain the similar build quality levels, Voigtlander lenses are quite a bit more affordable. This continued for months as I also tried to justify staying with the Artisan lenses. These Artisan lenses were still viable. But as much as I defend and genuinely like these lenses there were a few issues. None of them are related to the brand names.

The build is good. Fine. Just fine.
The large size and weight somewhat contrast with the small and light rangefinder ethos.

Then there is the pretty one that fit the rangefinder bill perfectly. The TTArtisan 28mm f/5.6.

If imitation is flattery then this lens fawns all over the Leica OG it replicates. I thought I would definitely keep this one. It looks good. It is compact. It takes a great image. But over time I found that I was not using it. The odd placement of the zone focus markings and locking focus lever were cute at first but did it no favors in the wild. I readily made peace with the f/5.6 aperture but this came back to bite this lens in the end. More on that below.

Another lens I thought was a keeper was the TTArtisans 21mm f/1.5.

The “issues” (First world problems here.).

It is large. Which is to be expected with such a bright spec on such a wide lens but…

Such a bright specs on such a wide lens was not really necessary for me. I do not do astrophotography and I have no issues with cranking up the ISO in low light situations so there is little benefit.
I liked the silver finish at first. But the color along with the size worked against the stealthy nature of a rangefinder set up.

As a result it rarely saw the light of day.

I was not looking for anything as wide as the Voigtlander 15mm f/5 III.

This Old Lens: Voigtlander Heliar 15mm f/4.5 III: Friend of film and digital.

Then while trolling MPB’s web page I saw it. The Voigtlander Color-Skopar 21mm f/4 VM P.

Conveniently it sits between the 15mm, 21mm, and 28mm lenses above. It is nearly as small as the TTArtisans 28mm f/5.6 while being slightly faster. Here I will copy over the notes from Part 1.

Why I did not know about it.

I believe it just got lost in the mix. If you search B&H right now for 20mm to 29mm M mount Voigtlander lenses 18 lenses show up as of the writing of this post. Also blend in faster aperture lenses likely distracting me. But this is where that pretty TTartisans lens above worked against itself. This Voigtlander lens is nearly as small as the attractive TTArtisans 28mm f/5.6 above. Remember when I said that lens’ aperture would come back to bite it in the end. Well, if f/5.6 is good f/4 is even better.

Why it is so reasonably priced.

I have no Earthly idea. After holding this lens in hand and seeing the images it produces I have no good reason why these are little more than $400 new and $300 used.

Note/Update: Though this is a lens intended for film I find it works well with the digital M 240 but there is one caveat. One must use the Leica 21mm f/2.8 profile in the camera. I found this out when I noticed a magenta cast in the corners from today’s images that I had not seen before. After some quick Googling and back and forth testing I realized that I had accidentally used the Leica 75mm in camera lens profile. This explains why I saw no magenta corners the first few days with this lens. If you forget to use the right in camera profile all is not lost. Ok. That was overly dramatic. These images clean up nicely in Lightroom if you apply the Voigtlander 21mm f/4 Color Skopar lens profile. Nice. Now I am curious about what happens if you use the right profile in camera and apply the Voigtlander profile in Lightroom. Anyhoo. I am relieved. I really like this lens.

What lenses it replaced.

Nearly as small and slightly faster than the TTArtisans 28mm f/5.6 and as wide as the much faster 21mm f/1.5 it seemed the perfect compromise between the two. At such a wide focal length I found that the TTArtisans 21mm’s f/1.5 aperture was not really necessary for my purposes.

And lastly there is this. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of having matching brand lenses.

So. That was a lot of words. None of those words matter if the lens is not capable of a fine image. Having owned many Voigtlander lenses I was not worried about this at all. I ran a quick film and digital test at my usual test spot. Duke Gardens. Will also share other pics from the day on digital.

Film (Fujifilm 400 developed w/ Cinestill CS41)

Digital

Thoughts.

Well first of all this lens surprised me. I expected it to be good, but it was far better than that. It rendered scenes in a way that looked better than what I saw with my eyes. Here I will try to bullet-ify why:

The colors are amazing.
Sharpness far beyond what I expected, even wide open.
Shadows and highlights are well behaved.

All while:

Being easy to focus.
Even easier to zone focus.
- For many digital pics out in the world all I did was leave the lens at f/4 and move the infinity marker to f/4. That was it. Nearly everything in focus. It reminds me why manual focus is nearly unnecessary with lenses this wide unless your subject is close.
Even at this wide of a focal length and humble aperture it manages a bit of blur for close subjects.
Being beyond reasonably priced.

That last bullet. I think we all get sucked into a “You get what you pay for.” mindset when it comes to camera gear. As a result often times when I see a reasonably priced lens my first thought is not, “Oh boy! A bargain!”, but “What is wrong with it?”. This is a “What a bargain.” lens for sure. Other than a bit of flare I see no reason to look elsewhere if you want a strong performing, compact M mount lens.

Do I have any worries calling it after one day? Not really. I have owned enough Voigtlander lenses to know that there are no “gotchas” hiding around the corner.

Even at its as new price this lens is a fantastic deal. Even better used.

Well done Voigtlander.