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Voigtlander 21mm Skopar


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Crop of the above

 

I think that this is a better reflection of what the lens is capable of than my previous post. My lens is the screw fit version which needs an M fit adapter.

Edited by }{B
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Owned one for years but recently sold it.

 

Pros- cheap, small, interesting focal length, well built.

 

Cons- Incredibly inferior optically to any modern Leica lens.

 

Take it with a grain of salt. It's cheap as chips and gets you wide if you need it, but I never loved a photo I took with it so sold it despite liking the size. I ended up carrying it around all the time because it was easy to and almost never using it because its rendering is quite bland.

Edited by Alistairm
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I so badly wanted to love this lens because its compact dimensions to me are PERFECT for a Leica M. Plus I really like 21mm. After trying / buying / selling three separate copies of this lens and not being able to find one that had uniform sharpness (clear case of lens decentering as it was different on all three copies) I gave up. 

 

But I have seen that there are good copies out there, and if I had one I would be very excited and would use it often!

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Taken while inside the bullet train at F/4.8 (Hence it was shot through the window). The photo was also crop. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited by stephengv
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Great lens for street due to diminutive size and weight. Because of that, it sees more use than my 21/1.4 or WATE.

Bought it well before the SEM became available. In all fairness, I'd probably get the SEM if I had to buy a small 21mm today.

Here's a landscape taken a few years ago with the M9. Red edges (mostly) removed with FlatField in LR, but otherwise reasonably sharp and even across the frame.

 

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Another sample: 

 

Note that the "bluring" on the lower green plants was caused by wind due to long exposure. 

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Edited by stephengv
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I wanted to love this lens. Well, the right side of my photos is mostly purple. I haven't put any filters for a reason. Is this normal ? Thinking I should save the 400 and just return this thing

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm not surprised you are not entirely happy with it, it's a weak performer in many respects.  It's one of those lenses where every image you will see posted on the internet by people who try to sing it's praises will have been over-processed, usually with a bad sharpening technique, to try to hide it's faults.

 

With a digital Leica M, you have the added problems of odd colours, uneven focus and uneven tones that need to be constantly corrected.

 

Save up more money and get a 21mm SEM, because you won't be happy until you do.

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The colored edges are affected both by the lens coding selected, and by the ISO setting, since the corrections basically push the color channels needed to balance. Keep the ISO at base level for best correction.

My 21 Skopar is very usable on my M9, with a slight coloration at the edge I only notice if shooting grey/white walls. On film I see no issues at all.

The later M typ models are not as good (in color edges) as the M9 with this lens from what I hear, but the M10 was commented by Leica as being better with these problem lenses compared to earlier models.

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Recent test shots with M10. Sorry for the small file sizes.

Vignetting caused by a third party lens hood I'm testing.

No red flag - used 21/2.8 code (on M240 red/Italian flags made me want to hold up my white flag).

I for one am very happy with its sharpness. Never going to print larger than 12x18" for my type of landscape shots.

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Interesting thanks. No disturbing color shift nor smearing problems on my Kolari mod A7s either. Great little lens allowing to shoot at about 0.2m subject distance with the VME close focus adapter. Most of my closeups are shot at f/4 there and i don't feel the need to sharpen them in PP. My SEM 21/3.4 is sharper at f/4 but its 0.7m minimum focus distance is not short enough and it tends to smear corners on the A7s mod. Great lens on my M240 though.

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Interesting thanks. No disturbing color shift nor smearing problems on my Kolari mod A7s either. Great little lens allowing to shoot at about 0.2m subject distance with the VME close focus adapter. Most of my closeups are shot at f/4 there and i don't feel the need to sharpen them in PP. My SEM 21/3.4 is sharper at f/4 but its 0.7m minimum focus distance is not short enough and it tends to smear corners on the A7s mod. Great lens on my M240 though.

 

 

How does the SEM compare with the Color Skopar at apertures above F/4?

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If you mean on the M240, i can hardly tell a significant difference at f/5.6 and on as far as sharpness is concerned. The SEM has less color shift (red flag), less field curvature and is less prone to flare though. 

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If you mean on the M240, i can hardly tell a significant difference at f/5.6 and on as far as sharpness is concerned. The SEM has less color shift (red flag), less field curvature and is less prone to flare though. 

 

Yup on the M240. Thank you. I think the red shift can easily be fix via Flat field plug in. Thanks again

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I'm not surprised you are not entirely happy with it, it's a weak performer in many respects.  It's one of those lenses where every image you will see posted on the internet by people who try to sing it's praises will have been over-processed, usually with a bad sharpening technique, to try to hide it's faults.

 

With a digital Leica M, you have the added problems of odd colours, uneven focus and uneven tones that need to be constantly corrected.

 

Save up more money and get a 21mm SEM, because you won't be happy until you do.

 

 

I think that is what i am going to do. The reason i moved to Leica from Sony & Nikon crap (sorry fan boys) is the amount of tweaking required after you take the shot. I am getting to the point where I want to rely just on the JPEG's. Crazy but why not. How is the CV 21 1.8? or should i not even bother and just get the SEM 21. What if i wait another few months and get the 21 Lux? 

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M240 + CV 21/4 is not the best combo for jpeg shooters i'm afraid. Better choose a Leica lens with 6 bit coding. I have no experience with the 21/1.4 asph but the 21/3.4 asph is an excellent lens indeed. If you need more speed, the 21/2.8 asph (Elmarit # 11135) would be a good choice if you can get it with 6 bit coding. See the Leica brochure and technical data below.

LeicaM_2128a_broch.pdf

LeicaM_2128a_tech.pdf

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I want to rely just on the JPEG's. Crazy but why not. How is the CV 21 1.8? or should i not even bother and just get the SEM 21. What if i wait another few months and get the 21 Lux? 

Sounds like you should just get the 21SEM and be done for a long time. You will be very happy with straight jpgs on M240. Sharp, modern, fantastic. 21Lux only if you are ready for the weight on your shoulder and the lack of it on your wallet.

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