Voigtländer 21mm f/3.5 Color Skopar - Stefan Czurda

July 23, 2022 Stefan Czurda

21 mm is a very versatile wide angle focal length that I usually really enjoy shooting.

For me, 21 mm are neither too wide, nor creating a too distorted look and can be used as a flexible tool for my land- and cityscape photography.

The Voigtländer 21mm F3.5 Color Skopar, kindly provided by Jo Geier, is the protagonist of this review and was mounted to my Sony Alpha 7C full frame camera for over a month.

The compact lens combined with the compact full-frame camera was my companion on various spring trips, mostly in the city of Vienna, but also to the beautiful old town of Steyr in Upper Austria.

Here, I would like to summarize the build and optical qualities of the Voigtländer 21mm F3.5 Color Skopar, underlined with sample images from this interesting lens.

Lens Properties and Built quality

The lens comprises 9 lenses in 8 groups and includes an aspherical element as well as an abnormal partial despertion lens for the reduction of chromatic aberration, which we will examine a bit later.

With only 230 g, the manual lens is very compact and fits perfectly and well balanced on my Sony Alpha 7 C.

Both, camera and lens constitute a handy and lightweight all day gear for city and outdoor trips.

A small lens hood, made of metal is provided by the manufacturer and does its job pretty well.

The aperture ring clicks snappy and the focus ring shows good haptics with a nice dampened resistance for a comfortable manual focusing experience.

So overall, the built quality has very high standards, as we like and appreciate it from Voigtländer.

Lens Sharpness

With a largest aperture of f/3.5 the 21 mm Color Skopar is not a particularly fast lens.

However, image quality wide open is pretty decent and the lens shows very good sharpness in the center.

Critical corner regions appear a little softer at f/3.5, but are generally fine and totally usable at this aperture.

Stopped down to f/4-5.6, sharpness further increases, both in the center and in the corners, and remains exceptionally good until f/11, when refraction comes into play.

Wide open at f/3.5

Center sharpness at f/3.5

Corner sharpness at f/3.5

Color Rendering, Contrast and Bokeh

Color Rendering is appealing in this lens, although I still think that Sony generally does not have the best color science compared to other manufacturers.

On my Sony Alpha 7C, the 21 mm Color Skopar does not oversaturate colors and shows a good amount of contrast, as we know from other Voigtländer lenses.

A 21 mm wide angle lens with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 is not the best tool for foreground-background separation, however, if close enough on your main subject, blurry background are still possible.

On the following pictures, near and far distance bokeh rendering is shown.

The far bokeh is not bad at all, but at the close bokeh appears a bit nervous and is definitely not a strength of the lens.

Vignetting and Distortion

Wide open at f/3.5, the 21 mm Color Skopar show moderate vignetting, however, corner shading is improved when stopped down to f/5.6 and only very slightly noticeable at f/8.

The lens also has very low little barrel distortion, which can be easily correct in Lightroom.

Distortion uncorrected

Distortion corrected

Chromatic Aberration and Backlight

The lens is well corrected in terms of chromatic aberration.

Even in very critical light situations, I couldn't see any dramatic purple fringing.

Also, the 21 mm Color Skopar shows very good behavior in backlight situation.

I hardly noticed any flaring in almost any light condition I have tested.

Further, the lens does display the well known „Voigtländer sunstars“ that start to appear slight stopped down at f/5.6.

Conclusion

Overall, the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 21mm f/3.5 is a high quality lens.

Wide open sharpness is good in the center and stopped down a bit, also corner regions start to improve.

Contrast and color representation is beautifully neutral and also bokeh rendering is fine, just the far bokeh appears a bit busy.

Chromatic aberration and lens flares are very well corrected and the lens also shows the typical „Voigtländer sunstars“ that we all love.

In a nutshell, it is a slow but very compact lens and a good everyday tool on a mirrorless camera where less light is required, such as landscape and cityscape photography.