Updated March 2025

Introduction

One of the first M lenses I ever owned was the Voigtlander Color-Skopar 21mm f/4. I used it with my Leica M2 and loved it for its pancake size, good image quality, and low price. Unfortunately, that lens doesn’t play well with digital sensors due to the rear element being very close to the sensor. Once I bought my first digital Leica, it made little sense to keep the 21/4 and I swapped it out for the Voigtlander 21/1.8.

Then in 2018, Voigtlander announced the Color-Skopar 21mm f/3.5: essentially a newer, somewhat pricier version of the 21/4 designed to work well with digital M cameras. I excitedly bought one to have a smaller and lighter alternative to my 21/1.8.

About this lens

This lens is sold in three versions:
•Type I (black and silver, aluminum, with a focus stick)
•Type II (black, brass, with focus tab)
•Type II (silver, brass, with focus tab)

The version I bought was the type I, since the type II wasn’t released until years later, but if I bought this lens again I would get the type II for its focus tab and simpler appearance.

Build quality & Mechanics

Fantastic. All metal construction that is indistinguishable from Leica. Focus and aperture rings feel perfect. The only tiny note I can make is that although the optional metal hood feels very solid, the bayonet attachment has a small amount of play. This isn’t quite as nice as Leica’s metal screw-on hoods, which feel rock solid.

Size and handling

Also great. It’s marginally bigger than the 21mm f/4, and significantly smaller than any of the other digital-compatible 21mm options. This is an ideal ultra-wide for travel.

Minimum focus distance

The 21/3.5 focuses down to 0.5m, in contrast to 0.7m for lenses such as the Leica 21mm f/3.4. The rangefinder on my M10 stops moving at ~0.6m, but it’s helpful to have the flexibility of focusing to 0.5m with liveview. It’s also nice to have for Leica selfies:

Image quality

Distortion: Minimal/none.

Vignetting: Vignetting is quite strong with the lens uncoded, so I recommend either selecting an in-camera profile or using a Lightroom preset to correct it.

Lateral chromatic aberration: There is significant blue/yellow color fringing towards the edges of the frame. Thankfully, Lightroom automatically corrects this before I even see it.

Sharpness: Sharp corner-to-corner at all apertures. Here’s how the corners look wide open:

Field curvature:
Although this lens is sharp corner-to-corner, it has a large amount of field curvature that can significantly degrade landscapes. The plane of focus curves significantly inward at the edges. This means that focused at infinity, the outer 50% of the frame will be significantly frontfocused. It’s enough to soften the picture unless the lens is stopped down to f/8. In the example picture below, I focused at infinity; notice how as you go towards the edge of the frame, the cemetery gets fuzzy, but the roof tiles (which are closer) are sharp until the very edge.

This is annoying at f/3.5, tolerable at f/5.6, and by f/8 you won’t even see this focus field curvature.

Below is a real world example of the field curvature. I intended to shoot this at f/8 but accidentally took it at f/3.5. It looks fine at a glance but looking closely, you can see that the edges are much fuzzier than the center due to field curvature:

Summary and recommendations

In one sentence, this lens is the fantastic Voigtlander 21mm f/4 modified so that it works well on digital, for a somewhat higher price. It has the same tiny size, but actually delivers clean, sharp images on digital, which the 21mm f/4 did not do for me. I love that I can use the lens uncoded and it just works. It is the ideal wide-angle M mount lens for travel.

Do I recommend it? Yes, with three exceptions. First, if you’re planning on doing lots of landscapes, you should probably save up the money and just get the Leica 21mm f/3.4, which is at least as sharp but without the focus curvature. Second, if you care less about size and weight, consider the Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8 (review) and the Voigtlander 21mm f/1.4 (review), which have great image quality and give you the option of shooting at really wide apertures. This can create a very unique rendering and also adds flexibility in low-light. Third, if you only need a lens for film and won’t ever switch to digital, the 21mm f/4 is just as good for a lot less cost.

Personally, I used my copy for about a year and ended up selling it because I started using a Leica Q a lot for my wide-angle needs. I plan on eventually buying another 21mm but I’ll likely choose the Voigtlander 21/1.8, since the f/1.8 aperture is worth the extra size and weight to me.

Good
Image quality
Size and feel
Build quality
Price

Bad
Significant focus curvature means f/8 is required for landscapes that are sharp edge-to-edge

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