Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SLII Review
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 18:39 
For the last year I've been searching for a <24mm prime. I did have some requirements for this new lens;
- It should be flare resistant.
I hate flares on my wide-angle lenses (my Nikon 17-55mm, and Sigma 10-20mm) - It should be small (as small as possible).
Not a 'look-at-my-camera-with-this-huge-lens' lens. - FX compatible (future-proof)
After much deliberation I bought the Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II @ Robert White (direct link) in the UK (also available for Canon and Pentax mounts).
;)
Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 SLII + (optional) Lenshood This lens has little no flare 'capabilities', and it's much smaller than the Nikon or Sigma counterparts. Mainly because the Voigtlander is a manual focus (MF) lens. Having no auto-focus (AF) isn't that much a problem since it's a wide-angle lens. Just focus on infinity and everything from 1.5m and further away is in focus.
Look-and-Feel
;)
Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SLIIThe lens is small and mainly made of metal, and it's much heavier than it looks. The focusring has a rubbery feel, which feels excellent. The lens feels so solid you might actually wanna run over it with a tank (on your own risk off course).
Mounting the lens on my D300 was weird. Most lenses I have mount (and unmount) smoothly without any problems. The Voigtlander takes a bit more effort. Nothing to worry about though. It just sits really tight on your camera.
The optional lenshood really is optional. I bought it, but haven't really used it.
Size
The lens is small, almost pancake size (no idea what the maximum dimensions for a pancake are though). So it looks kinda funny on a D300. You'll certainly attract some attention. And it's small enough to put it in your pants (is that a Voigtlander in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?)
Usage
;)
Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SLII with the optional lenshoodThe new SLII Voigtlander lenses all have manual focus, but the light metering works like a charm on my Nikon D300. The only thing you have to remember is that these Voigtlanders have the tendency to over-exposed by 0.7EV to 1EV. You just have to compensate this on the camera. This is the only problem I could find with this lens.
Using the focusring is an absolute dream. The dampening of the ring is nothing short of excellent. It's not like the Nikon AF-D prime lenses, on which the focusrings are a bit loose/wobbly.
Not that this is a bad thing, since they're autofocus lenses, so you probably won't use MF that often...
Flare Resistance
My main reason for getting this lens (and not the similar priced Nikon 20mm f/2.8 AF-D) was the flare resistance. I have two other lenses with a 20mm capability (the Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 and a Sigma 10-20mm), but both lenses tend to flare (even with no filters attached). Especially when you have the sun in front of you. If I want flares in my photos I'll use Photoshop to add them to the scene.
With this lens you can shoot with the sun in the frame, and not find any flare what-so-ever. This makes me wanna get more of these MF lenses....
Sample Images
Feel free to download the images and review them. Do not modify or redistribute them in any form without my explicit permission. All rights are reserved.
All the EXIF information is available in the photos.
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Sample #1 Small JPEG (~281kB) |
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Sample #2 Small JPEG (~304kB) |
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Sample #3 Small JPEG (~216kB) |
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Sample #4 Small JPEG (~242kB) |
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Sample #5 Small JPEG (~227kB) |
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Sample #6 Small JPEG (~203kB) |
More Voigtlander photos can be viewed on my Flickr page.
Willem
Due to a shift from Nikon only to Nikon and a leica camera I sold several of my prime and zoom lenses. The Voigtlander 20mm was one of the lenses that were sold, so if you have any questions regarding this lens, chances are that I might not be able to help you.
20mm, Color Skopar, cosina, samples, voigtlander in Gear, Photography, Review
Reader Comments (4)
very usefull review ,thanx.L
Thank you for your review, and especially for posting your sample pictures. These were crucial for me and I just got the lens! I'm amazed by this lens, it's my first all-metal and it looks like a jewel. It's so nice to handle the focus ring :)
However it seems I have a problem. I still haven't downloaded the pictures I've been taking to my PC but it looks from the camera LCD that the lens can't focus on infinity. I used Live View and tried to focus on a distant building and I think that the infinity position on the lens is too short. I'll try to do the same tonight and try to focus on the moon.
Maybe I have a bad copy?
Thank you for review and sharing samples!
wonder how frequently you experienced CA problem with this lens? as from sample photographs I've got feeling that this lens is prone to chromatic aberrations.
Hi Denis,
Sure, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in post. Even my Leica Summilux 50mm shows chromatic ca under the right/wrong circumstances (which is 8 times more expensive).