Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL-II

[wickidwombat]

I'm really enjoying this little pancake
the electronic aperture control is awesome and AF confirm is quite snappy even though its a MF lens
and i love the 20mm focal length on full frame too
focus ring is super smooth and even i can see it being a really nice video lens too

 

[Drizzt321]

Re: Voigtlander 20mm f3.5 color-skopar SLII

Looks like a really nice lens, what I'm reading says it's pretty great optically, with great build quality. Wish it was a bit cheaper, but I might just put this on the list of "I'll get it eventually". Probably ahead of the 200L f/2, I'm gonna have the win the lotto or save up for years for that one.

 

[wickidwombat]

Re: Voigtlander 20mm f3.5 color-skopar SLII

i got a used one 2 weeks old for $450 the owner bought it and didnt like it so i got lucky !

 

[Snodge]

I got one of these a while back, mostly because I wanted something different to what everyone else is using. It's a little softer than the usual Tamron or Canon lenses I tend to use, and there's a lot of barrel distortion apparent if you have verticals close to you when you take a photo. It works quite nicely for night time photography though, 20mm is pretty decent on full frame.

Here's a sunset at the new Severn Bridge near Bristol in the UK taken with this lens:

 

[Snodge]

I decided to do an infrared test of this lens, so attached is a test image. In Lightroom, white balance has been adjusted, and exposure, and no other settings changed.

 

[eninja]

How do you focus this lens hand hold?

do you usually guess subject distance?

or

its possible to judge focus in view finder?

thanks

 

[Snodge]

At f/3.5 and focussing on a specific subject, I can use the viewfinder. There is also focus confirmation as well, but I don't tend to use it. For landscapes (f/8 and above) there are hyperfocal markings on the lens which I use to have from infinity to as close to me as possible in focus.

Hope that helps!

Perhaps it's worth also bearing in mind that manual focus is not a big deal - after all, auto focus is a relatively new thing in photography given the lengthy time photography has been around, and people managed fine up until it came along!

 

[Good24]

I'm very happy with this lens. I used to shoot a Vivitar 20mm on my Canon T60 about a hundred years ago and the distortion in the corners was extreme. Not so with the Voigtlander. I took it to Italy in 2015 and used it mostly for landscapes, mostly at f/8. But you'll see the first one below was actually at f/3.5. A great little lens. I use it on the 5D3. With focus confirmation light I was able to get sharp images even with a foreground subject. For landscapes I set it at f/8 and crank the focus to infinity, no problem. I was also lucky in that I have an old 52mm thread Canon circular polarizing filter that I have un-retired to use on this lens (see second image below).

f/3.5, 1/4s, ISO 1600:

The Pantheon on Flickr

f/8, 1/250, ISO 200:

Colosseum on Flickr

f/8, 1/250, ISO 400:

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on Flickr