Voigtländer Celebrates 100 Years of Legendary Skopar Series Lenses

News
Jeremy Gray

A silver Voigtländer Color-Skopar camera lens with a matching lens cap sits on a dark, reflective surface.

Cosina Voigtländer is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Voigtländer’s “Skopar” series lenses with a commemorative model, the Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 100th Model.

The new anniversary edition lens is based on the long-selling Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 P II and features a vintage-inspired style. The “elegant silver” lens ships with a matching slotted metal lens hood and has a special three-piece aluminum rear lens cap.

The referenced Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 P II lens has been available since March 2004 and remains on sale today for $479.

A Voigtländer camera lens with a vented metal hood, viewed from directly above against a dark gray background.
The new lens ships with a matching metal lens hood that Cosina says doesn’t create any vignette.

Despite being based on an existing lens, the 100th Model version has a newly designed lens barrel built for even more portability. The 35mm f/2.5 VM-mount lens is just 23 millimeters (0.9 inches) long. It weighs 134 grams (4.7 ounces) and accepts narrow 39mm front filters.

A silver Voigtländer 35mm camera lens with a metal hood stands upright against a dark background.
Since its proportions are so typical, the Cosina Voigtländer Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 100th Model may not look especially compact here, but the lens itself, without the hood and rear lens cap attached, is less than an inch long.

Cosina promises “excellent operability. The manual focus lens has a focusing tab “shaped to fit” the photographer’s finger, a precisely machined metal helicoid unit, and a high-precision rangefinder coupling mechanism. The lens can focus as close as 0.7 meters (2.3 feet), like many other rangefinder-coupled lenses.

Inside, the lens features seven elements arranged in five groups, including one abnormal partial dispersion lens element. The lens has a 10-bladed aperture diaphragm.

Although the VM-mount lens was designed natively for rangefinder cameras, the new Voigtländer 35mm f/2.5 Skopar 100th Model adapts easily to other full-frame cameras, including modern mirrorless models. For example, Voigtländer makes a VM-E Close Focus Adapter II for E-mount that not only shortens an adapted lens’s close focusing distance but also adds very little length to the attached lens.

Sample Photos

A view through a large window overlooking a dense city skyline under a cloudy sky, with a wooden table in the foreground.
15
Photo by Shumpei Ohsugi

Pricing and Availability

The new Cosina Voigtländer Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 — Skopar 100th Model will launch in November with a suggested retail price of 75,000 yen ($475 at current exchange rates). There’s no word yet on official global pricing.

Image creditsCosina Voigtländer. Real-world sample photos by Shumpei Ohsugi.

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