Leica M mount 21mm for landscapes

38Deardorff said:

The VC color-skopar 21mm f4 also punches way above it's class

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I second this and concur strongly. I have the VC 21mm f/4 LTM Color-Skopar as well. Beyond it's great utility of being able to be used on both LTM and M bodies with an adapter ring, it is shockingly sharp and contrasty.

One does have to watch to ensure you get a clean copy. Some of the older Color-Skopars develop a haze that etches the inside of the glass and cannot be removed. Hence, it's best to buy one with full return/refund privileges and get it home for a flashlight test.

The other thing is you really want to get one with the matching lens hood. Buying it separately will cost you half again the cost of the lens. DAMHIKT.


I find myself crawling up to the subject more with this lens plugged into the camera:

[March 2025] Upward Mobility



Leica IIIf, 21mm f/4 LTM Color-Skopar, Fomapan 200, EMA in D-76 1+3, scan of silver print

CV 21mm f4 for me

Genoweffa said:

If 21mm is too wide for landscape then what FL is right according to you?

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@Timmyjoe has already basically summed this up, but I'll answer directly: I would rarely shoot wider than 35mm for most landscapes.

21mm and 28mm can work well in forests to help separate the jumble, but when I think of the word "landscape", I think rolling hills, wide vistas, valleys and peaks. 21mm can make things look isolated and empty, but 50mm and longer will "compress" the scene slightly and give a bit more context, depth, and interest. As such, if I'm going hiking, I'm usually carrying a 50mm and a 135mm.

It always depends a bit on what you're looking for, but as far as I'm concerned, a good 135mm lens is a very underrated part of a Leica kit.


(Taken with a 135mm Hektor somewhere in the Welsh valleys)

I think your landscapes with 50/135 should be called 'macro-landscapes'
I stick to my 15,18,21,28mm
Cheers
10-4

I think it depends on the situation and what you are trying to portray. Lots of photographers use wide angle lenses for landscapes. I also use telephotos for landscapes depending on the circumstances.

I use them mainly for seascapes. Here are some examples all shot wider than 21mm.

M4 Color Skopar 21mm

Landscapes do not easily fit into one definition. Wide angles can be very effective for landscapes because landscapes are not limited to long distance perspectives. You can be up against a forest or rolling tundra or area of fencing or a river, a gully, and yes, there can be other objects/subjects of interest such as wildlife, or sunset, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door...(sorry, T. Wolfe), or an interesting cloudscape in the frame, as exemplified in mrtomi's and others' images above. Ultrawides can also be a great option - 14 and 16 mm - for creativity. It depends on what you want to do. The Viltrox 16mm f1.8 lens is calling me for landscapes with my SL3. But that's another mount for another time...geez...😆.

The Zeiss 21mm f/4.5 ZM is fantastic. Sadly discontinued relatively early though.

Coldkennels said:

@Timmyjoe has already basically summed this up, but I'll answer directly: I would rarely shoot wider than 35mm for most landscapes.

21mm and 28mm can work well in forests to help separate the jumble, but when I think of the word "landscape", I think rolling hills, wide vistas, valleys and peaks. 21mm can make things look isolated and empty, but 50mm and longer will "compress" the scene slightly and give a bit more context, depth, and interest. As such, if I'm going hiking, I'm usually carrying a 50mm and a 135mm.

It always depends a bit on what you're looking for, but as far as I'm concerned, a good 135mm lens is a very underrated part of a Leica kit.

View attachment 4887117
(Taken with a 135mm Hektor somewhere in the Welsh valleys)

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I think it depends on what you want to include/exclude from your photo....and/or your distance from those elements. I prefer to be in the landscape rather than at a distance.......viewing it on the horizon. There are certain places where a telephoto lens is needed, others not so much.

das said:

The Zeiss 21mm f/4.5 ZM is fantastic. Sadly discontinued relatively early though.

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Biogon 21 2.8 is excellent

My 21/2.8 e60 is my worst M mount lens. My CV 21/3.5 is one of my true gems. Take from that what you will.

Film and digital M-mount cameras don't behave the same way with 21mm lenses. Problem with digital, besides M11 or MEV1, is color shift and/or softness at edges and corners on lenses like Super-Angulon 21/4 or 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8, Skopar 21/4 or Biogon 21/4.5. Less critical lenses such as Super-Elmar 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8 asph, Biogon 21/2.8 or Skopar 21/3.5 do better. No color shift issues on M11 or MEV1 though. Here Skopar 21/4 on M11.

mrtoml said:

I think it depends on the situation and what you are trying to portray. Lots of photographers use wide angle lenses for landscapes. I also use telephotos for landscapes depending on the circumstances.

I use them mainly for seascapes. Here are some examples all shot wider than 21mm.

View attachment 4887135

View attachment 4887136

View attachment 4887137

View attachment 4887138

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I love the tones in your B&W images👍

LCT said:

Film and digital M-mount cameras don't behave the same way with 21mm lenses. Problem with digital, besides M11 or MEV1, is color shift and/or softness at edges and corners on lenses like Super-Angulon 21/4 or 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8, Skopar 21/4 or Biogon 21/4.5. Less critical lenses such as Super-Elmar 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8 asph, Biogon 21/2.8 or Skopar 21/3.5 do better. No color shift issues on M11 or MEV1 though. Here Skopar 21/4 on M11.

View attachment 4887224

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Yes I read somewhere that the CV Skopar 21/4 wasn't good on a digital sensor and to get the 3.5 version which I now have but haven't had much time to test yet.

LCT said:

Film and digital M-mount cameras don't behave the same way with 21mm lenses. Problem with digital, besides M11 or MEV1, is color shift and/or softness at edges and corners on lenses like Super-Angulon 21/4 or 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8, Skopar 21/4 or Biogon 21/4.5. Less critical lenses such as Super-Elmar 21/3.4, Elmarit 21/2.8 asph, Biogon 21/2.8 or Skopar 21/3.5 do better. No color shift issues on M11 or MEV1 though. Here Skopar 21/4 on M11.
[ ... snip ...]

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A better statement is "Not all 21mm lens designs for Leica M-mount behave the same way on film and digital."

M-mount lenses have traditionally been designed for compactness and performance on film media, often with symmetrical optical designs. Film media is 100% insensitive to the angle of light striking the film surface, since the film surface is sensitive to light on a molecular basis. Digital imaging sensors are a tight array of very small, complex devices ... but nowhere near as small as the molecules of a film emulsion ... each encapsulated in a 'relatively' deep well and with a corrective lens at the top of the well. They respond best to light rays striking them within a few degrees of being orthogonal to the plane of the sensor surface. Because older designs of Leica M-mount wide angle lenses were designed to be compact, their rear elements extend deep into the camera's film cavity and the primary nodal point is very close to the film or sensor surface, such that the angle of light rays striking the film is well off the orthogonal (90°). That's the reason for the color shift, softness at corners/edges, etc for these older optical designs.* More modern optical designs, now being created for both film AND digital sensors, re-orient the light path such that the light rays striking the sensor are much closer to the ideal orthogonal angle, and thus show fewer color aberrations and softness.

The Voigtländer Color-Skopar 21mm f/4 and newer f/3.5 variant of same is one key example of a good older lens design originally designed for film being revised specifically to improve performance on a digital imaging sensor. There are many other such revisions.

*Note that this problem is less pronounced when working with lenses designed for SLR cameras, regardless of age, because clearance for the swinging mirror has usually forced lens designers to use more telecentric optical designs, like the "inverted telephoto" meme used in almost all SLR oriented wide angle lenses. This difference constitutes one of the reasons why the first wave of reasonably priced interchangeable lens digital cameras were mostly SLR bodies reconceived to house a digital sensor.

G