The significance of 'Color' in CV lens names

J J Kapsberger

J J Kapsberger

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Is CV simply borrowing names from the past or does the word color in the lens names point to the fact that somehow the CV lens has been optimized for color work?
 
From what I remember reading years ago around the internet when I was on a small Voigtlander collection kick (Vito CL, Vito IIa, amongst others...), there was a time when the marketing of such cameras and their lenses was to emphasize how well the lenses were "corrected" or gave the best color renditions (coatings), as opposed to B&W which was all the rage before that. Thus the Color-Skopar in particular. In the end though I think the Skopar is pretty much a Tessar clone with the Color-Skopar having the newest coating of the day which gave better contrast and a bit more saturation. The name is just used today because the have the rights to it and it's associated with Voigtlander too. Let it be said though that I"m paraphrasing from things I'd read years ago, perhaps 8-10 or so years back.
 
Agree with Rich (815 not C). It is a reminiscence to the beginnings of color film. The first Color-Skopars became this name because of the (then) new lens coatings. Today it's a registered trademark.
 
I must say these lenses do seem to have a way to bring out some really rich colors. Especially some wonderful deep blue skys from my 25/4.
 
I bought a little CLR Vito a while ago and was always impressed at the lens when using colour film. The first roll I put through it was cheap Fuji Superia Extra and I was amazed at the results for a twenty dollar camera! Someone had mentioned to me that the Color Skopar lens on those cameras was pretty darned good and I can't dissagree!

IMG_0016.jpg
 
The Color Skopar replaced the now rare Black and White Skopar, which, while good, was only useable on subjects that were either black or white. Today that lens is much sought after by collectors and TV news writers.
 
gb hill said:
I must say these lenses do seem to have a way to bring out some really rich colors. Especially some wonderful deep blue skys from my 25/4.
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I agree. I've known that the lens names were most likely carried-over from a bygone time, and maybe it's psychological, but I can't help but notice the lenses always seem to have a little more color "pop."

:)
 
I have a Vito B with the Color-Skopar and as strange as it may sound find it to be one of the very best lenses for color slide film (I shoot b&w slide also). It dos not have too much contrast as most of the better Asian theatre lenses and seems better than the European formulas I have shot with and this includes Leica and the Minox 35mm lenses as well as Zeiss and othe Voightlandr. I find it very competitive with the Leica Summicron-C, one of the better Leica designs IMHO and the very sharp Minox ML lens on my particular ML that rivals Leica as it should considering the source of the glass and Minox's ability work with small are glass.

The B is a fine camera but, overlaps other I have but, it will never go anywhere just because of this lens, it is that good. Guess, every so often science coupled with art hits a grand slam home run.
 
Modern lenses with the name "Color" in them are likely to be rehashes of old, slow, relatively simple lenses that are inherently easy to re-design. Even with modern coatings, fewer groups often means more contrast. The names, I think, are just homages.

Cheers,

R.
 
It's in the coatings. Multicoating is better for bringing out more vivid colors, since it allows more light through than single coating. Multicoating tends to make for more contrasty images, which isn't necessarily better for black and white film. Single coated lenses tend to provide somewhat more muted colors than multicoated, and the lower contrast brings out more subtle gradations with black and white. Cosina brought out a single coated version of the 40/1.4 precisely for this reason -- though I haven't seen pictures doing a direct comparison of the single coated and MC version of this lens.
 
Villanova said:
Isn't a lens just a lens? How could one be better for color than black & white?
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... quite easily, I use different lenses for colour and monochrome ... oddly f2.5 35 and 50mm Colour-Skopars for colour and a f2.8 Summaron and Rigid Summicron for monochrome
 
When I was a kid my father gave me a Vito II and, comparing it the technology I was most familiar with at that time—televisions, I asked him if it was a color or a black and white camera, which got quite a chuckle out of the old man. Now it looks as if I was onto something after all.
 
This is from memory: the Tessar was invented in 1902 by Rudolph working for Zeiss. It was a favoured lens for about 50 years, in particular in the days before anti-reflection coatings, because the number of air-glass surfaces was minimised so the lens had good contrast. The design was improved over the years, in particular the maximum aperture was increased from f3.5 to f2.8. In 1949 Tronnier working for Voigtlander patented a version with 'quasi-APO performance', in other words the performance was perfectly corrected at 3 wavelengths. This of course made the lens particularly well suited for colour film. This was the 'Color Skopar'. The modern CV lenses just use the old Voigtlander names.

The Color Skopar on the Vito B is indeed a fantastic lens. I have two Vito B's (one with an f2.8 lens and the other with an f3.5 lens) and I really can't fault them.
 
I think a lens that produces good black and white images must be one that renders and differentiates (sp?) colors well.
 
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