Leica M (Typ 240): Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 versus Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4.0

Archive

Note: At the end of 2016, I decided to sell or give away my Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4.0 Pancake lens in favor of the Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. lens in order to have less trouble and work with color shading. I gave it away in mid-January 2017 and finally sold it in November 2020. I am therefore no longer able to update this page or to answer questions about this lens.

On these pages you can find my first personal experiences with the lenses at the Leica M (Typ 240) and more. This page is devoted to the Leitz Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. and the Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 lenses, which have nearly the same focal length and are therefore compared here. I am going to sell the Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar because of the fairly strong color shading at the edges; otherwise it is a fine lens. As a replacement, I bought the Leitz Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. lens.

Introduction

After I had purchased the Zeiss Biogons 21mm and 35 mm, I found that there was still a gap that should be closed. At the Ricoh GXR, the 21 mm lens comes close to a classic 28 mm lens, while the 35 mm corresponds to a normal lens between 50 mm and 55 mm. Thus, I was looking for something in the range of a classic moderate wide angle lens of 35 mm. Since the 25 mm Zeiss lenses were beyond what I wanted to pay, and even the price of the Voigtländer 25 mm pancake lens appeared to much for me, I looked for a cheaper option and found it in the Minolta M-Rokkor 28mm f/2.8. But with its 42 mm equivalent focal length, it was actually a "short" normal lens. I therefore pursued this issue further and hit, more or less by accident, on the Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 Pancake lens, which received quite favorable reviews. Probably, I did not consider it in the past because it is a screw mount (M39) lens. But since I had bought already a screw mount lens (a Voigtländer Color Heliar 75mm f/2.5 lens), which worked well with an LTM adapter, just before, I no longer had any reservations as to buying a screw mount lens. So I purchased a used one via ebay in mid-June 2014.

On the Leica M (Typ 240), however, the Voigtländer Snapshot Skopar 25mm f/4 lens exhibited strong magenta color shading. Therefore, I decided to exchange it against a Leica 24 mm lens in December 2016 in order to have less trouble and work with color shading. I found a used Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. lens in the buy/sell section of the l-camera-forum, contacted the owner, and bought this lens, although it was more expensive than I am typically willing to spend. This lens has a maximum f-stop of 3.8 and is larger and heavier than the Snapshot-Skopar, which is a pancake lens.


		With LTM adapter

With LTM adapter	Screw mount (M39) visible	With LTM adapter



6-bit coding at the bayonet	6-bit coding at the bayonet	6-bit coding at the bayonet

Photos: Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 lens (top rows) and Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. lens (bottom rows)

Lens Hood


Lens hood separate	Lens hood separate	Screw mount visible, lens hood separate
		The Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. uses the rectangular lens hood 12465, which has a rubber hood cap.

Body with Lens Attached

Photos: Leica M (Typ 240) with Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 lens and with Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Some Technical Data

	Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4	Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.
Model number	n.a.	11648
Focal length	25 mm	24 (24.5) mm
Angle of view (35mm film)	82° diagonal	84° diagonal
Maximum aperture	4	3.8
f-stop range	4-22	3.8-16
Number of iris blades	10	9 (not specified by Leica)
Number of lenses/groups	5/7	8/6
Shortest distance	0.7 m	0.7 m
Weight	90 g	260 g / 239 g (own measuremt.)
Length	29.5 mm	56.6 mm / 40.6 mm
Maximum diameter	49.5 mm	53 mm
Filter thread	unknown	46 mm (E46)
Lens hood	separate, screw-mount	12465 (rectangular)
Mount	M39	M-bayonet
Smallest object field / magnification	n.a.	922 mm x 615 mm / 1:25.6 (Leica)

DOF Tables

Depth of field table for the Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 lens:

	f/4.0	f/5.6	f/8.0	f/11	f/16	f/22
0.7m	0.62-0.80	0.60-0.85	0.57-0.,93	0.52-1.07	0.48-1.39	0.42-2.40
1.0m	0.,85-1.23	0.80-1.35	0.74-1.58	0.67-2.08	0.,59-3.88	0.50-∞
1.5m	1.17-2.11	1.08-2.50	0.97-3.48	0.84-7.84	0.72-∞	0.59-∞
3.0m	1.89-7.46	1.66-17.54	1.40-∞	1.15-∞	0.92-∞	0.72-∞
∞	4.93-∞	3.58-∞	2.54-∞	1.81-∞	1.29-∞	0.93-∞

Simplified depth of field table for the Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. lens:

Distance (m) V	Aperture
Distance (m) V	3.8	5.6	8	11	16
0.7	0.62-0.80	0.59-0.86	0.56-0.96	0.52-1.19	0.47-1.56
0.8	0.60-0.94	0.66-1.02	0.62-1.17	0.57-1.42	0.50-2.24
1	0.84-1.23	0.79-1.39	0.72-1.68	0.65-2.28	0.57-5.78
1.2	0.98-1.56	0.90-1.83	0.81-2.37	0.73-3.82	0.62-∞
1.5	1.16-2.13	1.05-2.67	0.94-4.05	0.82-11.77	0.69-∞
2	1.44-3.34	1.27-4.93	1.10-13.73	0.95-∞	0.77-∞
3	1.88-7.73	1.60-32.20	1.34-∞	1.11-∞	0.87-∞
5	2.48-∞	2.01-∞	1.61-∞	1.29-∞	0.98-∞
∞	4.84-∞	3.30-∞	2.32-∞	1.70-∞	1.19-∞

Sample Images

For the Voigtänder Snapshot-Skopar, lens selection was set to "Off" (and thus, no color shade correction), for the Elmar-M, it was set to "Automatic", and the lens was correctly selected.

Closest Distance


Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Similar Places, Different Times

The following photos were taken independently and many months apart. They are just variations of the usual test photos that I took will all of my M-mount lenses.


Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH.

One More Example...


Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 (1)		Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH. (3)
		1) Corrected with Cornerfix, post-processed and sharpened 2) Corrected with Cornerfix, neither post-processing nor sharpening 3) Unprocessed
Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 (2)

For the photo above, however, the difference in sharpness between the two lenses seems already to be evident at lower magnifications. Moreover, colors are also quite different, but the photos above were taken at different times of the same day. Especially in the afternoon (Leica), the lighting was very "special". I checked other photos, and the different in sharpness was not as evident...

Conclusions

Disclaimer: I am not a lens expert who sees marked differences between various Leica and/or other lenses. I can check for soft corners, find differences in color rendition, and, in rare cases, may discover a "3D look", but that's all. Please regard therefore my conclusions as the verdict of a "layman".

Overall, this page is not intended as a comparison page for both lenses. I just show how the lenses look and how they look at the Leica M (Typ 240), present their technical data, and last, but not least present untouched photos taken with both lenses, which show more or less the same motifs. So feel free to download the original photos to make up your own mind.

Here are a few of my obervations: All in all, the Leica Elmar-M photos photos may look sharper (I checked this only for some photos), but you can sharpen the Voigtländer Snapshot-Skopar photos to get a similar effect. Moreover, Voigtländer photos look cooler than the Leica ones - which ones are correct, I cannot tell in hindsight. But these differences can be compensated for in post-processing (and even more so by using DNG). Personally, I prefer the warmer "Leica look"...