Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5

Cosina Voigtländer · LTM · 2002 · 7 elements in 5 groups

Also known as: Voigtländer Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 · Voigtlander Color Skopar 28mm f3.5 · Cosina Voigtländer 28mm f/3.5 Skopar · Voigtlander 28/3.5 Skopar · Voigtlander 28mm 3.5 LTM · フォクトレンダー カラースコパー 28mm F3.5 · カラースコパー 28mm F3.5 L · L39 · LTM

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Leica screw mount (2002) LTM 2002–2007 — —
  1. Formula, aperture range, blades, minimum focus, coupling range, dimensions, weight, filter size, finishes, yen prices and the on-sale and discontinuation months come from Cosina's discontinued-product page. CameraQuest, the source of the LTM era's US prices, sits behind a Cloudflare challenge and the Internet Archive was unreachable, so no US price is given.
  2. The same seven-element optics were sold as the SC-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 for the Nikon S and Contax rangefinder mounts (2003), a separate family in this catalog whose page describes it as otherwise identical to the Leica-screw lens.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Ten aperture blades, f/3.5 to f/22, 75° angle of view, 39mm filter thread under a screw-off hood

Leica screw mount (2002):

  • 39mm Leica screw thread, rangefinder-coupled from infinity to 0.7m — the SC-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 of 2003, its Nikon S / Contax twin, has no helicoid of its own
  • Silver, or black paint at ¥3,000 more¹
  • Brass barrel, 163g, 25.8mm long with the hood fitted, φ49.6mm¹
  • Focusing by a protruding lever rather than a scalloped tab

Specifications

Formula
7 elements in 5 groups
Construction
7 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
0.7 m
Dimensions
49.6 × 25.8 mm
Weight
163 g
Filter
39 mm
Years manufactured
2002–2007
Country
Japan
Material
Brass barrel
Original price
¥45,000 excl. tax in silver, ¥48,000 in black paint (2002) (today ¥51,000–¥54,000)

What reviewers say

Optical formula — 7 elements in 5 groups

History

Cosina already had a 28 in Leica screw mount when this one arrived: the 28mm f/1.9 Ultron Aspherical of April 2001, fast, heavy and 63mm long. The Color-Skopar 28mm F3.5 of May 2002 was its opposite number, and Cosina said as much on its product page — a lens that deliberately asks for no more speed than it needs in exchange for thorough compactness and high image quality. Seven elements in five groups, ten blades, f/3.5 to f/22, coupled to the rangefinder from infinity down to 0.7m, a 39mm filter thread under a screw-off hood, all of it in a brass barrel 49.6mm across and 25.8mm long with the hood on, weighing 163 grams. It came in silver at ¥45,000 excluding tax and black paint at ¥48,000, and was discontinued in April 2007, near the end of Cosina’s screw-mount line. There was never an M-mount version under this name: the same optics went to the Nikon S and Contax rangefinder mounts in 2003 as the SC-Skopar 28mm f/3.5, coupled but without a helicoid of its own, and that lens has its own page.

It is a lens people keep. Hamish Gill, who owned the f/1.9 for a decade and hardly used it, found this one saw far more service and called it without doubt a high-contrast optic — rich colour, a three-dimensional look, minimal distortion, excellent flare resistance with the hood, and depth of field broad enough for landscapes at wider apertures than a Biogon allows. His complaints are physical as much as optical: it vignettes when open, the corners of an M9 colour-shift, and it is so light that an M body tilts on a neck strap. KJ Vogelius calls it exceptionally compact and very well made, less harsh and clinical than higher-spec lenses, and forgiving to zone-focus, while wanting f/8 before the corners are crisp on full frame and preferring a concave tab to the protruding lever. Jakub Jira, shooting one on an M6 through an adapter, says it makes the camera almost pocketable with perfect optical quality, and that the brass makes it surprisingly heavy in the hand for its size. Nobody argues about what it does; the only thing to disagree over is whether f/3.5 is enough.

Buying one means buying a screw-mount lens. On a Leica M or a Bessa R2/R3/R4 it needs the 28/90 screw-to-bayonet adapter, which brings up the 28mm frame on the bodies that have one; on a Bessa R, a Bessa T or a Barnack Leica it goes straight on, and all three want a 28mm finder in the shoe, since none has a 28 frame. Check that the hood is present — the filter thread is under it — and be aware that the black-paint lenses show wear at the edges the way black paint does. The SC-Skopar version is the trap: same name in the engraving apart from the SC, same optics, but no helicoid and a three-claw bayonet that fits nothing here.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5
Bus stop in Kyoto — Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 (Sergiy Galyonkin) — Sergiy Galyonkin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5
Kennin-ji sanmon, Kyoto — Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 (Sergiy Galyonkin) — Sergiy Galyonkin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $530 across 13 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $470–$550). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 10 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Color-Skopar 21mm f/4 · Snapshot-Skopar / Color-Skopar 25mm f/4 · Color-Skopar 28mm f/2.8 Aspherical · Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 · Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 · Nokton Vintage Line 28mm f/1.5 Aspherical · SC-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 · Ultron 28mm f/1.9 Aspherical · Ultron 28mm f/2

Sources (5)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.