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

Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5

Cosina Voigtländer · LTM · 2002 · Modified double Gauss, 7 elements in 6 groups

Also known as: Voigtländer Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 · Voigtlander COLOR-SKOPAR 50mm F2.5 · COLOR-SKOPAR 50mm F2.5 L · Voigtlander Color Skopar 50/2.5 LTM · Voigtlander 50mm f2.5 Color Skopar L39 · Voigtlander 50/2.5 Skopar M39 · Cosina Voigtlander Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 screw mount · フォクトレンダー カラースコパー 50mm F2.5 · COLOR-SKOPAR 50mm F2.5 Lマウント

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Leica screw mount (2002–2007), silver or black paint LTM 2002–2007 — —
  1. Release and discontinuation months, the yen prices, the 208g weight and the φ49.6 × 33.6mm dimensions (measured with the hood fitted) are Cosina's, from the company's own discontinued-products page. KJ Vogelius weighed a sample at 201g.
  2. US prices are Stephen Gandy's (CameraQuest, the US importer): $289 on the 2004 lens page, $275 on the December 2003 list. Gandy's introduction date, late February 2002 with the Bessa R2, is a month or two ahead of Cosina's April 2002 発売.
  3. The same seven-element optics were built for the Nikon rangefinder as the S Skopar 50mm f/2.5 of 2003, with a 43mm filter, 0.9m close focus and 149g; that lens is catalogued separately as s-skopar-50mm-f25. The VM Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.2 of the 2020s is a different, later lens and not a version of this one.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Large focusing lever with a 90° throw — the tab is the lens's signature and the first thing reviewers mention
  • 39mm filter thread, shared with the 21/4, 25/4, 28/3.5, 35/2.5 C, 35/1.7 and 90/3.5 of the same line
  • Ten aperture blades, f/2.5 to f/22 in half-stop clicks; rangefinder coupled to 0.75m
  • Brass barrel, so it is dense for its size — heavier than the 149g Nikon-mount lens on the same optics

Leica screw mount (2002–2007), silver or black paint:

  • Engraved COLOR-SKOPAR 50mm F2.5 on the name ring, with a 39mm × 26tpi screw thread — never made in M bayonet
  • Silver chrome (¥45,000) or black paint (¥48,000) over a brass barrel; both 208g
  • Round screw-in hood supplied; the optional square LH-2 hood is shared with the 35mm f/2.5 C

Specifications

Formula
Modified double Gauss, 7 elements in 6 groups
Construction
7 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/2.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
0.75 m
Dimensions
49.6 × 33.6 mm
Weight
208 g
Filter
39 mm
Years manufactured
2002–2007
Country
Japan
Coating
Multi-coated
Material
Brass barrel
Original price
¥45,000 silver or ¥48,000 black paint, ex-tax, at the April 2002 Japanese release (today ¥51,000–¥54,000); $289 in the US, $275 by December 2003

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
Purple fringing digital
Distortion
Mild pincushion
Optical formula — Modified double Gauss, 7 elements in 6 groups

History

The Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 is the small, slow, tab-focused standard lens Cosina sold in Leica screw mount from 2002 to 2007 — the third of its three fifties in that mount, after the Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical of 1999 and the collapsible Heliar 50mm f/3.5 that came only in the Bessa-T 101 sets of 2001. Cosina’s page dates it to April 2002; Stephen Gandy, the US distributor, had it in late February 2002 alongside the Bessa R2, the first M-bayonet Bessa, and sold it at $289. It is seven elements in six groups, multi-coated, ten blades, f/2.5 to f/22, rangefinder coupled to 0.75m, with a 39mm filter thread it shares with most of the compact Voigtländer wides, a brass barrel that puts 208g into a lens only 33.6mm long with its hood on, and the large focusing lever that everyone who has used it talks about first. It came in silver chrome at ¥45,000 or black paint at ¥48,000, and in no other version: Cosina never made it in M bayonet, so every one on an M camera is wearing a screw-to-bayonet adapter, and the adapter decides which frame comes up. The Nikon rangefinder got the same optics in 2003 as the S Skopar 50mm f/2.5 — a lighter lens with a 43mm filter and 0.9m close focus that is catalogued on its own page — and the Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.2 that Cosina put into VM mount two decades later is a different lens under a similar name.

The verdicts are consistent because the lens is consistent. Hamish Gill, who bought one to be an invisible lens on a Leica M262 and his film bodies, found it a little soft at f/2.5 on the digital camera and wanting f/4 for a properly sharp frame, with purple fringing and softer edges, but on film it gave strong colour and enough contrast to put a fair whack of pop into the pictures, and the handling was what he had hoped for. KJ Vogelius’s account is the fuller one: resolution and micro-contrast slightly below the best of its class, uneven across the frame at distance, pincushion distortion that shows in architecture, some decentring on his sample and ray-angle trouble on non-Leica digital bodies — and, against all that, close-range work where everything comes together already wide open, a build he calls exceptionally solid because the brass makes it as dense as much larger aluminium lenses, and ergonomics he rates as perfect if a tab and a 90° throw suit the way you focus. He prefers handling it to the Summicron 50 and the ZM Sonnar he rates better optically, and his recommendation is for compact kits and thread-mount cameras. Richard Haw, testing the Nikon-mount twin on a Nikon S2, reaches the same place from the other direction: very sharp wide open with little to gain from stopping down, ghosts from bright bulbs, and bokeh that turns ugly against twigs. Roger Hicks, reviewing the 2006 Heliar 50mm f/2, used this lens as the benchmark for compactness: two-thirds of a stop slower, but standing only 27mm proud of the camera with the shade off.

Buying one is mostly a matter of not buying the wrong lens. The Leica-screw Color-Skopar is engraved COLOR-SKOPAR 50mm F2.5 and has a 39mm × 26tpi thread; a lens marked S SKOPAR on a three-claw Nikon bayonet is the S-mount version, and a lens marked F2.2 with a bayonet is the later VM lens. Silver and black paint are the same lens at the same 208g, so pay for finish only if finish matters. Check that the focus tab is present and tight, that the hood’s threads are clean — the round hood must come off to fit a filter, so they get handled — and, on any adapted M body, that the adapter brings up the 50mm frame. Five years in production and a normal retail run mean there is no shortage, and no production figure was ever published for it; Cosina lists only the start and end of production, and that is all any source has.

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 wanted — shot with a Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $500 across 4 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $15–$530). First day tracked.

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

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 28mm f/3.5 · Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 · Heliar 50mm f/2 (Heliar Classic) · Heliar 50mm f/3.5 · Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical · S Skopar 50mm f/2.5

Sources (8)

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.