The Cheapest and Greatest 35mm Leica lens

[portocar]

I want to get an older 35mm Leica lens and was hoping to get everyone's input. I plan to use the lens for portraits.

I have seen some summaron's going for around $500.00. However, I don't know which is the best older, inexpensive 35mm leica lens. I'd like to know which older 35mm Leica lenses are great buys and which are not worth buying.

[andybarton]

If you can find a good Summaron f2.8, you will be very pleased with it.

[luigi bertolotti]

Summarons, in my opinion, are generally the best buy as price-performance-availabilty, and for price sensitiveness, better 3,5 than 2,8. You have not specified if you are searching for BM or SM lenses: I attach 2 examples (Summaron 35 BM and Elmar 35 SM COATED, very fine old style lens) I quickly found at leicashop of Wien site (it is a very serious and trustable dealer: www.leicashop.at) : both can give you an idea of good prices for a 35mm Leitz lens; of course, you can go more directly (and probably cheaper) with E-Bay, but personally I prefer much more to search at dealers : they put lot of attention in detailing the conditions of the items they sell.

[flatfour]

Uncoated 50mm Elmar. Faultless at F6.3 and pin sharp.

[andybarton]

Not very 35mm though, Tony

[gberger]

Well, he said that he wanted a lens to use for portraits. Given that, I's suggest a late (no fungus) 90 mm TE Thin.

[pierovitch]

The 35mm 2.8 summaron. I never used my 50mm summicron again after I found a goggled one for the M3.

[flatfour]

Andy - It depends what you mean by 35mm lens as against an MF lens..

[NZDavid]

35 2.8 Summaron is a fine performer and good value; goggles attachment certainly adds to weight and bulk. Depends what model you are using it with - if it's the M3, a separate finder may be worth considering.

[lct]

My greatest/cheapest 35mm Leica lens is a... 40mm lens the Summicron-C 40/2.
Smaller, faster and sharper than the Summaron 35/2.8 i own as well.
Same kind of fingerprint as the famous Summicron 35/2 IV.
Filed the flange of mine to bring up the 35mm framelines of my M cameras (pic below).
Beware that according to our colleague Howard Cornelsen on this list, some 40/2 don't focus well on some M bodies though.
Never had that sort of problem with any of my M bodies personally (M3, M4-2, M6J).
Howard did not own a 40/2 himself if i remember well but he was a Leica rep some time ago AFAIK.
My 3 copies of the 'cron 40/2 work fine with the Epson R-D1 and R-D1s as well.
The M-Rokkor 40/2 for Minolta CLE is even cheaper on the second hand market and is very close to the cron 40/2 BTW.

[telewatt]

I think he looks for a older Lens to get the atmosphare.. ...the older are sharp too, but not so contrasty...and with some flare problems...you can use for the style..

regards,
Jan

[leicapfile]

Concur w/LCT on the 40mm Summicron. Truly a wonderful bang for the buck in all ways. Think the word is getting out though. They used to be dirt cheap. Now they are just cheap.

Can't bring myself to file down for 35mm framing on my M7 0.85 though. It's close enough for government work as it is.

Jerry

[leitz_not_leica]

I've had the 35/3.5 and now have the 35/2.8 Summaron. The latter blows the former away.