Search the Community

What are your cravings, needs, wishes and desires regarding M lenses that do not exist yet? 21mm Summicron? Perhaps a 24mm Summicron? A brand new and Karbe - updated 75mm f1.4 Summilux? A new line of affordable budget M lenses? Some vintage revivals? Share your thoughts - within reason of course.

We already have a very extensive 'Mandler Magic' topic, but as much I am keen on Mandler's signature look and his contribution to the "Leica glow", there is another very distinguished gentleman in the 'House of Leica' that as a leader of Leica's optical design team since 2002 gave us a bunch of new high performance M-Lenses and pushed the terms FLE, ASPH and APO towards modern Leica perfection. He was the guy that had the balls to say Dr. Mandler's 75mm Summilux 1.4 was his *least* favorite design and went on to "Make Summilux great again" - all the way down to 21mm. Show us some of the "clinical look" of the Peter Karbe magic and do tell what lens he designed is your favorite...

Here's a question for M camera photographers (film or digital): If you were to choose to work with just one M lens, which would you choose and why? Which focal length? Which maximum aperture? Is the one camera, one lens approach a valid approach or is it an unnecessary limitation? Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! 😉

I just watched this video by Tony Northrup about full frame vs smaller lenses. He makes some good points about the larger lenses collecting more light due to 'basic physics' But this also has me wondering about M series lenses which traditionally have very good quality ratings despite their small size - where is the trade off? I feel like I am missing something in the way that lens size applies to a rangefinder?

Here's a new video that will help create M lens GAS (as if any of us need help in that area). The Art of the Leica M Lens with Peter Karbe https://vimeo.com/392151658

M lenses: How often do they need a CLA or overhaul? I Google searched that question and could find no definitive answer. I have searched this forum and found no answer, definitive or otherwise. Some M users say an M camera should be overhauled once for every ten years of average use (however you define average use) - more often for rampant shooters like photojournalists who may make 100,000 or more images in a year (yes, I know that precious few photojournalists work with M cameras these days). In thinking about this, it occurred to me that M cameras have significantly more moving parts and more total parts that can malfunction/break/wear out than M lenses do. So does the ten year suggestion apply to lenses, too? Or is "if it's not broken, don't try to fix it" the principle to apply to CLAs or overhauls for lenses?

Apart from the $300 Leica service, one way to get lenses coded is to replace the flange, or send it away for coding to a third party. This led me to do some research on flanges. There is a Chinese vendor offering what I call Type I flanges, and also Type II ones. Here is what I found out. Note that:- All measurements in degrees clockwise from the centre of the key as viewed looking at the rear of the lens. Measurement are approximate and have been rounded to what appears to be the nearest whole number. All flanges come in three variations for 28/90, 50/75, or 24/35 viwefinder frame lines. 6-bit code start 115 finish 142 Type I flanges These appear to be on all digital era lenses as the screws don't invade the code area. Six screws at 40 80 160 210 275 340 Type II flanges Examples I have seen include Product Year 11815 1982 Summilux 75mm f/1.4 11800 1973 Tele-Elmarit 90mm f/2.8 11134 1991 Elmarit 21mm f/2.8 Six screws at 60 72 36 72 72 36 Note that the second screw sits right in the 6-bit code area and looks like a "1" to the sensor. Thus uncoded lens with type II flange looks to have code 000100. Which is great if it is the 90mm above, but a problem elsewhere. Type III flanges I have only seen one. Product Year 11817 1968 Summicron II 50mm f/2.0 Five screws at 45 135 225 270 315 Again, the second screw sits right in the 6-bit code area and looks like a "1" to the sensor. Worse though, if that screw is omitted, there will be a full 180 degrees without one. I'm not sure if the flange would stay flat and square under such circumstances. Type O flanges I call them this as they have no screws at all in the face of the flange This makes it difficult to remove. I think all the early lenses were made like this Examples are Product Year 11631 1955 Elmar 90mm f/4.0 11870 1967 Summilux 35mm f/1.4 - (this has screws around the edge of the flange) 11118 1953 Summicron (I) 50mm f/2.0 11850 1961 Elmar 135mm f/4.0 16464 OTZFO M-mount for Visoflex lens heads also the Voigtlander 12mm Ultra-Wide Heliar (are all Voigt. flanges screw-free?) I hope this helps.