Great Old Performers (and M8)

[sean_reid]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

This is going to be a fun thread. For those who are wondering about hand-coding old lenses for the M8, I have two suggestions.

 

1) Snap up the old Leitz adapters when you can find them. Their lack of a cut-out means that they provide a good area for hand-coding.

 

2) In general, if lens A vignettes as much as, or more than, modern Leica lens B then A will likely benefit from being coded as B. Finding the best matches can take time but even a "not best" match will reduce vignetting and cyan drift/red vignetting.

 

I love old lenses.

 

BTW, we shouldn't rule out the possibility of Leica adding manual lens selection (via the menu) at some point <G>.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[scott kirkpatrick]

On hand-coding -- a comment and a question:

 

Any suggestions on how best to clean 30 years or more of grit and grease off the old adapter? (See picture of the back of my 19/3.5 higher up for an example.)

 

If you purchase a LTM to M adapter separately from the lens you plan to use it on, make sure that it brings up the frame lines consistent with the Leica lens you want to code it as. The firmware checks both the frame line setting and the coding before doing its thing. Ultra-wides seem to come up as 28mm, since when they were designed and mounted for use on the M4-7, there were no 24mm frame lines, and 28 was the widest. Since the Leica 21 and WATE (16-18-21 Tri-Elmar) also bring up the 28mm frame lines, and they vignette more than the 28s studied so far, there seem to be some interesting possibilities.

 

It's a mystery to me how the 24mm Elmarit would have behaved on the M7 when it brings up the 24/35 mm frame lines on the M8. Does anyone know?

 

scott

[davidmires]

 

Any suggestions on how best to clean 30 years or more of grit and grease off the old adapter?

 

Scott,

Find a bicycle shop, or jeweler, with an ultrasonic parts cleaner. Your adapter will come out looking like new.

Cheers, David.

[scho]

Jono

 

I just rec'd my CV 21 mm Skopar. doing a walkabout later with it maybe will find someting to shoot.

 

will get some samples up.

 

nice, small cheap. if it works it will be a winner. f4 but...

 

got so many lenses i need to spend time and sort them see what works with my eye

 

bill

Bill,

 

Did you post some sample shots yet? Is the CV 21 a keeper?

 

Carl

[lars_bergquist]

Jono

 

I just rec'd my CV 21 mm Skopar. doing a walkabout later with it maybe will find someting to shoot.

 

will get some samples up.

 

nice, small cheap. if it works it will be a winner. f4 but...

 

bill

 

It is indeed a nice lens. A bit soft in the corners and visible vignetting unless you stop down to 8 or so, but the cropping of the M8 should minimize that. I did however sell it this past december as I now use a first version (but late manufactured) Elmarit-M.

 

This should indeed qualify as a Great Old Performer as it is not current, like the Skopar, and I do like it on full format (haven't got my M8 yet). It is theoretically somewhat inferior to the current Elmarit, but I do not always take the pontifications of Mr. Puts as the revealed truth of God.

 

The old man from the Age of Roll Film

[jaapv]

That old Summarit 1.5/50 still smoooth.. (Yes we did not get around to clearing away the Christmas tree:o) No, Im still waiting for my 41 mm IR filter:rolleyes: so B&W for this subject..

[sergiolov]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Sergio:

 

Was your Biogon modified @ all? I ask because I have Contax RF-to-LTM & Contax RF-to-M adapters (both w/focus coupling & 1 similar/identical to the 1 you linked to on eBay) but they don't permit the 21/4.5 to be mounted. I'm wondering if I would need to remove the swiveling lens guard that surrounds the rear element (on the Contax RF version, don't know about the similar Contarex version).

 

Thanks, Chris

 

Chris,

sorry for delay but my internet connection has been down for a few days.

My biogon is unmodified, except for the swiveling lens guard that I removed. You are right,that is not the right adapter. The right one is just a simple ring with the internal part of the bajonet an no focus coupling. I have seen that also on ebay, I'll make a search and let you know asap.

Sergio

[sean_reid]

It is indeed a nice lens. A bit soft in the corners and visible vignetting unless you stop down to 8 or so, but the cropping of the M8 should minimize that. I did however sell it this past december as I now use a first version (but late manufactured) Elmarit-M.

 

This should indeed qualify as a Great Old Performer as it is not current, like the Skopar, and I do like it on full format (haven't got my M8 yet). It is theoretically somewhat inferior to the current Elmarit, but I do not always take the pontifications of Mr. Puts as the revealed truth of God.

 

The old man from the Age of Roll Film

 

It is a little soft in the corners wide open but hand-coding takes care of most of the vignetting.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[gesper]

The M8 is my first Leica and I am starting out with a new, coded 35mm Summicron (wanted to start with something physically small and 28/2.8 was not available yet). Is there a source for information on compatible lenses for someone who is new to all this? For example, of older Leica lenses, which are the best and which should you avoid? Same for other manufacturers. Which lenses require adapters, and what kind?

 

I feel like I have discovered an exciting new world, but need a map.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Is there a source for information on compatible lenses for someone who is new to all this? For example, of older Leica lenses, which are the best and which should you avoid? Same for other manufacturers. Which lenses require adapters, and what kind?

 

I feel like I have discovered an exciting new world, but need a map.

 

There are four parts of the world to find out about -- new Leica lenses are the most expensive, with the most refined characteristics, described in terms that might remind you of fine wines, but there is substance to this. See Erwin Puts' Leica Lens Compendiumfor a description in this vein of every lens Leica has made up to 2003 or so. It's downloadable without the figures from his website, or the actual book is still in print and very nice to have. And his website contains reviews of the latest few models. Zeiss lenses cost about half of what Leica lenses cost, but also are very fine, and draw descriptions in the same terms. Cosina-Voigtlaender makes lenses which are affordable, costing about 1/5 or less of the cost of Leica lenses, and some of these (but not all) are very well thought of. And there are Old Lenses that have been made for or adapted to the Leica M mount during the past 50 years. These older lenses and most of the Cosina lenses need a Leica Thread Mount to M mount adapter, which is available from Cameraquest.com. Sean Reid's comparative reviews (modest yearly subscription cost required) will give you descriptions of and pictures from all of the currently available lenses that make sense for the M8.

 

Have fun!

 

scott

[lars_bergquist]

The M8 is my first Leica and I am starting out with a new, coded 35mm Summicron (wanted to start with something physically small and 28/2.8 was not available yet). Is there a source for information on compatible lenses for someone who is new to all this? For example, of older Leica lenses, which are the best and which should you avoid? Same for other manufacturers. Which lenses require adapters, and what kind?

 

I feel like I have discovered an exciting new world, but need a map.

 

Welcome to the Old New Leica World. First, as to plain incompatibilities, Leica say that the only collapsible lens that's compatible is the current 90 mm Macro-Elmar. You can always put a 9 mm Dymo adhesive band around the cylindrical barrel of an old 50 mm collapsible Elmar och Summicron, to stop it from collapsing completely and dinging the M8 shutter, but it's not quite in the spirit of the thing, is it? The dual range 50 mm Summicron is also out.

 

The other question is lens quality. Some old men (not I) say that all Leica M lenses are equally good, but then their technique must be awful. The truth is that most old M lenses are better than you may think, with a handful of exceptions. Please steer clear of:

 

- 21 mm 1:4 (not 3.4!) Super Angulon which is pretty soft and vignettes like mad;

- 35 mm Summicron lenses with serial numbers below 2,974,251 (year 1979). I will be tarred and feathered for this, but the first version of 1958 was pretty weak at stops wider than 1:4, while the following versions from 1969 to 1979 were so-so off-center, and had some unpleasant bokeh at times. Frankly, being legendary doesn't always help performance.

- First version 35 mm Summilux, 1961--1995 (i.e. non-ASPH). Wide open there is so much coma and veiling glare that you may wonder if anything at all is sharp! The lens performs well from 1:4 on, but never quite on a par with the lovely last non-ASPH. Summicron from 1979. So why own it?

- 50 mm Summitar. I won't condemn it roundly, but at large apertures it is very much susceptible to flare (it was actually a coated Xenon, of 1936). You can see this in the picture of the Christmas tree above, on this thread. The exceptional speed made this acceptable to BW shooters in the 1950's, but today this is a museum piece.

- First version 50 mm Summilux. This was just a slightly improved Summitar and the Japanese competition blew it out of the water. The story of how Leitz replaced it in 1961/62 with a much improved computation, --- without changing the name or the mount and without admitting it until years later! --- is perhaps the most bizarre of all Leica stories. The successor (serial numbers from 1,844,001) was very good indeed, went through two major changes of the mount and was replaced by the aspherical Summilux in 2004, after a record production run of 42 years! And Leica had to pull out all available stops to improve it!

 

The old man from the Age of Roll Film

[gesper]

Thanks Lars and Scott. This is very helpful. I too am a Reid Reviews subscriber, and will also check out Erwin Puts. I can tell already this is soon to be a new (and expensive) obsession.