How often do you use a 90mm?

[Clandrel]

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I have a 28 Summicron ASPH and a 50 Summilux ASPH and thinking about adding a 90mm Elmarit to my arsenal.

 

For those who have a 90mm. Do you use it enough to justify buying it?

 

Thanks!

 

/c

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[yanidel]

I have a 90mm TE but I never use it. I paid 300 euros for it so it is there just in case. A very sharp lens, slightly lower contrast than modern ones and extremely small.

To me, unless you want to use 90mm if for portraits or landscape, 50-75mm is the upper limit for street shots in terms of ease of composition and focusing speed.

[luigi bertolotti]

90 mm is probably the best long focal for Leicas... 135s are often a bit critical (even if I personally use 135 not seldom); if in your typical way of shooting you don't need a tele, ok, of course you can renounce to it (btw.. are you using a M8 or a M9 ?), but imho 90 is always a focal to have. In my rather long life as a Leica user (27 years) I have almost always cariied one with me... and, as a collector of old Leitz gear, the fact that I have 14 90s vs. 12 50s, says it all...

[Per P.]

I just returned from 2 weeks in Corsica with a mix of landscape and towns/people. I brought 25 (Zeiss), 35, 50 and 90 with me. The distribution of usage was approx. 15% 25mm, 30% 35mm, 30% 50mm and 15% 90mm. I think this is typical for me.

[juergen]

The question you should ask yourself is “how many times did I miss a good shot because I didn’t have a 90mm lens”?

 

Juergen

[eckart]

90mm is the lens which I use most seldom, but I have a 75 that I prefer to do portraits next to the 50.

[vertekijker]

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Same here, I very rarely use it. More of a wide-angle user.

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Frans

[nhabedi]

I once (in 1995) bought my first M (which was a used M4-P) with a 50mm Summicron, a package deal. I bought a used 35mm Summicron about a year later and then used the 35mm almost exclusively for more than 10 years. I bought a new M8.2 in 2008 and added a used 28mm Elmarit to get approximately the same FOV I had with my 35mm. In the beginning of this year, I traded my M8.2 for a used M7 and while I was in the store saw a nice old 90mm Summicron for a good price and couldn't resist.

 

So, I now have two analog M bodies and four lenses - 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm. But I almost always have only one lens and one body with me, usually the M7 with 35mm. I like to keep it light and I hate switching lenses while I'm out there. I had a rare week in March when I walked around in NYC with two cameras - the M7 with the 35mm and the M4-P with the 90mm.

 

Still, almost all of my shots are done with the 35mm. And I'd say that pretty much all of my photos that I really like have been done with the 35mm. If someone would take away the other three lenses from me, I probably wouldn't even notice...

 

Slightly off-topic, but to be completely honest I even have a fourth lens I very rarely use - a Voigtländer Nokton 35/1.4. Those VC lenses are dirt cheap and I felt attracted to the additional stop it offered, but it turned out I wasn't happy with this "wide open look" that many here seem to love so much.

 

The moral of this story for me is that I probably shouldn't ever buy another lens for my M (apologies to Solms, but the ones I have were bought used anyway) and that I find the idea of a good camera with a fixed lens attached to it very attractive. I always see these "If it only had interchangeable lenses" comments (for example with the new Fujifilm X100). I don't need that...

[christer]

I have a 28 Summicron ASPH and a 50 Summilux ASPH and thinking about adding a 90mm Elmarit to my arsenal.

 

For those who have a 90mm. Do you use it enough to justify buying it?

 

Thanks!

 

/c

 

I have had the 90mm Elmarit-M for several years now (my previous 90s were Tele-Elmar, ASPH and the C f/4). I use it a lot for portraits, sometimes also for general close-ups. As I paid 400 euros for it in top condition my answer to your question is YES.

 

What your answer is will depend on what you shoot and what the price is. For me it is the best of the 90mms considering technical image quality, size/weight, build quality and current price.

 

I see you are an ASPH man. The Elmarit will not let you down. The 90mm ASPH was just too large and too heavy to to get much use by me.

[juergen]

Same here, I very rarely use it. More of a wide-angle user.

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Frans

 

+1

 

Juergen

[Joop van Heijgen]

"Do you use it enough to justify buying it?"

 

Use it and you will justify the buy:)

 

The 90 mm lenses of Leica are always very important lenses in their lens program.

There are no bad 90 mm Leica lenses.

I use them often for my R and M cameras

[lars_bergquist]

My most used focal lengths when I was mostly a SLR user (not R!) was 35 + 100mm. With analog M cameras, 35 +90mm. With the M8, 28 +75mm. Now I have a M9, so it is 35 + 90mm again.

 

I wanted something better than my old Tele-Elmarit, which is pretty soft in the corners wide open. I bought a Elmarit-M which is a wonderfully sharp lens. Its focusing throw is so short however that precise focusing is a bit tricky. The 75mm Summarit was very good indeed, and focused without any problems on the M8. So the 90mm Summarit would probably be a good choice. The 75 was very well built and very sharp, and I would certainly have bought the 90mm, except that I found this mint Elmarit at half the price -- of a new Summarit!

 

Unless you expect to have this kind of luck, take a good look at the Summarit. The Summarit line is not an inferior one for beginners -- they are simply top notch lenses where the moderate speed does not necessitate expensive high tech features like exotic glass or aspherical surfaces.

 

The old man from the screw mount days

[budrichard]

I have a Chrome 90mm Summicron built in Canada and an ASPH 90mm. Both are excellent lenses but since I acquired a 75mm Summicron, I never use the 90 mm's. The 90's are difficult for portraits as the DOF even stopped down is shallow whereas I get a better perspective and more in focus shots with the 75mm.-Dick

[Sailronin]

Hi,

My 90mm Summicron (Canada, pre asph) is my second most used lens after my 24mm Elmar. I would guess that on my M8 probably 50-60% of the time it's the 24 Elmar, 20% is the 90mm and 8-10% a 50mm Summicron and 2-5% or so the CV 15mm.

 

Best regards,

Dave

[adli]

I love my Canadian 90mm Cron for portraits, it has a beautiful look.

 

However, I find the 75 Cron ASPH easier to focus in situations where you have to be fast to get the picture.

 

The 35+90 combo is a very versatile combination. If I travel with two lenses it is always 35 Cron + 90 Cron (both Canadian versions)

[spydrxx]

I use a 90 a lot on my SLRs and DSLRs, and probably 40% of the time on my M body, especially if I am using the Visoflex. Depending on your photography perspective, one could easily live on a 35/90 combination and forget the rest. I did that for several years and really didn't think I missed much of anything. These days, after years of trying out a lot of other focal lengths and accumulating those which really pleased me or seemed useful, I still rely most heavily on my 35 and 90 on the M & R bodies; the DSLRs with crop factors I seem to use longer focal length equivalents....in the 60-185mm range mostly. So back to your question, if you think you'll get good use out of a 90, get it!

[anabasis]

90mm is one of my favorite FOV's. Sadly, I don't like it very much on the rangefinders. I prefer to use 90mm lenses on an SLR.

 

That being said, I did get a 90mm Elmarit-M for my M7 because sometimes I want to shoot a bit longer and still have a low gear profile. The Elmarit-M and a RF body fits the bill much better than an SLR and 90mm. So in the end it is worth it for me when I am doing that kind of shooting, but I don't shoot that way too often with my RF bodies.

 

JCA

[grandefotografo]

The 90 Elmarit sleeps all his days in the bag, I never use it. I large prefer my 75 Cron

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[adan]

I'm also mostly a WA shooter - but I do use longer lenses for the occasional accent detail shot. But I tend to skip over the 90, and instead use a 75 (for close work @ f/2 - a bit easier to focus) and a 135 (more reach - and I actually find it easier to focus).

 

It is interesting that that is just about what I'd settled on 6 years ago - when along came digital and crop factors. Which left me wandering in the wilderness for a while on focal length choices. On the M8 I used the 90 a lot as a "120" - a rough approximation of a 135. But my 90's were traded to get the M9, (and a 75) and having experimented a bit with 90s again this summer, I am back to the 75/135 combo.

[Frank Sprow]

After I got my 75mm Asph. Summicron, I sold my 90mm and have not missed it. If the focal length is a little short, I just take a couple of steps forward or crop the plenty large M9 image file. The 75mm is light and has great image quality.