Two-lens or three-lens strategy?

[tbarker13]

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But when I inspected the internal lens surfaces under a microscope, under some lighting conditions there were millions of little specks that could only be interpreted as fungal growth. Back it went

 

 

A microscope? I'm thinking you might want to limit your lens options to new lenses. I suspect you might have a hard time finding satisfactory lenses if you are literally putting them under a microscope. You will be seeing things (and worrying about things) that are highly unlikely to have any impact on images.

[Christoph13]

A microscope? I'm thinking you might want to limit your lens options to new lenses. I suspect you might have a hard time finding satisfactory lenses if you are literally putting them under a microscope.

 

Generally speaking you may be right but this was the first time I ever returned a lens and I have bought many over the, well, decades. Holding the lens against the window it was easy to see a milky blurriness with the naked eye, which turned out to be located inside the lens, the external glass surfaces were pristine.

The inspection under the microscope (a binocular loupe to be exact) was only needed to find out if dust or fungal growth was causing the visible blurriness and it was very clearly the latter.

 

 

You will be seeing things (and worrying about things) that are highly unlikely to have any impact on images.

 

I was more concerned about the effect of this rather extreme case of fungal growth on my camera equipment, I did not even put this lens on my camera.

I don't think I am overly picky, in fact I bough a used Biogon 28/2.8 after this with the occasional dust particle inside which does not bother me at all. But I agree, under normal circumstances a loupe is not needed to examine a lens.

[bpalme]

I would go with the M8 since the 1.33 crop will be in your favor it seems.

For me I favor the wide end so M9 all the way for the crop factor. But I'll probably be getting an M8 to test the Leica waters first. I'm like you it may take a couple years to build up a kit. I just bought a 28 summicron I'll be using on my EP2 until I find the right M8.. good luck.

[AbbeyPhoto]

I don't find the crop factor a problem, and the difference in price between the M8 and M9 just doesn't seem worth it.

 

I have ... Voigtlander 21mm, Leica 28mm & 35mm, and Voigtlander 40mm. The lenses I take depends on where I'm going, if it's out for a walk I'll have the 35 on camera and the 21 in my pocket; if I think I might need the 40 (it's a 1.4 so v.useful) I have the 28 on camera and the 21 & 40 in my pocket. That's enough lenses for most occasions.

[Christoph13]

OK, I think it is time to lift the mystery, I have now a near mint used M8 with a Zeiss ZM Biogon 28/2.8 and a Summicron 50/2.

 

The rationale for getting precisely these lenses was on the one hand driven by the coincidences of which lenses were on the market. On the other hand knowing that I leaned towards longer focal lengths I wanted to allocate more resources towards the 50 Summicron and just live with the 28 Biogon. That said, this little lens is performing surprisingly well. The Summicron leaves me scratching my head, most of the photos are just lovely, with a nice bokeh, but sometimes the rendition of out of focus areas in front of the subject is plain weird. Nevertheless, I love this lens already and will happily spend the next weeks, months or however long it will take to explore their characteristics.

 

Keeping the cost of the starter kit reasonable will let me part without too much loss (not counting the dent in my self-respect) in the event I should discover that rangefinder photography is not for me. But I very much doubt this will be happening seeing how wonderfully portable this kit is.

 

I do see room for extending towards a longer lens but I will likely have my hands full with what I have for now.

 

Thanks everyone for your incredible feedback,

Christoph