ho_co Posted January 11, 2012 Share #1  Posted January 11, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Blog  I like the comment that... ...if you have these three [lenses] and a Leica body the challenge to produce a masterpiece is yours to accept. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 Hi ho_co, Take a look here Erwin Puts' three-lens choice. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
bpalme Posted January 11, 2012 Share #2 Â Posted January 11, 2012 I think I would agree, although there is no right or wrong.. I love the 50mm too though.... tough decision. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblitz Posted January 11, 2012 Share #3 Â Posted January 11, 2012 is it the exact lens or the focal lengths that is, on the margin, the more important. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokoshawnuff Posted January 11, 2012 Share #4 Â Posted January 11, 2012 I would think the "Leica Philosophy" would include the history, which is such an important aspect of the brand, in which case a 50mm should be included (as it was the first, and most popular focal length) as-well-as something other than a 75mm which is a relatively recent focal length for Leica Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted January 11, 2012 Share #5 Â Posted January 11, 2012 I agree that my choice would not be the 75, but rather the 50 Summilux ASPH. Â Stephen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted January 11, 2012 Share #6  Posted January 11, 2012 I do own two of the three lenses that Puts recommends (I have no use for the 75mm length) but the very thinking is faulty.  Superb image quality is a wonderful thing to have, but great pictures are made by photographers, not by lenses or cameras. Everything starts from the photographer's seeing: You must see the picture before you make it. Experienced photogs can see in several different focal lengths – people with SLR cameras and zooms see in none – but there is always one or two preferred lengths. There are 50mm photographers, 35mm photographers, whatever ... we fit our lens kits to the way we see. There are no absolutes here. No kit is best for everyone.  Boring pictures with exquisite image quality are simply boring pictures with exquisite image quality. Nobody will look at them twice. For confirmation, see the whole fashion/studio/MF business.  Edward Weston could make a picture of a pepper so that the police came storming in, taking the print into custody for being obscene. They were right, those Keystone Cops: That print was so sensual that it actually was obscene, in the California of the 1930's. Has anybody ever asked what lens he did that with?  The old man from the Age of Tri-X Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Washington Posted January 11, 2012 Share #7  Posted January 11, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) I got about 20 seconds into that thing. Uh, Leica philosophy? What in the hell is that? How about going out and taking some pictures with whatever you have latched on your body…… and don’t philosophize: see! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted January 11, 2012 Share #8 Â Posted January 11, 2012 Hello Lars, Â You are right. Â btw: As I remember it had the perspective of a photo taken w/ a 50 when using a 24 X 36 format. Â I personally prefer a 35 & have no use for a 50 myself thinking 24 X 36. Â Best Regards, Â Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWC Doppel Posted January 11, 2012 Share #9 Â Posted January 11, 2012 Did I miss the choice of focal lengths by Erwin ? Â I'd be shocked if he didn't say 35,50,90 ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted January 11, 2012 Share #10 Â Posted January 11, 2012 I think the Summicron 75 would be great for closeup details, the smallest object field is just 169x254mm. This is similar to an old SLR (from 1970) with a 50/1.8 lens I've been using, it focuses down to 0.2m for closeups.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted January 11, 2012 Share #11  Posted January 11, 2012 Actually, I've ended up with just about exactly the focal lengths that Meinheer Puts lists. Mostly different models, for personal aesthetic (or financial ) reasons:  21 Elmarit pre-ASPH 35 Summilux ASPH 75 Summilux (for speed and close-focusing) 90 Tele-Elmarit-M (for pocketability) 135 Tele-Elmar-M (last version with built-in hood)  I carry the 21 and 35 at all times, and choose which of the longer lenses will be in the bag according to what I'll be doing, and what I'll need most (large aperture, tight framing, small size, or telephoto reach). So, three lenses - but a variable three.  Somewhere in my files, I still have the original 1986 brochure for the intro of the M6, which teased customers with possible lens combos. Which had silly names, the result, no doubt of indifferent translation from the original German:  "The low-light combination": 35 Summilux, 50 Noctilux, 75 Summilux "The broad reach across focal lengths": 21 Elmarit, 50 Summilux, 135 Tele-Elmar "The lightweight set": 35 Summicron, 50 Summicron, 90 Tele-Elmarit-M "The maximum-flexibility set": 21 Elmarit, 28 Elmarit, 50 Summilux, 90 Summicron, 135 Elmarit (that last also being the "maximum aerobic workout set." )  @ Lars - Now that you mention it:  "August 3 [1930]. Sonya, as Ramiel did last year, keeps tempting me with new peppers! Two more have been added to my collection. While experimenting with one of these, which was so small that I used my 21 cm. Zeiss to fill the 8 x 10 size, I tried putting it in a tin funnel for background.....I placed it in the funnel, focused with the Zeiss, and knowing just the viewpoint, recognizing a perfect light, made an exposure of six minutes, with but a few minutes preparatory work. I have a great negative — by far the best!"  The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. 2 (California).  Weston was a mild gearhead - his Daybooks are scattered with references to specific lenses and cameras, especially when he got a new one, and especially in his Mexico days, when money was tight and a new piece of equipment was an event. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted January 11, 2012 Share #12 Â Posted January 11, 2012 Hello IWC, Â He said 21, 35 & 75. Â Approximately the same ratios of relationships of coverages as 35, 50 & 90 except beginning w/ a somewhat wider angle of coverage. Perhaps in deference to the M9's more limited ability to focus accurately. Â Best Regards, Â Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralf Posted January 11, 2012 Share #13  Posted January 11, 2012 Hello IWC, He said 21, 35 & 75.  Approximately the same ratios of relationships of coverages as 35, 50 & 90 except beginning w/ a somewhat wider angle of coverage. Perhaps in deference to the M9's more limited ability to focus accurately.  Best Regards,  Michael  Hi Michael, is that so? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted January 11, 2012 Share #14 Â Posted January 11, 2012 No question that these are good lenses, but that on its own is not a reason for selecting them. whilst I can accept that this selection may well be what Puts feels happiest with, there are other superb lenses in the Leica M line-up (did someone mention the 50 'lux asph?) and the 'best' selection question has been aired here many times already. FWIW I'd go for the 50 'lux instead of the 75 for a set of three. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebastel Posted January 11, 2012 Share #15  Posted January 11, 2012  ...  Which had silly names, the result, no doubt of indifferent translation from the original German:  ...  "The broad reach across focal lengths": 21 Elmarit, 50 Summilux, 135 Tele-Elmar  ...    this combination had an even sillier name in the german version. it was named - please allow my clumsy translation - "the big focal length bridge" ("die große brennweitenbrücke").  :-D Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Negative Posted January 11, 2012 Share #16 Â Posted January 11, 2012 My choices for a three-lens set? Â Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 Â All have the same basic diameter and are quite compact. All have 46mm filter threads, making filter sharing easy. All are at the top of their game and work equally well on film or digital bodies. All 6-bit coded, of course. I have this set myself, as well as the Tele-Elmar-M 135mm f/4 lens as an optional fourth. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted January 11, 2012 Share #17 Â Posted January 11, 2012 [...]Edward Weston could make a picture of a pepper so that the police came storming in, taking the print into custody for being obscene. They were right, those Keystone Cops: That print was so sensual that it actually was obscene, in the California of the 1930's. Has anybody ever asked what lens he did that with? Â What a great comic vision! Spot on, too. Â T/F - the effect emanating from the pepper came about because the film moved (popped) during the long exposure. Â Regarding Puts' three lens - remember, he is not a photographer. Take his opinion as pandering to Leica. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralf Posted January 11, 2012 Share #18  Posted January 11, 2012 My choices for a three-lens set? Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8  All have the same basic diameter and are quite compact. All have 46mm filter threads, making filter sharing easy. All are at the top of their game and work equally well on film or digital bodies. All 6-bit coded, of course. I have this set myself, as well as the Tele-Elmar-M 135mm f/4 lens as an optional fourth.  This is exactly what I got, planning to get the new 21mm Super Elmar as a fouth option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
01af Posted January 11, 2012 Share #19  Posted January 11, 2012 He said 21, 35 & 75. Approximately the same ratios of relationships of coverages as 35, 50 & 90 except beginning w/ a somewhat wider angle of coverage. Definitely not! The ratios are very different in these two three-lens kits.   When I first encountered some articles by Erwin Puts a few years ago, I was impressed by the apparent level of knowledge. But the more I read of what he is writing over the years, the more ceases my original level of being impressed. In fact he is much less of an expert than he thinks he was. Besides some very interesting stuff, he is also writing a lot of nonsense here and there. And his most recent blog entry ("Three lenses for the Leica") is some of the most foolish things he ever wrote.  First of all, there simply is no such thing as "three lenses that best represent the Leica philosophy." All there is are lens kits (with one or two or three or more lenses) that best match an individual photographer's needs, longings, preferences, or requirements.  He tries to back up his thesis with a set of five arguments. But none of these arguments holds any water. The first and second arguments are true statements but they would be equally true for many different sets of three Leica M lenses as well.  The third argument is just plan wrong ... and it would be wrong even if it was arithmetically correct. A useful spreading of lenses in a kit must not follow any fixed multiplication factor but is highly non-linear ... and furthermore a matter of personal preferrence. Moreover, Puts confuses depth-of-focus and depth-of-field—a hard-to-believe mistake for the "expert" he pretends to be.  The fourth argument is not plain wrong but debatable. Does a three-lens kit containing a 21 mm lens really "make optimum use of the inherent capabilities of the rangefinder concept"? Those who hate accessory finders definitely will disagree. On the other hand, one of the advantages of the rangefinder concept is the fact that it can focus super-wide-angle lenses with much better accuracy than cameras with focusing screens can. But the hassle with accessory finders takes away a lot of this advantage.  The fifth argument is just weird, as (a) there are other kits which would give you even faster lenses, and ( many fast lenses also offer the 3.4 aperture (just not as their widest) with very high definition.  To say that "especially the 21 and 35 are the iconic focal lengths for the Leica CRF system" is just foolish again. If any two focal lengths can be attributed as "iconic" for the Leica rangefinder then it's 35 and 50 mm, not 21 and 35 mm.  So this article is nothing but a heap of nonsense, with no educational benefit for the reader whatsoever. Sure, 21+35+75 does make a nice and useful three-lens kit for the Leica M camera. But it's not the slightest bit better than, say, 28+50+90 ... or 21+35+50 ... or 21+35+90 ... or 35+50+90 ... or 35+75+135 ... or any other reasonable three-lens kit carefully chosen after needs and preferences of the photographer who is going to use it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Negative Posted January 11, 2012 Share #20 Â Posted January 11, 2012 This is exactly what I got, planning to get the new 21mm Super Elmar as a fouth option. Â Nice! Great minds think alike... Â I haven't looked at anything wider (from Leica) just yet. I have the 18 and 25 ZMs, but I'm moving to Leica glass these days, so we'll see... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.