Which lenses were better than Leitz?

[thomas_schertel]

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The Ultron of my Vitessa is not so bad, too

 

yours sincerely

Thomas

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[wlaidlaw]

Test photos with M9

 

1) 1953 Leitz Hex Diaphragm 50/f2 Collapsible Summitar Whole Frame and Centre Crop at f2

 

2) 1954 Opton Zeiss (Stuttgart) 50/f1.5 Sonnar Whole Frame and Centre Crop at f2

 

M9 on manual lens recognition; set for 11817 50 Summicron.

 

It is clear to me that the Sonnar is a bit sharper and higher contrast than the Summitar. Both lenses are in near perfect condition. I suspect that the result would have been much closer with the slightly later Collapsible Summicron.

 

Wilson

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[wlaidlaw]

I thought folks might be interested to see how these 1950's lenses stack up against an up to date lens, so here are the same shots with a modern lens. I don't have a 50 Summicron or Summilux but I have a 50/2 ZM Planar, which is, in most group tests, as good as the 50 Summicron but maybe a tad higher contrast. I think you can see it is a bit better than the 57 year old Sonnar but not massively. It goes to show how usable some of these older lenses are on an M9 and maybe even an M10 ;-}}

 

Wilson

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[bravo]

Hello,

Before i use Zeiss Sonnar 1.5mm lens,

But now interesting for compare these two lens,

Thanks for it.

[Guest]

Macro lenses have a reputation to be "allround" lenses = also excellent at infinity.

Compared my modern 2/50 Macro Zeiss to and old R-Summicron 50mm of a friend at f:2 set at infinity.

Because he found a R1.4/50 he accepted to part with the old Summicron. So I gladly payed the modest price he asked for that R 2/50.

[viooh]

IMHO (and in my personal experience as infrequent user of all these), the (original) Voigtländer Nokton 1,5/50 (originally made for the Prominent, but there is a rare LTM version) beats both the Sonnar and the Summarit of the same vintage, that is early 50s. It has no focus shift and is better in the corners, as compared with the Sonnar, and has much more contrast than the Summarit wide open. - This is my experience from testing all the above on the M9.

 

The classic Ultron used in several Voigtländer cameras is in my experience wide open visibly better than the Summitar and at least on par, if not better than the collapsible Summicron, but I could only compare these using photos taken with different analogue cameras because I don't have an adaptor to put the Ultron on a digital camera.

 

Although Contarex lenses are quite good, I think they are a little overestimated, especially when compared with more modern lens designs. The early Leica R glass plays in the same league, I couldn't tell much of a difference comparing shots taken with similar focal lengths from 25 to 135 mm, it may be more a matter of "fingerprint" than of "quality", whatever that is. But I'd guess that my old Summicron-R 2/90 "technically" beats my Contarex Sonnar 2/85, being a much more modern design, and the Summicron-R 2/50 (I) seems to be a little contrastier than the Planar wide open. That said, mechanically the Contarex lenses are still unsurpassed.

 

Peter

[adan]

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The Nikkor 180 ED (manual focus) is noticeably sharper than the non-APO Leica-R 180 f/2.8s, especially in the corners - Leica couldn't match it at f/2.8 (or faster) until the APO-Summicron and APO-Elmarit, 15 years later. (The Leica-R 180 APO-Telyt beats the Nikkor, but is only f/3.4 and has limited close-focus ability).