What's the true story surrounding the birth of Red Scale Elmars?

[luigi bertolotti]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

11 hours ago, Fefes said:

I don't know if they have a different optical formula, but my Red Scale renders as Marco describes, sharper, somewhat higher contrast, seems to have less astigmatism or clarity of detail all over. The extent to which I look at detail is often looking at 200%, 400% 42MP images, which is quite obsessive. Given my own experience, I am not sure if the lens is different, maybe it's my sample. The Summicron v1 is excellent too, and I have two copies, one is almost perfect. It's a completely different experience, and it's hard to compare them. They are too different.

Yes... the Elmar RS is still today an excellent 50 ; but.. when you speak of your tests, do you mean that you have compared two (or more) different RS items ? The original question in the old thread was if all the RS have the same optics.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[jaques]

whoa- 6 pages for the Red Scale Elmar! I can't add much- excpet to say I found this red scale Elmar at the bottom of a box at a fleamarket- I paid $5 AUD for it- my greatest ever leica Coup:

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

 

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Jaques,

A nice lens from 1952.

Best Regards,

Michael

[Fefes]

On 9/16/2017 at 5:00 PM, romanus53 said:

A couple of Elmars, in the middle two with red scale, the left one a new one, the right one a remounted older lens. For comparrson on the side of this pair left original with older scale and on the right a remounted older one. Some other Elmars in the background are for decoration only. The remounted ones are both shorter.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

I have seen mostly too low serials or no serial number at all feature the MFD tab in a different position, between f4 and f8. They can appear in rombus and diamond markers, and in f16 and f22 ring and plates. Most of them are rombus, with relatively very few with triangles. Most often, not always, the aperture tab is more flat, as seen in this same picture, which also shows the different MFD stop.

I tried to think why would the stopper screw would be in a different position, as as much I came up with ideas, I couldn't really convince myself i was thinking clearly. One had me wondering if the LTM, very early and late, may vary slightly, requiring the change for compatibility so the tab at infinity is in the correct position in different cameras. Another (or related) that the mount thread may slightly different (adjusting the lens distance from film). Another (the one that seemed to make more sense) was FL as mentioned, with versions of longer FL needing to travel more, coinciding with earlier ones with longer FL. There are to pitch threads in the enumerations 1,2,3,4,-,6,7 where two are almost identical FL, varying very little, maybe one one is used for the older shape of the optical part, and the other for the new one.

All in all, ones ends up reading these details and knowing they aren't very important. But simultaneously more intrigued than before about these small details.

My personal take is that if the lens MDF screw is between 4 and 8, the chances of being RS optics (1951+) are minuscule to zero. If true, then it becomes easy to spot a non Red Scale RS. And answers the question for those with a remounted lens: there are different RS because some are older versions. However, we still don't know the response to the original question: are there more than one Red Scale RS versions?

I also have an Elmar 50/2.8 (LTM). To me, it's a completely different lens, and I never use it. The 3.5 is the rendering I like, but a huge margin.

If someone knows why the MDF screw is at a different position, I am intrigued to lean the real answer.

[qqphot]

I have only one 50/3.5 Elmar and it is a RS from 1952 with f/22 and a black diamond pointer. I enjoy its rendering and sharpness very much but I find I don't use it frequently because negatives taken with it seem to require a lot of work if there are bright skies or other contrasty areas, compared to say a summitar or summicron. I wonder if my copy is dirty or in need of cleaning despite looking mostly ok with a flashlight.  It reminds me a bit of working with earlier uncoated lenses like the kodak Anastigmats, it's just more veiling flare and lower contrast than I'd expect from a coated lens with that few internal surfaces.

[Fefes]

10 hours ago, qqphot said:

I have only one 50/3.5 Elmar and it is a RS from 1952 with f/22 and a black diamond pointer. I enjoy its rendering and sharpness very much but I find I don't use it frequently because negatives taken with it seem to require a lot of work if there are bright skies or other contrasty areas, compared to say a summitar or summicron. I wonder if my copy is dirty or in need of cleaning despite looking mostly ok with a flashlight.  It reminds me a bit of working with earlier uncoated lenses like the kodak Anastigmats, it's just more veiling flare and lower contrast than I'd expect from a coated lens with that few internal surfaces.

In addition to the mentioned above, I have a RS from around 1956, and it has cleaning marks but no deep scratches. When there's a dark backlit landscape scene exactly as you describe, there is some bloom and seems the dark areas compress. This makes it a great lens for high contrast scenes, but less so when there a large patch in front that's very bright and all the detail has very little contrast.
 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Sky against a very dark foreground in the shadows. A very poor choice on my side, but the detail compresses further and the scene doesn't look alive, and it's hard to rescue with any post processing. It's also around f8, and veiling is constant while aperture is not! Unlike other kinds of aberrations or issues, veiling is the one that can get accentuated when stopping down.

 

Window, very high contrast scene, shows some of the blooming profile under very very strong front light.

Light fixture, this is a very very bright light against a very dark background. Do you see how it flares and blooms? This is a very clean lens with many more very tiny cleaning marks, if you look at the lens it looks perfect, but with a strong flashlights, these features generate a bit of blooming.

However, from the other pictures, it's not a soft lens at all. It's gets very small high contrast detail just right, and has what Leica users may describe as medium contrast. To me, it's as high as I want it and more would be detrimental.

Look at the tiny high contrast detail. There's no blooming here. it's only when some light is orders of magnitude more than the dynamic range of the scene. Only when the bright part is many many times brighter than the average.

 

It's definitely a different beast than a Summitar or Summicron. I find I like to use the ELmar whenever I can, which includes all kinds of high contrast scenes, where it shines even better, but LIKE YOU, I avoid using it in back lit sky scenes. My copy just lacks punch in that kind of shot in particular.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Fefes

[jankap]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

A lens cannot manipulate the contrast. The first picture is very good for a sensor camera. The high lights show contours. The low lights are still there. A "shadow and highlights" of Dan Margulis makes a nice picture of it.

For film the picture should have been more exposed for the shadows, I think.

[qqphot]

It's really just the loss of contrast adjacent to bright skies that's a bit annoying. I agree that sharpness and contrast are otherwise very nice. Sorry for the very boring photo!

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited July 27, 2022 by qqphot

[stevesurf]

On 9/13/2017 at 3:25 PM, willeica said:

The Red Scale lens from SN 905000 onwards (1951) have a recomputed optical formula using different glasses. These glasses are recognised by a noticeably flatter curvature of the front lens.Your RS Elmar fits within the range of SNs for the lens. Earlier Elmars had coating for some years and this practice was continued for the RS. From about 1953 the diamond mark on the lens was replaced by a triangle. There has been some discussion about an intermediate design, but I have seen no definitive evidence to that effect. Others may wish to contribute on this aspect. I have more than 15  5cm /50 mm Elmars and while my Red Scale example is good, it is not dramatically better than the other examples which I have, dating back to 1926. Some say that there is no difference in the output from red and black scale versions. There was some degree of difference in the length of different Elmar examples from the beginning. I have measured quite a few of them. The average barrel on RS Elmars is only slightly longer than those of earlier models, about 0.5 mm according to the data I have. There is, however, a design change in that the distance and depth of field scales have changed places on the RS models.

 

I hope this information is of use to you. It is possible to read too much into design variations which are far more common with the 5cm/50mm Elmar lens than most people realise. Van Hasbroeck lists 22 variants, but I believe there are more.

 

William

Thank you for that amazing summary, and God bless you for letting me feel less guilty for owning three Elmars 🙏😎

[willeica]

5 hours ago, stevesurf said:

Thank you for that amazing summary, and God bless you for letting me feel less guilty for owning three Elmars 🙏😎

Thanks There are people around here who have, possibly, 100 Elmars. On a more serious note, I have rarely come across a bad 50mm/5cm Elmar. It is almost consistently good, unless an example has suffered severe abuse.

William 

[wlaidlaw]

William, 

I had the nearest thing to a bad Elmar, not optically but standard of manufacture. This must have been right at the end of the run of the 50/2.8-M lenses, as it was factory coded from new, which means 2007 or later. I bought it as unsold new old stock in 2009, but sadly without a factory warranty and I suspect returned by a previous owner. It was really badly put together, compared with say my 1956 vintage 50/2.8 Elmar-M, which I bought later, where the lens extension feels like a hydraulic piston. If you held it mounted on a camera when collapsed, with the lens down, the optical cell would drop out to the extended position under just gravity. When it was twisted to lock, you could wobble the optical cell around in the mount. There were no perceptible detents in the aperture ring, which felt loose and half detached, so it was very easy to alter the aperture unintentionally when focusing the lens. I quickly passed it on to a new owner. How it passed quality control completely escaped me but then that was a bad period for Leica, when quality took a very severe dip. 

Wilson

 

[derleicaman]

On 1/3/2023 at 3:42 PM, wlaidlaw said:

William, 

I had the nearest thing to a bad Elmar, not optically but standard of manufacture. This must have been right at the end of the run of the 50/2.8-M lenses, as it was factory coded from new, which means 2007 or later. I bought it as unsold new old stock in 2009, but sadly without a factory warranty and I suspect returned by a previous owner. It was really badly put together, compared with say my 1956 vintage 50/2.8 Elmar-M, which I bought later, where the lens extension feels like a hydraulic piston. If you held it mounted on a camera when collapsed, with the lens down, the optical cell would drop out to the extended position under just gravity. When it was twisted to lock, you could wobble the optical cell around in the mount. There were no perceptible detents in the aperture ring, which felt loose and half detached, so it was very easy to alter the aperture unintentionally when focusing the lens. I quickly passed it on to a new owner. How it passed quality control completely escaped me but then that was a bad period for Leica, when quality took a very severe dip. 

Wilson

 

Wilson, was this a black or a chrome one? I have a chrome one and it is one of my best lenses, far sharper than I had guessed could be possible. I discovered this on a trip several years ago to San Francisco, and I took an image with my then new M9M of the Golden Gate Bridge from near the Presidio. I used several lenses, and the one from the 50/2.8 Elmar-M was by far the sharpest of the bunch. I'll have to check the serial to see production date for it, but it is non-coded. I had heard that the black versions were prone to the problems you outlined above, so I steered clear of those when I bought this lens. My lens is solid as a rock.

[wlaidlaw]

9 minutes ago, derleicaman said:

Wilson, was this a black or a chrome one? I have a chrome one and it is one of my best lenses, far sharper than I had guessed could be possible. I discovered this on a trip several years ago to San Francisco, and I took an image with my then new M9M of the Golden Gate Bridge from near the Presidio. I used several lenses, and the one from the 50/2.8 Elmar-M was by far the sharpest of the bunch. I'll have to check the serial to see production date for it, but it is non-coded. I had heard that the black versions were prone to the problems you outlined above, so I steered clear of those when I bought this lens. My lens is solid as a rock.

Bill, 

It was a black one. I too have a mid 1950's 50/2.8 chrome Elmar-M, which I bought later and it is beautifully made and a quite good performer. I am not sure that any coded chrome Elmar lenses were made. I believe that some of chrome/brass bodies were outsourced to a small company in Wetzlar during the early 2000's and they stopped doing this in late 2006. I have one of the last batch of chrome/brass 35/1.4 ASPH Summiluxes, made in September 2006. It is a remarkably good lens with very modest aperture shift (stays within the DOF). When I took to Solms for coding, I left it with strict instructions not to do anything other than either code the mount or put on a coded mount in place of the original. No fiddling with the lens whatsoever! 

Wilson

[willeica]

On 1/6/2023 at 7:15 PM, wlaidlaw said:

Bill, 

It was a black one. I too have a mid 1950's 50/2.8 chrome Elmar-M, which I bought later and it is beautifully made and a quite good performer. I am not sure that any coded chrome Elmar lenses were made. I believe that some of chrome/brass bodies were outsourced to a small company in Wetzlar during the early 2000's and they stopped doing this in late 2006. I have one of the last batch of chrome/brass 35/1.4 ASPH Summiluxes, made in September 2006. It is a remarkably good lens with very modest aperture shift (stays within the DOF). When I took to Solms for coding, I left it with strict instructions not to do anything other than either code the mount or put on a coded mount in place of the original. No fiddling with the lens whatsoever! 

Wilson

Wilson

I missed your earlier post, I was speaking about optics, of course. I have a large number of Elmars (20+ I suspect) and one of the early ones, on a I Model A, will drop with gravity, but that was not a manufacturing fault , just wear and tear. I believe that one of my 12 Summars will do the same thing and, again, that is due to wear and tear. I have a 35mm Summilux which has focus shift at f2.8 and f4 on digital, but none on film. For digital I use a 35mm Summicron which is just perfect. I would never add six bit codes to any lens, that is just a collector thing, of course. Lightroom is so good these days that any issues (and they are increasingly rare) can be fixed in seconds.

William 

[wlaidlaw]

William, 

I added coding to my 35 Summilux back in M8 days, when there was no manual option to enter a lens and with the external UV/IR filter and the quality of Capture One in those days (no lens presets), coding was fairly essential. I had an uncoded Zeiss 21 ZM Biogon and the Italian flag was so bad on the M8, I sold it to a friend to use on film and bought a 16-21 Tri-Elmar instead. The 21 Biogon had a screw holding the mount on, right in the middle of where you would want to mill slots for coding. Even the Tri-Elmar had Italian Flag problems and I was one of the Beta testers running test firmware on my M8, to try and reduce the green/red edges to manageable levels, without introducing other adverse effects. 

The impression I got of my coded black Elmar was that it seemed to have many years of wear, when it was still brand new. No lens, no matter how good the optics, will be a consistent performer if the optical cell can wobble about in the mount, like the Elmar's could and the absence of aperture ring detents made the lens close to unusable.

I have something of the same problem with my 50mm/1.4 Summilux III Special Edition, where the detents on the aperture ring are quite weak, due I suspect to many years of sitting in a Japanese owner's display cabinet unused and the lubrication of the aperture ring and its detent mechanism, has congealed. I have to remember to run the aperture ring backwards and forwards a few times prior to use, for each day I use this lens, to wake up the detents. It is such a good performer, that I am very reluctant to have anyone take it apart to rectify the sticky aperture detent mechanism, with the attendant risk of degrading its performance. "If it ain't broke; don't fix it." Along with the 35 APO Summicron-M, the 50 Summilux III is my most used lens. 

Wilson

 

[Alberti]

I don't have a 50 Elmar RS 'yet'. So bear with me.

But I saw an Elmar 35mm 'with close focus' to 50cm, that is, the barrel can turn the whole 350 degrees or so. No stopper. [Meister: 3.5/35mm Nickel Non-standard 300]

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

So I thought, why not take out the restrictive end-screw that limits the movement of e.g. the Elmar 50mm beyond 1 meter; the stops have screw-head, so just take one out all together. Just hack the lens! ? One would gain a lot of distance for sure. [And it is reversible for sure.]

Or is there is also an internal screw that limits the movement?

[TomB_tx]

Pretty sure that without the long stop screw the lens head can just rotate to unscrew completely from the flange. A bit tricky to get in re-installed and indexed right (multi-start thread).

[Alberti]

You mean it comes out (that is why it is so tall)  and will then skip the infinity mark all together. Makes sense. It could come off for sure.

I have heard of Russian Industar 50mm owners who indeed did that 'à volonté', but would of course turn back to infinity. Scary but doable if you have the nerve for Russian roulette too. Anyway, from 100cm to 70cm would be nice, the movement of the RF patch is of course also a prime element in the reasoning.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Alberti

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Pyrogallol]

Yes, take the long screw out and you can unscrew the whole focussing unit to re-grease the threads. But it does have a multi-start thread so it may take you a few tries before you get it to line up with the infinity position when you screw it back in. And the rangefinder will not work if you try to focus closer than the rangefinder is coupled for.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Pyrogallol

[Alberti]

14 hours ago, Pyrogallol said:

And the rangefinder will not work if you try to focus closer than the rangefinder is coupled for.

Ah, you mean that the coupling ring won't go beyond the 1 meter? That's a pity. Otherwise I'ld just make a second stop (hole/tapped) at 80cm if possible. 

The more because the bayonet-mount later Elmar 50/3.5 version also appears to go no closer than 1 m. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Alberti