24mm/f2.8 Elmarit-R Late E60 type - better than I thought

[wlaidlaw]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I have just bought a 24mm/f2.8 Elmarit-R lens, one of the late E60 types. Before I go into its performance, I have two questions to which I should be grateful if our resident experts could give me an answer. 1) Is there or was there a clip on lens cap  for this lens with the 12523 rectangular lens hood, similar to but larger than the one on the 35 ASPH Summicron-M 2) What does the small rotating knob on the lens hood do? It is for retaining or winding on a Series VIII filter? 

Now it would be fair to say I think, that this lens has a less than stellar reputation, being originally a Minolta design and at least in the earlier versions, assembled from kits of elements supplied by Minolta. Supposedly this lens was substantially improved during its lifetime and the final 11331 E60 ROM version, uses Leica glass in a recomputed optical  configuration. I thought it would be interesting to test it against two lenses with good reputations, the 25mm/f2.8 Zeiss ZM Biogon and the 24-90 Vario-Elmarit SL at 24mm, all photos taken at f2.8. Now I accept it is difficult to assess quality on the 1240 px max posting size but I have been looking at them on my 15.4" MacBook Pro set to 1920 x 1200 and on a 1080P 37" monitor and I think you can actually see the essentials at 1240px. All photos taken on a large format tripod with the SL 601 and remote release. 

Firstly as expected, the most modern design, although not a prime, wins by a noticeable margin. Crispest in the centre, flattest field and best performance in the corners, with very little of the usual barrel distortion at the wide end of a zoom lens. Next to no vignetting but may be due to in camera correction of JPEG. I should really have worked with the DNG's but I was too lazy!

Next the ZM Biogon. A little disappointing for a lens with such a high reputation. Usual Biogon bugbear of field curvature is noticeable and not quite as crisp as I expected. On the plus side (and the reason I bought it rather than an Elmarit-M in 2006) is that it is extremely rectilinear with zero barrel distortion. 

Finally it is the Elmarit-R. Yes it is in third place but not by a huge margin from the Biogon, considering how much older the basic design is. It does exhibit some field curvature and is a tad softer at the edges than the Biogon but not by as much as I feared. I am not sure how much the softening at the edges is due to spherical aberration and how much to field curvature. Due to the usage, which will be almost 100% film, I doubt if I will find anything to criticise on the performance of this lens in practice. 

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 January 25, 2019 by wlaidlaw

[Advertisement]

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

[TomB_tx]

I have one of these, and agree it is a very usable lens.

The rotating knob on the hood is for rotating a series polarizing filter held on by the hood, so you can quickly orient it for effect. The 50 Summilux-R (v1) hood uses the same technique.

[pierovitch]

Used one for many years professionally but mainly on Kodachrome. The matching polarizer added to the lens contrast for architectural subjects. It was sold to fund the switch to digital so the digital performance I cannot comment on. Few film era retrofocus wideangles have the flat field and contrast of modern digital lenses at the edge of the frame where the chips cover becomes part of the optical equation. Enjoy the results on film where the lens is at its best or use some edge enhancement to help tweak the digital results like Kodachrome did for film. 

Cheers Pierre

[wlaidlaw]

6 hours ago, TomB_tx said:

I have one of these, and agree it is a very usable lens.

The rotating knob on the hood is for rotating a series polarizing filter held on by the hood, so you can quickly orient it for effect. The 50 Summilux-R (v1) hood uses the same technique.

Tom, 

Thanks for that information. Sadly it does not work on my e60 Heliopan polariser, where the rotating rim sits too far forward to engage with the wheel. Do you know if you need a filter retaining ring to use a series VIII filter with the e60 version of the lens or does the 12523 hood retain the filter. There is one UK shop with a S/H Leica series 8 polarising filter. 

Wilson

[TomB_tx]

13 minutes ago, wlaidlaw said:

Tom, 

Thanks for that information. Sadly it does not work on my e60 Heliopan polariser, where the rotating rim sits too far forward to engage with the wheel. Do you know if you need a filter retaining ring to use a series VIII filter with the e60 version of the lens or does the 12523 hood retain the filter. There is one UK shop with a S/H Leica series 8 polarising filter. 

Wilson

Sorry, I haven’t tried it, as I don’t use polarizers on wide angles. I’d guess the hood is intended to hold a series filter, like the Summilux does.

[pierovitch]

Just checked with Puts R lens reference and found I was using the Minolta version.

Edited January 26, 2019 by pierovitch
wrong version lens