Small, compact lenses

[tommonego@gmail.com]

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This is a pre-asph 35 f1.4 on an M3, tiny lens have had this one since 1974. f1.4 -f2 gives the "Leica glow" f4 and above this is an excellent lens. They didn't come with a lens shade and the lens shades were difficult to find, remember trying to find one in 1974, lens made in 1972. I finally bought an Summaron shade and had it cut down. Today you can get a Chinese knock off for $45 or the original for $200-300. The other problem is the shade holds the filters and they are series 7, you can (barely) fit in a 49mm filter, but it does work. I have had this lens for a long time and I like the rendering of the lens. 

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[jaeger]

how about a voigtlander 35mm 1.4?  compare and economical

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[UliWer]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Landiah:

Why should one never use this lens without it's hood?

Because this lens flares strongly - to quote Luigi: „it flares if you look at it“. 

[UliWer]

It all comes down to a very simple rule of thumbs:

If you want a highly opened lens (e.g. 1:1.4) you usually have to accept a larger built. There are exceptions, the 35mm Summilux pre.asph being the most obvious. Though its performance highly opened is way below the modern standards, one may like the rendering, but it is a „special lens“. There are reasons that Leica‘s later Summiluxes are a lot larger - though not as large as the Zeiss Distagon, which is excellent but as large as a 90mm.

So if a small built is one‘s main priority one should better look at lenses with modest opening. The 35mm Summarit is small with almost no viewfinder obstruction, the performance is not really worse than what you can expect from a Summilux, in some respects, like flare, it is even better - except that you have no large f-stops. 

 

[Fedro]

7 hours ago, Landiah said:

It isn't the weight of the 28 lux that bothers me. I am more put off by VF blockage and it's width. The lens without the hood is actually quite a nice size.

agree, I only use it without the hood in fact

[ianman]

18 hours ago, Landiah said:

as I mostly shoot film I find that an extra stop of light proves useful. 

Load faster film? Or push.

Seriously if you like 28mm and film, the tiny Summaron f/5.6 is a match made in heaven.

[lct]

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Which is the most compact 50/1.4 or 50/1.5 M lens? 
Summilux 50/1.4 v2, Summilux 50/1.4 v3, Sonnar 50/1.5, Nokton 50/1.5, or [fill in blank]?

[Landiah]

6 hours ago, Fedro said:

agree, I only use it without the hood in fact

Do you use a protective filter?

[Fedro]

51 minutes ago, Landiah said:

Do you use a protective filter?

yes, always

[sebben]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:14 AM, lct said:

Which is the most compact 50/1.4 or 50/1.5 M lens? 
Summilux 50/1.4 v2, Summilux 50/1.4 v3, Sonnar 50/1.5, Nokton 50/1.5, or [fill in blank]?

Sonnar 1.5 it’s the perfect size. 

[Mark T]

1 hour ago, sebben said:

Sonnar 1.5 it’s the perfect size. 

I agree with this. Plus I will add that it's the perfect weight. I love the handling of this lens...

[Harpomatic]

Voigtländer Nokton 35mm 1.4 VM II - the improved version. I’m using it daily and it’s great. Tiny as well, no viewfinder blockage - you should try one!

Edited January 20, 2020 by Harpomatic
Grammar! 😅

[TheBestSLIsALeicaflex]

On 1/20/2020 at 8:41 AM, Harpomatic said:

Voigtländer Nokton 35mm 1.4 VM II - the improved version. I’m using it daily and it’s great. Tiny as well, no viewfinder blockage - you should try one!

As well the new Cosina Voigtlander 35/2 Ultron Asph is very small and plenty sharp.  I have both.  The new 35/1.4 Nokton is a real character lens.  Sharp enough for B&W film, even wide open.

Edited January 21, 2020 by TheBestSLIsALeicaflex

[jakontil]

Voigtlander ultron f2,

 

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[LeicaS2]

With the latest digital M cameras and the access to higher ISO, I can concentrate to compactness in lenses.

 

I am now covering the range 21 to 90 with three very compact lenses. The Voigtlander 21mm f4, the Leica Summarit 50mm f2.4, and the Leica 90mm Macro Elmar f4.   The Macro Elmar is half the size of other 90mm lenses when collapsed. While the Leica 50mm. Elmar collapsible is smaller than the Summarit when collapsed, but not by enough to make a difference. I had one in the past and didn’t like the uncertainty of the collapsing technique. The 90mm doesn’t have that problem for me, and when the 90 is collapsed the saving in size is significant. I am now using these three lenses on the M10M that allows ISO to 100,000, so anything faster than f4 is just to achieve shallow depth of focus. With a Aer City Sling I have a very low tiny camera set up, but frankly, I usually just put the two spare lenses in my pockets and have the camera in my hand.

  

 

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[setuporg]

I can't help it by noting that the simplest cure to all this hand-wringing about the M lens sizes is to buy an X1D system or better a Leica S system.  Carry it around with two-three lenses.  Then everything SL becomes standard (zooms) or small (primes), and anything M becomes miniature except for the 75/1.25 and 90/1.5 which are small.

This is really baffling to me.  OK you got a short lens which looks like a piglet snout on an M.  Anything smaller than a 50 APO (standard) looks too small.  Heck the standard 50 APO looks small.  LHSA 50 APO looks just right with the hood.  It's like the (awesome) Street Silhouettes guy saying the Summarits are smaller than the Luxes, as if the 24 Lux is not worth carrying around Europe to shoot in churches because it's a half lollipop longer.  Guess what?  I took it on a 10-country trip with my son, alongside a few other M lenses, and a Q2, and they were in a huge Hadley Pro with other stuff you need on such a trip, and it was fine!

Get a grip people.  Carry a Leica S around for a day or an SL, and put 10-20 M lenses in their Hadley Pro instead and go for a road trip!

Edited May 20, 2020 by setuporg

[shirubadanieru]

I know you mentioned fast-lenses but really f2 is everything you need and it’s the perfect aperture that offers the best compromise between speed / size / weight. My suggestions would be as below; I also added 3 non-Leica lenses which to me are as well or even better built than Leica lenses and have amazing rendering:

• Summicron 35mm f2 (any pre-asph version, with v4 being the shortest/lightest) ; asph version is larger and heavier but still fairly compact
• Summicron 50mm v1 collapsible or v4 (the one with a focus tab) 
• Any summarit (I prefer the f2.5 designs)
• Tele elmarit 90mm f2.8
• Summaron 35mm f2.8
• Summilux 50mm v3 pre-asph is also fairly small and lighter than all other 50 summilux lenses
  
  Non-Leica: 
• Rollei 40mm f2.8
• UX Hexanon 35mm f2
• Sonnar 50mm f1.5

 

[Fedro]

3 hours ago, setuporg said:

I can't help it by noting that the simplest cure to all this hand-wringing about the M lens sizes is to buy an X1D system or better a Leica S system.  Carry it around with two-three lenses.  Then everything SL becomes standard (zooms) or small (primes), and anything M becomes miniature except for the 75/1.25 and 90/1.5 which are small.

This is really baffling to me.  OK you got a short lens which looks like a piglet snout on an M.  Anything smaller than a 50 APO (standard) looks too small.  Heck the standard 50 APO looks small.  LHSA 50 APO looks just right with the hood.  It's like the (awesome) Street Silhouettes guy saying the Summarits are smaller than the Luxes, as if the 24 Lux is not worth carrying around Europe to shoot in churches because it's a half lollipop longer.  Guess what?  I took it on a 10-country trip with my son, alongside a few other M lenses, and a Q2, and they were in a huge Hadley Pro with other stuff you need on such a trip, and it was fine!

Get a grip people.  Carry a Leica S around for a day or an SL, and put 10-20 M lenses in their Hadley Pro instead and go for a road trip!

I totally agree with you - I love the Lux 28. On this forum you see a lot of people bash it for size and weight compared to the elmarit. The Lux is around 250 grams heavier, that is the weight of what? A small bottle of water half full?

Besides some lenses are too small indeed. When I had the 28 elmarit a few years ago it was not ergonomically that great. I have large-fish hands, and I kept putting my fingers in front of it, could not take it off the camera easily, the camera swings wildly and faces down when you carry it around etc

M lenses, even the bigger ones, are a good size indeed

Like you I have the SL. Great camera, but carrying it around with one of the zoom feels like a self-inflicted penitence ..

[Mark T]

4 hours ago, setuporg said:

I can't help it by noting that the simplest cure to all this hand-wringing about the M lens sizes is to buy an X1D system or better a Leica S system.  Carry it around with two-three lenses.  Then everything SL becomes standard (zooms) or small (primes), and anything M becomes miniature except for the 75/1.25 and 90/1.5 which are small.

This is really baffling to me.  OK you got a short lens which looks like a piglet snout on an M.  Anything smaller than a 50 APO (standard) looks too small.  Heck the standard 50 APO looks small.  LHSA 50 APO looks just right with the hood.  It's like the (awesome) Street Silhouettes guy saying the Summarits are smaller than the Luxes, as if the 24 Lux is not worth carrying around Europe to shoot in churches because it's a half lollipop longer.  Guess what?  I took it on a 10-country trip with my son, alongside a few other M lenses, and a Q2, and they were in a huge Hadley Pro with other stuff you need on such a trip, and it was fine!

Get a grip people.  Carry a Leica S around for a day or an SL, and put 10-20 M lenses in their Hadley Pro instead and go for a road trip!

By this thinking you should carry a view camera? I can't say I agree with your logic. Size matters to me. Always. Whilst I'm pleased that you enjoyed carrying around all your stuff, I do not. Maybe you should start a new thread "Big, heavy lenses" and you can discuss your big hands and manly feats of strength there? Lol. Seriously though, Leica was invented to be small and portable. It's why many of us use M Cameras in the first place and I think that's the point of this thread. You don't see the difference between a 250 g lens and a 450 g one, but I do. I don't really see a big difference between an f1.4 lens and an f2 lens but I acknowledge others do. Different strokes and all that.

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[Mark T]

45 minutes ago, Fedro said:

I totally agree with you - I love the Lux 28. On this forum you see a lot of people bash it for size and weight compared to the elmarit. The Lux is around 250 grams heavier, that is the weight of what? A small bottle of water half full?

Besides some lenses are too small indeed. When I had the 28 elmarit a few years ago it was not ergonomically that great. I have large-fish hands, and I kept putting my fingers in front of it, could not take it off the camera easily, the camera swings wildly and faces down when you carry it around etc

M lenses, even the bigger ones, are a good size indeed

Like you I have the SL. Great camera, but carrying it around with one of the zoom feels like a self-inflicted penitence ..

I think the main complaint about the 28mm Summilux is that it blocks so much of the viewfinder, which is one of the main reasons to use an M in the first place (as opposed to a SLR, Mirrorless etc). That said, all those little increments in size and weight add up. The 28mm Summilux is what, double the weight of the Elmarit? Imagine you made those choices everywhere, doubled the weight of everything you carried. It starts adding up pretty quickly. It I am going to carry an additional 250 g, I'd rather have a whole extra lens than an extra f stop. However, everyone has different priorities.