Can a M3 googled-lens be used on an M2 etc?

[Alberti]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Can I take off the finder/goggles of a Summicron/Summaron 35mm M3 lens and then use it on an M2 (or M9, M10, M11 etc. )? There are 2 screws to set the lens free . . 
It will bring on the 50mm framelines. 

- In that respect I refer to the Minolta M-Rokkor lens I have that was made for the Leica CL: the 40mm also natively engages the 50mm frame 

So that looks like the same situation. The lens is then useable.

[Advertisement]

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

[pippy]

Best wait until someone who actually knows with 100% certainty chimes in (I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination!) but I'm pretty sure that I've read many times over the years that it is not possible to use the goggled lens without the goggles attached which explains, in part, why they are far less expensive to buy on the used market.

My understanding is that the focus cam / body r/f patch only works accurately with the goggles on but I could well be remembering incorrectly...

You could, of course, use it and guesstimate focus distance; it depends on your subject matter and how good you are at judging distances! FWIW I've just returned from hols where I used a Leica 1(A) (no rangefinder) with a 35mm lens and, because my subjects were generally far enough away and the light was bright enough to allow stopping the lens down far enough to get great depth-of-field, the images turned out perfectly sharp.

Philip.

Edited August 27, 2020 by pippy

[Jean-Michel]

You can use the 'goggled' lenses on any M body, without any modifications. All that the 'goggles' do is change the view magnification and bring out the 50 mm frame. If you remove the goggles you will not be able to focus correctly, unless you get some technician to remove the goggles and make the modification required to make it an 'ungoggled' version, and that make zero sense: just get a plain version of the lens.

In my film days, and because I wear glasses and therefore have difficulty to view the 35 mm frame, I mounted my 50 mm on the M3, and the 'goggled' 35 mm on my M4 or M6. I had no problems focusing with the 'goggles' in spite of the rangefinder patch being, of course, smaller due the change in viewfinder magnification. I have/am occasionally using it on my M9 and M-P,  but not often as i also have the newest 35 Summicron. 

With the digital M's the only issue is with one's ability to accurately focus given the smaller RF patch. When I first used mine on my M9 I was getting slightly out of focus images, it took a trip to DAG to adjust the lens (Leica told me at the time that since they had no spare parts for my lens, they could not service it) Once I got the lens back, all was OK. I still decided to get a new 35 anyway, so the 1962 35 Summicron mostly looks forlorn on my shelf, I do use it the I want to make it feel better!

[pippy]

46 minutes ago, Jean-Michel said:

...If you remove the goggles you will not be able to focus correctly, unless you get some technician to remove the goggles and make the modification required to make it an 'ungoggled' version...

When I checked the situation out (which was, admittedly, a decade ago) the story was that, due to the precise nature of how the goggled version works, it is not possible to modify such a lens as the involved parts between goggled and non-goggled are nowhere near interchangeable.

It could be possible that things might be different today and some technical genius has solved the issue of compatibility but, as the value of goggled lenses remains far lower than the 'regular' style, I seriously doubt it.

Philip.

EDIT : Just had a look on the web and these are two of the threads I found;

"...The goggles do not just magnify, the RF one also has a wedge prism. Removing them will result in a lens useful only for scale focusing. The cam is shaped to match the results of that "wedged" RF..."

"...it will NOT focus accurately without the goggles, because (of) the internal ring that moves to focus...this ring is made to synchronize with the goggles. without the goggles, the focusing is off. it will seem to work, but then you realize what lined up 5 feet away says 10 feet on the lens....I once took my goggled 35mm f/2.8 summaron to the old Marty Forscher camera repair shop to see if they could replace that ring, but the answer was "no" -- the part does not seem to be interchangeable with the rings from non-goggled lenses..."

These responses were written way back in 2004 but they probably still hold true today.

Edited August 27, 2020 by pippy

[pedaes]

32 minutes ago, Jean-Michel said:

goggled' lenses on any M body,

The 50mm DR will not focus at infinity on a M10 without modification. This is general concensus and applied to mine, although some M10 users report no issues.

Edited August 27, 2020 by pedaes

[Jean-Michel]

Just some clarifications:

On the 35 mm 'goggles'. The RF patch itself is the same size as with any other lens mounted, it is just the smaller magnified image that can make the focusing a bit more difficult. Unless I am blind, there are no wedges in either the VF or RF parts of the goggles.

As to the 50 DR, I do not own one and do not know what the attachment does other than correct for the additional parallax and allow for the rf to do whatever it does.

I have a 90 Macro-Elmar, but don't have the attachment, here too it would be for the parallax correction.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I used 35 3.5 goggled on M4-2. It was great for framing. The only drawback is extra weight on top, which is changing camera balance in hand.

[Ko.Fe.]

As for Rokkor-M 40 lens, I filed the lug to bring 35mm frame on M-E 220, it was more accurate than 35mm lens with 35 framelines. On M3 it was irrelevant, because 50m framelines are on all the time. Didn't liked 40mm lens on 50mm framelines, btw.

[pippy]

4 hours ago, Jean-Michel said:

...Unless I am blind, there are no wedges in either the VF or RF parts of the goggles...

If you are referring to one of the quotes posted by myself then the quote did not talk about a wedge being used as part of the goggles; it mentioned that (and I quote once again);

"...the RF one also has a wedge prism..."

...which is quite a different thing altogether. So perhaps not "blind" but, instead, perhaps not paying enough attention to what has been written?

Philip.

 

[jaapv]

15 hours ago, pippy said:

When I checked the situation out (which was, admittedly, a decade ago) the story was that, due to the precise nature of how the goggled version works, it is not possible to modify such a lens as the involved parts between goggled and non-goggled are nowhere near interchangeable.

It could be possible that things might be different today and some technical genius has solved the issue of compatibility but, as the value of goggled lenses remains far lower than the 'regular' style, I seriously doubt it.

Philip.

EDIT : Just had a look on the web and these are two of the threads I found;

"...The goggles do not just magnify, the RF one also has a wedge prism. Removing them will result in a lens useful only for scale focusing. The cam is shaped to match the results of that "wedged" RF..."

"...it will NOT focus accurately without the goggles, because (of) the internal ring that moves to focus...this ring is made to synchronize with the goggles. without the goggles, the focusing is off. it will seem to work, but then you realize what lined up 5 feet away says 10 feet on the lens....I once took my goggled 35mm f/2.8 summaron to the old Marty Forscher camera repair shop to see if they could replace that ring, but the answer was "no" -- the part does not seem to be interchangeable with the rings from non-goggled lenses..."

These responses were written way back in 2004 but they probably still hold true today.

Both responses are incorrect, or at least confusing (confused?) for the 35 mm goggled lenses - the helicoid slope that drives the lever of the RF has a different angle,  to accommodate the magnification of the goggles, that is all. So whilst the lens will set the RF properly at infinity, it will be progressively more off when focusing closer.  The lenses that have removable goggles will lock the lens at infinity with the goggles detached for that reason, and the goggles can only be taken off with the lens locked at infinity..

I know for certain because that is the way my Summaron with detachable goggles works. The click-on goggles can be removed for easy stowage.

There have been cases of technicians grinding down the slope of the helicoid and removing fixed goggles, but it is not an operation I would recommend.

[Alberti]

So an un-goggled lens is just such a nightmare as a Zeiss/Russian lens that has it's own helicoid life and lives in its own helicoid and register distance hemisphere.

Oh so much for that then. 

thanks for the responses. 

[pippy]

7 hours ago, jaapv said:

Both responses are incorrect, or at least confusing (confused?) for the 35 mm goggled lenses......the lens will set the RF properly at infinity, it will be progressively more off when focusing closer......

Yes; to be fair to the authors of the parts I quoted both mentioned that infinity was unchanged - which I believed would be clearly understood by all to be the case - and I only mentioned the act of focussing (i.e. moving away from the infinity stop) aspect as I thought that it was the most important point of both texts. Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have included a bit more in the interests of clarity?

In addition I had completely forgotten about the 'locking at infinity when goggles removed' bit so thank you for raising the point, jaapv.

Philip.

Edited August 28, 2020 by pippy

[luigi bertolotti]

13 hours ago, Jean-Michel said:

Just some clarifications:

On the 35 mm 'goggles'. The RF patch itself is the same size as with any other lens mounted, it is just the smaller magnified image that can make the focusing a bit more difficult. Unless I am blind, there are no wedges in either the VF or RF parts of the goggles.

As to the 50 DR, I do not own one and do not know what the attachment does other than correct for the additional parallax and allow for the rf to do whatever it does.

I have a 90 Macro-Elmar, but don't have the attachment, here too it would be for the parallax correction.

 

In the Summicron DR, is like in the 35s : goggle does alter the rangefinder path : if you set the lens to the near distance range (to 50 cm or 19") and remove the goggle unit (nonsense operation, but can be done) the rangefinder does not coincide with the effective focus distance. And same, by logic, would happen with the Macro Elmar 90 (I have the goggle unit, but you can't remove the goggles...) ; the basic fact is that the "classic" (M2 onwards) Leica rangefinder, by itself measures down to 70cm : if you want to make it collimate at <70 cm you must "fool" it optically.

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by luigi bertolotti

[a.noctilux]

20 hours ago, Alberti said:

Can I take off the finder/goggles of a Summicron/Summaron 35mm M3 lens and then use it on an M2 (or M9, M10, M11 etc. )? There are 2 screws to set the lens free . . 
It will bring on the 50mm framelines. 

- In that respect I refer to the Minolta M-Rokkor lens I have that was made for the Leica CL: the 40mm also natively engages the 50mm frame 

So that looks like the same situation. The lens is then useable.

Two answers depending on the camera type, LV/EVF or not .

- I used to take out my Summaron 2.8/35 M3 type (with eyes attached) before I had the M2 variety ("normal").

with my M6/M8/M9, I took off the goggles, * knowing that I couldn't use the coupling rangefinder for other range than infinity,

for nearer distance, I just use the distance engraving, or use another coupled lens that I had to "report focus", it worked but not really a joy

- ...now with M240/M10 LV/ EVF, this would be simpler, but I sold the M3's Summaron 2.8/35 long ago

 

* by chance, my M3's Summaron 2.8/35 had the factory adapter LTM to M, so I swapped the adapter for "50" one to bring 50 frame lines.

Not wanting to butcher the lens...

 

...

Much later...

When money is not a problem anymore, I keep my two types of 35mm Summicron I and use the M3's on M3 or why not on the other Ms with goggles,

and the M2's type more often, end of story 😉

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by a.noctilux