R lens prices finally beginning to drop

[wlaidlaw]

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The 21-35 Vario Elmar-R lens has always been on my wish list, as I am very much a wide angle rather than tele lens user. Every few months I have a look on Fleabay to see what pricing is and if the lenses are selling or not. For the last few months I have noticed that the more absurdly priced 21-35 lenses just have not sold. Typically, some hopeless optimists had their lenses priced at anything up to £2700/€3000. I was watching a 21-35 from a reputable seller recently, which had the very reasonable start price of €1400/£1250 on it as just at the moment, the Euro/Pound exchange rate has become a bit more favourable than it has been. This ROM lens appears to be in near mint condition and comes with box, hood, caps and paperwork (always a good sign of a careful owner). Again this lens had no bids, so I put in an offer at the start price, with a day to go on the auction, which was accepted. Until a few months ago, the cheapest these lenses were going for was £1500 for a quite heavily used version. I looked at a couple at one of the London dealers back in the spring but they were too heavily used for my peace of mind, with a lot of paint wear and sloppy focus rings. 

This will be a useful lens on my M10-R as well as my R cameras. Hopefully the 15mm/2.8 Super Elmarit-R prices will also drop, as that is really the only other R lens I want to add to the stable. 

Wilson

Edited November 18, 2020 by wlaidlaw

[masjah]

Wilson, that seems more like it. I've seen them at £1500, and always assumed that this was the going rate for a decent copy, not a heavily used one. 

I bought mine as "ex-demo" Leica stock. When it arrived, it looked so absolutely mint that I was convinced that Leica were selling off brand new stock because it was at the time when they were really strapped for cash. A friend of mine had exactly the same experience!

As for the lens itself, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Apart from the smaller maximum aperture, it's every bit as good as the wide primes, some of whose designs really were a bit long in the tooth (and some not being originally by Leica). 

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[Charles Morgan]

I'm not really a user of Zooms so I would wonder at the prices with no real concern just mild eyebrow furrowing, well done on yours.

Not Leica but I have had a perfect Rolleiflex 2.8F lingering on Ebay without real interest - it's priced well enough but the only offers have been half price (which might have bought one like it a decade ago) so I think the downturn of Covid has started to bite. I don't need the money but I can never see the point of keeping something on sale at a price higher than people will bite at.

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Charles Morgan

[wlaidlaw]

Charles 

I think that even good quality "regular" stuff is dropping and I would guess like you, covid driven. At the other end of the scale, one looks at the price of new Leicas and lenses, which folks (me included) seem prepared to pay and the to my way of thinking, absurd prices some of the rarer Leica stuff goes for at auction. People pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for a battered Leica which has been one of the cameras used by a famous photographer. Do people pay huge prices for a brush used by the likes of Renoir - I don't know but next time I see him at a local photo exhibition in France, I will ask Alain if he has ever sold any of granddad's brushes and for how much. My 250FF Reporter, once the property of William Foster Brigham, is now probably worth as much as the rest of my 27 film Leica camera collection put together. 

Wilson

[zeitz]

I have found the auction prices to be interesting too.  It seemed that everything sold at the Wetzlar Auction and that most of the sales were higher than the projected high side.  There were a lot of passed items at the Tamarkin Auction, but again the items that sold seemed to be higher than the projected high side.  I pre-bid a crazy amount at the Wetzlar Auction for one item and I won it at very near the price I thought was crazy.  I pre-bid on three items in the Tamarkin Auction; each bid was higher than the projected high side, but not crazy high.  I only won one of the three items.

We have the Leica Photographica Auction next.  The only two lots I would be interested in are way above what I am willing to spend on camera equipment.  But it will be interesting to see what their hammer price turns out to be.

[willeica]

1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

Charles 

I think that even good quality "regular" stuff is dropping and I would guess like you, covid driven. At the other end of the scale, one looks at the price of new Leicas and lenses, which folks (me included) seem prepared to pay and the to my way of thinking, absurd prices some of the rarer Leica stuff goes for at auction. People pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for a battered Leica which has been one of the cameras used by a famous photographer. Do people pay huge prices for a brush used by the likes of Renoir - I don't know but next time I see him at a local photo exhibition in France, I will ask Alain if he has ever sold any of granddad's brushes and for how much. My 250FF Reporter, once the property of William Foster Brigham, is now probably worth as much as the rest of my 27 film Leica camera collection put together. 

Wilson

If you could turn up one of Renoir's brushes it might be worth trying it out on the market with a decent reserve. Provenance might be an issue, of course. Dan Tamarkin sold a Leica MP Nr - 235-SP for $296,000 at auction last Saturday with a winder and no lens. The main provenance it had was that it had appeared in one of Jim Lager's books. You cannot rationalise such purchases in terms of 'bang for buck' or usability or 'better camera' etc. In some cases that I know such rare and expensive cameras spend most of their lives in bank vaults and they are never actually used. We may not agree with this in a world full of poverty, disease and inequality, but there is nothing objectively immoral or illegal about such behaviour. What is the difference between buying a rare Leica or a masterpiece by Renoir? The Leica might be slightly more 'useful' than the Renoir if it is in working order and it would be an awful lot cheaper. We can only watch and muse about what rich people do with their money.

William

[Charles Morgan]

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2 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

Charles 

I think that even good quality "regular" stuff is dropping and I would guess like you, covid driven. At the other end of the scale, one looks at the price of new Leicas and lenses, which folks (me included) seem prepared to pay and the to my way of thinking, absurd prices some of the rarer Leica stuff goes for at auction. People pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for a battered Leica which has been one of the cameras used by a famous photographer. Do people pay huge prices for a brush used by the likes of Renoir - I don't know but next time I see him at a local photo exhibition in France, I will ask Alain if he has ever sold any of granddad's brushes and for how much. My 250FF Reporter, once the property of William Foster Brigham, is now probably worth as much as the rest of my 27 film Leica camera collection put together. 

Wilson

Certainly I sold a lot of stuff in the first lockdown - in common with at least one dealer of my acquaintance who went fully online and never looked back, but this time I think cold hard economic reality is sinking in. I did find it entertaining that all three of the buyers of my ZM Zeiss 28, 35 and 50s were students who had bought their first Leica Ms (invariably M6s) and were looking for medium budget lenses to put on them.  I even ended up providing a tutorial to one on how to meter! I'm glad to have made those sales (the lenses were just too contrasty for me) and all the overpriced M42 lenses that I don't think I had used in years. 

I'm not getting the same feedback from dealers now about stuff flying out, it takes a fair bit longer. 

Collectibles aren't my thing, I only buy good user lenses to shoot with, ditto bodies. I'm rather glad that only nobodies used my cameras - I can happily shoot with them without worrying about condition changes or dropping them in a Dartmoor bog...

 

[Keith (M)]

As Erwin Puts writes in his 'Leica Compendium' the performance of the 21-35mm Vario Elmar-R "compares favourably to companion lenses of fixed focal length, has excellent to outstanding overall performance...  It is one of the few lenses that has no weak points in performance or handling."

An outing with it last week on my M10M shows that it has no problem whatsoever in dealing with 41Mp.

[wlaidlaw]

41 minutes ago, willeica said:

If you could turn up one of Renoir's brushes it might be worth trying it out on the market with a decent reserve. Provenance might be an issue, of course.

William

You mean a conversation along the lines of: "I never realised that Renoir used brushes from Homebase."

Wilson

[willeica]

1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

You mean a conversation along the lines of: "I never realised that Renoir used brushes from Homebase."

Wilson

There used to be someone on this forum who was trying to send up Leica snobs by having a tag line that went something like 'What kind of brushes did Michelangelo/Leonardo (forget which) use? ' As you know well, Wilson, it is not the tools that count, it is the tradesman. I regularly use humble products like Blu Tack to fix little issues on my Leicas. So if I found out that Renoir was using brushes from Homebase or even Carrefour or E LeClerc that would be fine with me. I'd still want a fingerprint test or a DNA test before I spent a few million on it at auction, though.😁

William

[wlaidlaw]

William, 

the couple of serious artists I know, are incredibly fussy on their brushes and have them made specially for them, using materials like antelope hair and wild hog bristle. I am guessing that a bit like using a Leica, especially a Barnack one, having the correct feeling brush or pressing the shutter release is a satisfying tactile experience, which can only enhance the correct mind set for taking good photos or making paintings. 

For my larger and heavier modern Leicas, I spend a fair bit of time modifying them and adding things like grips, thumb rests and/or half cases so that they fit my arthritic and lumpy right hand properly. I think this is especially important for rangefinder and other manual focus cameras, that all the weight can be taken in your right hand and your left hand given the sole task of accurate focus. 

Wilson

[masjah]

 

3 hours ago, Keith (M) said:

An outing with it last week on my M10M shows that it has no problem whatsoever in dealing with 41Mp.

Much my experience too.  When, under lockdown, I took my newly acquired SL2 on my permitted exercise walk. If you look on the Architecture Forum, I've got a post called Larkin's Lair taken using the 21-35 R. Even when scaled down to permitted Forum dimensions, there's still a lot of detail to be able to zoom in on.  Of course, the original has got even more.

[wlaidlaw]

The 21-35 is winging its way to me from Germany. My heart used to sink when I saw that DHL had been chosen as the carrier, as the tracking, when they could be bothered (infrequently) to update it, indicated that the package was making a "Cooks Tour" round Germany and was coming to the UK via Belgium, Denmark, Italy and France.

Since Covid started, in contrast to the warning on their website, they seem to have become hugely more efficient. Having been only posted yesterday lunchtime near Bremen, it is already at the outwards international centre in Dorsten as of 01.38 this morning and from experience over the last few months, will probably be in the UK early tomorrow morning. 

DHL got my M10-R from Ffordes in the north of Scotland to me in the south of France in less than 24 hours, which is an exceptionally good performance. 

Wilson

[willeica]

11 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

William, 

the couple of serious artists I know, are incredibly fussy on their brushes and have them made specially for them, using materials like antelope hair and wild hog bristle. I am guessing that a bit like using a Leica, especially a Barnack one, having the correct feeling brush or pressing the shutter release is a satisfying tactile experience, which can only enhance the correct mind set for taking good photos or making paintings. 

For my larger and heavier modern Leicas, I spend a fair bit of time modifying them and adding things like grips, thumb rests and/or half cases so that they fit my arthritic and lumpy right hand properly. I think this is especially important for rangefinder and other manual focus cameras, that all the weight can be taken in your right hand and your left hand given the sole task of accurate focus. 

Wilson

Thanks Wilson. I am all for good tactile experience. I too have arthritis in my hands and wrists, so with heavier cameras I always use a proper camera strap. No reliance on wrist straps for me. With earlier lighter LTM models which have no strap lugs I keep them in a bag already wound on and ready to shoot when I see an image worth making/taking. One of the nice things about using early film cameras is that you re-learn how to value each shot and unlearn the spray in numbers policy which has come with digital. Having only 8 shots from something like a VPK or a Brownie is a real relearning experience for those of us who had forgotten this. As for what brushes Renoir, Leonardo or Picasso used, they don't matter to me as I can only judge them by their works. And heresy of heresies, it does not really bother me whether HCB used a Leica or not. I know that using a Leica enabled him to get his images, but, again, I can only judge him by the images he made and not based on what camera he used.

1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

The 21-35 is winging its way to me from Germany. My heart used to sink when I saw that DHL had been chosen as the carrier, as the tracking, when they could be bothered (infrequently) to update it, indicated that the package was making a "Cooks Tour" round Germany and was coming to the UK via Belgium, Denmark, Italy and France.

Since Covid started, in contrast to the warning on their website, they seem to have become hugely more efficient. Having been only posted yesterday lunchtime near Bremen, it is already at the outwards international centre in Dorsten as of 01.38 this morning and from experience over the last few months, will probably be in the UK early tomorrow morning. 

DHL got my M10-R from Ffordes in the north of Scotland to me in the south of France in less than 24 hours, which is an exceptionally good performance. 

Wilson

Watching our 'stuff' coming is a modern affliction. With DHL, if the item is coming from, say Sweden, I will have it in 2 days. If it is coming from Germany where it is a wing of their Post Office it will be tracked for about a day and then it will disappear into hyperspace for about a week, emerging eventually with the Irish Post Office which will get it to me within hours. Right now I have a package on its way to me from a German auction house with an LTM Leica and a 19th Century brass lens and it has gone AWOL for about a week. I will be patient and wait until early next week before putting out search parties for the MIA package. The handover between the British and Irish Post Offices used to be very bad, but it has improved greatly. At one time it was like they were engaged in a rugby international at Twickenham and were afraid that they might pass the ball to the opposition.

William

[pgk]

3 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

My heart used to sink when I saw that DHL had been chosen as the carrier, as the tracking, when they could be bothered (infrequently) to update it, indicated that the package was making a "Cooks Tour" round Germany and was coming to the UK via Belgium, Denmark, Italy and France.

Since Covid started, in contrast to the warning on their website, they seem to have become hugely more efficient. Having been only posted yesterday lunchtime near Bremen, it is already at the outwards international centre in Dorsten as of 01.38 this morning and from experience over the last few months, will probably be in the UK early tomorrow morning. 

Without wanting to depress you, I have a package via DHL from Germany which was shipped on the 11th and on its way. It apparently arrived in Dorsten on the 12th, and as far as tracking goes has not moved since ....... I'm hoping William's experience is correct because if so it should arrive imminently (the ferries are running as we haven't got the wrong sort of leaves on the sea at the moment).

[willeica]

4 hours ago, pgk said:

Without wanting to depress you, I have a package via DHL from Germany which was shipped on the 11th and on its way. It apparently arrived in Dorsten on the 12th, and as far as tracking goes has not moved since ....... I'm hoping William's experience is correct because if so it should arrive imminently (the ferries are running as we haven't got the wrong sort of leaves on the sea at the moment).

My package from Germany showed up in the Irish Post Office Sorting Centre in Portlaoise today, so I should have it tomorrow or Monday. It might even arrive on Saturday as they now have Saturday deliveries due to the increase in online purchases during Covid lockdowns. Paul, you will know that it has arrived when I send you a report on the Morley lens.

William

[wlaidlaw]

William, 

Sadly my optimism over improved DHL service from Germany appears to have been misplaced. As Paul found out, once something falls into the black hole of Dorsten, it never moves again. My package has now been sitting there immobile, maturing for the last 4 days. I wonder if this is deliberate to encourage folk to opt for the more expensive 24 or 48 hour express delivery and to differentiate between the levels of service. 

Wilson

[solareslarrave]

Late comer into the R system, after years of using Ms and a Nikon dSLR... Very recently I just decided to buy an R8 (and had a crash course on SNs) and then another... and recently was able to get two zoom lenses at what I thought was an extremely reasonable price. Imagine getting M glass at those prices! My first was the 35-70 f3.5 (E60), which costed me less than $400. Then I laid my hands on a 28-70 f3.5-4.5 ROM... for less than $600, with case and original caps. The only thing I'm not too crazy about in that lens is the hood. Looks a bit worse for wear and I'd like to get a replacement. But for now, I'm intensely happy to see some prices at the level they are now. I find it exhilarating to see a Summicron 50 3-cam for about $700. The recent 'cron for the M cameras is... I don't want to know.

Oh, well... I hope your package arrived soon after your post, Wilson. Just today my second lens (the 28-70) came in from Japan via DHL, in only three days.

[wlaidlaw]

5 hours ago, solareslarrave said:

Oh, well... I hope your package arrived soon after your post, Wilson. Just today my second lens (the 28-70) came in from Japan via DHL, in only three days.

Sadly that 100mm APO Macro Elmarit never turned up and although we knew it was sitting at Auckland Airport and the useless NZ post refused to institute a search for it. The seller had not insured it for full value, with the best of motives, to reduce my import duties, although I had told him only to declare it for a lower value if he could insure it at full replacement cost. The seller in an effort to make good (and full credit to him) sent me another 100mm Macro but not as nice an example and non-ROM plus missing the ELPRO. 

Wilson

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Hallo,

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[ph.]

The 21-35 works well on my NikonZ-7, but has slight problems in very strong counterlight- unlike my zeiss optics. The better R-lenses -like this one, deserve to keep their value for as long as their robust constructions allow., but if a lower price will allow users rather than collectors to enjoy them, so much the better. 

p.