What cheap/affordable vintage Leica M mount lens to get?

[Ko.Fe.]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

30 minutes ago, 84bravo said:

I have the 28mm f2.8 version 2 and version 4. The version 4 is wonderfully sharp, although nothing special about it's rendering. The Version 2 is not as sharp as the V4 and I seldom use it.

What makes the look of the V3 lens different than the V4 or any of the other 28's in your opinion? I see the V3 for sale at relatively affordable prices.

28 2.8 III is Mandler lens. Negatives from this lens on darkroom prints looks far away from nothing special. On digital M it wasn't this obvious. 

Gary Gumanow is using it for sometime now.

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!

 

[Advertisement]

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

[84bravo]

1 minute ago, Ko.Fe. said:

28 2.8 III is Mandler lens. Negatives from this lens on darkroom prints looks far away from nothing special. On digital M it wasn't this obvious. 

Gary Gumanow is using it for sometime now.

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 bought my 28mm V4 new in the 90's using it and a couple of other contemporary lenses (35 f2 V4 and 50 f2 V4) as a working photojournalist. When I looked at negs on a light table I could always tell the difference between Leica lenses and any other (Canon, Nikon, etc). The others were fine, but the Leica negs popped. However, I didn't see anything different in the final prints other than they were easier to print than from the Nikon lenses.

I use these lenses now on modern digital M bodies in addition to newer f1.4 asph lenses. They look fine on digital, but no different than they did on film. The 28mm f2.8 V2 looked fine on film, but it looks softer on digital. Isn't that a Mandler lens too?

[84bravo]

I have a 35mm f3.5 Summaron M (without goggles) that I really like. Wide open it does have a very similar look as the 50mm Summitar. They can be found for around $500. Be careful as some will bring up 50mm lines while others bring up the 35mm lines. I suppose the earlier ones were made before the M2 was introduced.

[BradS]

The 5cm f/1.5 Summarit-M is nice.  Here's an example at f/4

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!

[Ko.Fe.]

50 minutes ago, 84bravo said:

I bought my 28mm V4 new in the 90's using it and a couple of other contemporary lenses (35 f2 V4 and 50 f2 V4) as a working photojournalist. When I looked at negs on a light table I could always tell the difference between Leica lenses and any other (Canon, Nikon, etc). The others were fine, but the Leica negs popped. However, I didn't see anything different in the final prints other than they were easier to print than from the Nikon lenses.

I use these lenses now on modern digital M bodies in addition to newer f1.4 asph lenses. They look fine on digital, but no different than they did on film. The 28mm f2.8 V2 looked fine on film, but it looks softer on digital. Isn't that a Mandler lens too?

I only started to print around five or so years ago, some lenses are incredible on darkroom prints some are just awfully flat. 50 f2 V4 was very disappointing lens comparing to Elmar-M 50 f2.8 and Cron Collapsible. On darkroom BW prints. 

I know nothing about 28 2.8 II, except it is more pricey now than III, it seems.

I think, GW used it in late seventies, earlier eighties. I have seen his own prints from earlier 28mm lenses, they are not good as Leica in quality. But content prevails anyway... 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Ko.Fe.

[adan]

2 hours ago, 84bravo said:

I have the 28mm f2.8 version 2 and version 4. The version 4 is wonderfully sharp, although nothing special about it's rendering. The Version 2 is not as sharp as the V4 and I seldom use it.

What makes the look of the V3 lens different than the V4 or any of the other 28's in your opinion? I see the V3 for sale at relatively affordable prices.

The 28 Elmarit version 3 comes from the same "graduating class" as your 35 v.4 and 50 v.4 - Dr. Mandler, 1979-80, Leitz Canada. And it shares a lot of the same printability, tonality and color rendering of the other lenses of that generation (your 35+50, 75 Summilux, 90 Summicron v.3, 21 Elmarit pre-ASPH). They make up a family.

The 28mm M lenses are the poster child for the turmoil Leitz and the Leica M rangefinder system went through between 1970-1990, competing against the tsunami of SLRs (including their own Leicaflexes and Rs).

28 Elmarit v.1 (1965) - a really nice classical quasi-symmetrical wide-angle, like a view camera wide-angle or the 21 Super-Angulon or Hasselblad Biogon 38mm (SWC). Sat very close to the film plane (see protruding rear element), since the Ms needed no SLR mirror, or space to move it.

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!

Then the metering M5 arrived (1971), to respond to metered Nikons and the new Canon F-1, with a big metering arm in between the shutter and lens. The 28 v.1 (and the 21mm Super-Angulons) could not be used with that metering. The 28 v.2 (1972) was a quicky redesign to remove the protruding rear element (retrofocus design) to allow metering - in about the same overall size/shape as the v.1. As an "emergency rush job" and the first-ever retrofocus design for the M, and given the size constraint, it indeed suffered optically, at least wide-open.

Thus the V.3 was the 1979 redesign to fix the imaging flaws of the v.2. Better performance - the best 28mm Dr. Mandler created. But it was a bigger lens (49mm filters, fat "bull nose" in front of the aperture ring). Not an issue so long as 28s required an accessory viewfinder anyway, but once Leica added 28mm framelines in the M4-P (and later cameras - another response to SLRs), it was noticed how much it blocked the main viewfinder.

Thus the V.4 was yet another fix, to make the 28 Elmarit smaller again (especially the front diameter), while retaining at least the quality of the v.3 (and adding a little contrast).

I consider the 28 v.4 from Solms, Germany to be a "transitional" lens between Dr. Mandler's 1980 "look" (my favorite) and the pinker, contrastier APO-ASPH look of the 1990s Solms designs, now in the hands of Peter Karbe.

If one wants the best "Mandler 28," it is the v.3. They can even be factory upgraded to 6-bit coding, but that requires an extra $US300 (or equivalent) which is why the "base price" for an uncoded v.3 is often attractive. And they are still large, as M f/2.8 lenses go.