50mm for leica M3

[jacopo129]

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Hello everyone,

I‘m really happy that I can post on this forum, as I‘ve definitely decided to switch to leica and recently acquired a M3 to use for my street photography work.

I know the „safe“ choice would be a summicron or a summilux, although sadly I actually don‘t have that budget. I need to stay around 600-700€ and for that amount I put my eyes on a carl zeiss planar 50/2 ZM. Is it a good choice or shall I look at something else? 

Thanks in advance, looking forward to read your advices!

[TomB_tx]

The Planar is an excellent choice for an M3, as are the Voigtlander lenses. I have the Planar and several Summicrons, and consider them equal for my use.

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[cesc]

Sonnar has something special 

[dpitt]

The Summicron 1:2.0/50 v1 collapsible that came with lots of your M3’s should be within your budget. Try to find one without too many cleaning marks. The front element is very soft, so its best to protect it with a filter  at all times.
Wide open it is maybe not as sharp as modern Summicrons but it improves a lot with stopping down and it has a lot of character.

The Elmarit 1:2.8/50 collapsible is also a great contender for street.

Both come in a very light and compact package, which makes carrying them around without a photo bag very easy. Just collapse it and put it mounted (!) in your pocket.

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by dpitt

[leicameech]

Just bear in mind that the minimum focusing distance for an M3 camera is 1 meter, so if you have a lens that can focus closer than that, the split image in the rangefinder will stop moving at 1m distance to the subject, while you’ll be able to continue turning the focus ring on the lens (modern lenses from Leica, Voigtlander, Zeiss). Any distance closer than that, you’ll need to go by feel/guess/use depth of field scale and zone focus. Nothing to do with whether the 50mm lenses mentioned in this thread are good though, they all are! The collapsible 50 Summicron is a wonderful lens indeed, and doesn’t have this issue as it was made for the M3 and has a minimum focusing distance of 1m. Owned it and an M3, and they were fantastic! 

[pippy]

To be perfectly honest nowadays almost any modern 50 will be very good indeed and, to answer your question, the Planar which you mention is a fantastic lens.

Best of good fortune.

Philip.

Edited January 21, 2023 by pippy

[earleygallery]

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The M mount 50 f3.5 or f2.8 Elmar would be a great match or the newer Elmarit M. 

[shirubadanieru]

Elmar 50 2.8 or 3.5

Heliar 40mm 2.8

Summicron V2 rigid

would be my choices 

[pippy]

7 hours ago, jacopo129 said:

...a summicron or a summilux...I need to stay around 600-700€ and for that amount I put my eyes on a carl zeiss planar 50/2 ZM. Is it a good choice or shall I look at something else?

In the interests of simplicity - and attempting to help matters - I'll try to keep this straightforward.

50mm lenses have been optically superb for a hundred years or more. Here is a pair of images snapped, as it happens, last week (and posted elsewhere at the time). One pic was taken on a brand spanking new Zeiss Planar 50mm f2 wide open. The other was taken on a 70-year-old example of a Leitz 50mm f1.5 Summarit also at f2;

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These pics really were taken as mere snaps and certainly weren't taken as a scientific test. The ensuing perspective differences are down to slightly different minimum-focus distances (0.7m / 1.0m) but the rendering of both lenses is almost identical. This might seem odd at first but not when things are thought-through. The 2023 Planar uses a symmetrical Double-Gauss optical design which was first formulated by Paul Rudolph, a Carl Zeiss employee, in 1896. The 1953 Summarit, on the other hand, uses a mildly tweaked slightly asymmetrical version of essentially the same Double-Gauss design and which was formulated in 1920.

One lens, which is rightly considered to be one of the very best lenses on the market, is brand-new yet uses an optical formula which is 125 years old. The other is a 70-y-o example whose optical design is still 100-y-o. In all seriousness how different are these images? Add-in to the mix that although they were both snapped at the same aperture one lens was used wide-open (f2) whilst the other was closed-down one stop so was not 'drawing' as it would when used at f1.5.

My point in all this being that unless you have a specific 'rendering' in mind pretty much ANY decent modern 50mm lens will be able to provide you with results which can be outstanding (not that these happy-snaps are but I hope you get my point!). As always 'The Devil is in the Detail'. If you wish for a more 'Vintage' rendering then we can point you in that direction with our suggestions. For a  more 'modern' rendering we can do likewise. But in essence you would be hard-pressed to find any 50mm which isn't as good a performer as you could hope to use unless your requirements are rather specific.

If so, of course, please let us know and we will be delighted to offer suggestions!

Good luck!

Philip.

Edited January 22, 2023 by pippy

[spydrxx]

The Zeiss Planar is a very sharp and contrasty lens.. giving a modern  look to your photos, and IMHO almost indistinguishable from Summicrons of the same period. I've thoroughly enjoyed mine. But I do have an older collapsible Summicron which isn't quite as bitingly sharp and contrasty across the frame when wide open. I think one of the great bargains for those who like classic shots with lots of tonality, and who don't need as fast a lens as the Planar or Summicrons, is the 50/3.5 collapsible Elmar, a screwmount which can be used just as easily on M mount camera bodies with a $25-30 adapter ring. I've used mine on both screwmount and M bodies for years and love its tonality. Another inexpensive lens (also a screwmount) which is sharp and contrasty is the Canon 50/1.8 which can typically be had for somewhere around $125 on the big auction site from Japanese dealers. It is rapidly becoming one of my go-to lenses. You obviously have lots of choices, so enjoy. Most of us end up with several 50s as used bargains become available.

[madNbad]

The Voigtlander 1.5 Nokton ASPH is a good performer and not too expensive. Since the latest version has been released, prices on the first version are dropping. I just bought a black V1 Noxton for four hundred USD. There are plenty of choices for the 50. If you decided to go with a LTM, spend the money for a decent LTM to M adapter. Good luck and welcome to the forum! Enjoy your M3!!

[pippy]

36 minutes ago, spydrxx said:

...Another inexpensive lens (also a screwmount) which is sharp and contrasty is the Canon 50/1.8 which can typically be had for somewhere around $125 on the big auction site from Japanese dealers. It is rapidly becoming one of my go-to lenses...

I agree abolutely. It is  / they are superb lenses.

Yet again this is another lens which, like the Planar, was based on the classic (6 elements in 4 groups) symmetrical Double-Gauss design. The 50 f1.8 Serenar was introduced in 1951. It's a lens which I use often as it works wonderfully with the M Monochrom.

If the OP has a specific 'look' in mind then we can narrow-down the list of Possibilities otherwise we will end up listing several hundred options for their consideration...

Philip.

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by pippy

[dpitt]

5 hours ago, spydrxx said:

...

I think one of the great bargains for those who like classic shots with lots of tonality, and who don't need as fast a lens as the Planar or Summicrons, is the 50/3.5 collapsible Elmar, a screwmount which can be used just as easily on M mount camera bodies with a $25-30 adapter ring. I've used mine on both screwmount and M bodies for years and love its tonality.
....

+1 for the collapsible Elmar 50
I do not hesitate to use it in daylight on my M9, even if I have much younger 50's like the Summicron 1:2.0/50 M and the Summilux 1:1.4/50. It is very good wide open and gets really sharp at f8 while still retaining a vintage look. It is my preferred lens for when I just want to put my M9 + lens in my coat pocket.

The only disadvantage is when you want to work with filters. It does not use standard filter threads but has filters that go around the outside like a lens cap. Finding yellow filters is not that hard, but anything other than that can get more expensive. I did not find a UV/IR cut filter for it to use it on my M8.

[jacopo129]

thanks everyone for the answers! For now I'll skip the cz and put the old Summicron 50/2 v1 as first choice, hoping I can find one in good shape. If not, I'll opt for an Elmar.