The Beauty of Small Leica Lenses – A Love Letter to E39 Glass

[pippy]

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13 minutes ago, Smudgerer said:

Hello Pippy, FYI, the LLL version of the 12504 lens hood may be worth a look at...

Thanks very much for the link, Smudgerer. The silver-chrome one is very interesting and would be rather tempting to have as an option.

Hmmm.....

Philip.

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[johnwolf]

Amen to the OP’s Ode to 39. 

I own four M lenses - 25 to 90 - all 39s. 

Edited February 5 by johnwolf

[cesc]

I think I've been on the opposite path. I started with the Summicron 35 ASPH, then moved to the FLE, then the 50 Lux, and now I’ve sold all of them. I bought recentl a beautiful 35mm Summaron- and I am in love with it, I think I've found my lens. I’ve read this thread and some others, and I’d love to know which 50mm lens would provide a similar rendering to the Summaron. I finally found that I really love that classic look. I was thinking about the Elmar 50. Any thoughts on that? I’d love to hear from you.

 

19 hours ago, johnwolf said:

Amen to the OP’s Ode to 39. 

I own four M lenses - 25 to 90 - all 39s. 

I've found your website and photographs amazing! Could you share the film, dev and lenses you use? Thanks so much!

[lct]

1 hour ago, cesc said:

I’d love to know which 50mm lens would provide a similar rendering to the Summaron.

Summicron 50/2 Dual Range. Rigid v2 too i suspect but i have no experience with it. Beware that not all M cameras can fit the DR. OK for the M11 for instance but the lens cannot focus at infinity on the M240.

[cesc]

Thanks Ict! I have MP and M4 bodies, no digital Ms for me. So I think this lenses will work on them for sure!

[lct]

10 minutes ago, cesc said:

Thanks Ict! I have MP and M4 bodies, no digital Ms for me. So I think this lenses will work on them for sure!

With film you would need the goggles of the DR to focus closer than one metre so you may wish to try a Rigid before deciding.

[Scrapbook]

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My favourite E39 glasses..

Claus

Elmar M 4/90.    Summicron M 2/50 Version I.   Summaron M 2,8/35

 

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[johnwolf]

5 hours ago, cesc said:

….I've found your website and photographs amazing! Could you share the film, dev and lenses you use? Thanks so much!

Thank you. The year galleries are almost all with an M2 and Summarit 50 2.5. I always use HP5+ in HC-110. Pretty standard stuff. Occasionally I push and use DD-X. The Archive is a mix of film and various digital cameras. 

I have an M10 that I never got along with, but I’m giving it a serious try this year. 
 

 

Edited February 6 by johnwolf

[lct]

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Edited February 6 by lct

[lct]

On 2/5/2025 at 3:18 PM, Zeitblom said:

LTM lenses with 39mm filters were only a few years available, parallel to the same lenses for the then new M-bayonet.
Small LTM lenses before only had diameters for the attachable A-36 filters, some like the famous Elmar 3.5-50mm the very small screw-in filter E19.

Beginning Leica photography in 1992 with an used M3, I paid attention when buying also used lenses to the uniform filter size E39.
It started with: Summicron-M 2.0-35mm and Elmar-M 4.0-90mm.
Later were added: Super-Angulon-M 4.0-21mm, Summicron-M 2.0-50mm, and Tele-Elmar-M 4.0-135mm.
50 and 90mm lenses were the space-saving collapsible versions.

Similar experience with 20 more years here (M4, 1971). I thought the OP was referring to L39 cameras. Funnily enough i use my LTM lenses more and more on digital now. 35/3.5, 35/2 v1, 50/2 v1, 90/2.8 v1. 6-bit coding is easier on adapters than legacy lenses i'm not keen to butcher.

[adan]

Compact (and light) is good - and half the reason I mostly abandoned any other "35mm-sized" camera systems 24 years ago (the other half is the split-image focusing)

My collection:

90mm Tele-Elmarit v.2 - 220g
50mm Summicron v.3 - 199g
35mm Summicron-M v.4 - 134g
28 Elmarit-M ASPH - 170g
21 Color-Skopar - 130g

Five lenses = 0.853 kg. 😁 But typically I carry just the 90, 35 and 21 (= 0.48 kg) - not much I can't shoot with those three.

But I do also have a 75mm f/1.5 Nokton (E58, 335g), 135 APO-Telyt (E49, 455g) and 21 Elmarit ASPH (E55, 310g) to pull out when the light gets really dim. Used a 135 TE for years, but the APO is lighter and brighter.

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