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Posted (edited)

Jan1985,   I would like to offer you some ideas, but maybe you can expand on a few things first.   What is/are your genre(s) of photography?  Landscape, street, family events, travel, etc.?   What wide-angle focal lengths are you thinking about at present?   Last, what is your price range?   r/ Mark

Edited by LeicaR10
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Summaron 35mm f3.5 are beautiful lenses.   Older rendering, built extremely well.  Care is needed in purchasing because of variations in models, there’s also a 2.8 that costs more.  There’s many manufacturers of M lenses other than Leica with greater affordability and more modern optics.  

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Posted (edited)

Buy used, for sure.  With sensible caution regarding defects, of course!

For a 35mm, a ZM Biogon f/2.8 is pretty nifty.  Want a wider aperture?  Voigtlander VMs can be good but exist in such a bewildering variety that they might be harder to identify & sell on later.

Now there are fun Chinese brands of lens in M fit at attractive prices, though their quality control is often a step or two behind ...

Edited by rogxwhit
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Voigtlander’s 15mm Heliar. I have version 1 and find that it’s excellent. Two things, tho. First, it’s not rangefinder-coupled. That’s usually not much of an issue, especially at f/8 because the depth of field is fairly large. Also, it has no threading for filters. I believe you can insert 39mm filters and then hold it in place with a piece of folded paper to act as a shim. I believe the V2 addressed both these concerns. 

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vor 4 Stunden schrieb LeicaR10:

Jan1985,   I would like to offer you some ideas, but maybe you can expand on a few things first.   What is/are your genre(s) of photography?  Landscape, street, family events, travel, etc.?   What wide-angle focal lengths are you thinking about at present?   Last, what is your price range?   r/ Mark

Architecture, Indoor Rooms, Landscape

< 1.000 $

< 28mm

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2 hours ago, Jan1985 said:

Architecture, Indoor Rooms, Landscape

< 1.000 $

< 28mm

Therefore, I expect you are looking for:

1) Corner-to-corner resolution more than a large aperture; it is not as though you need (or want) f/1.4 to chase landcapes or buildings at midnight 😆
2) Either new or used, not Leica-made (with one possible exception) - Leica-made lenses <28mm just won't fit that budget.

Zeiss ZM or Cosina/Voigtlander lenses for Leica M-mount is where you will want to start looking.

The Zeiss ZM lenses include 25mm f/2.8 and 21mm f/2.8-f/4.5 lenses (and a no-longer-made and outside-your-budget 15mm f/2.8)

https://www.zeiss.com/consumer-products/us/photography/zm/biogon-2825-zm.html

Cosina's Voigtlander lens line got its start in 1999 with 15mm f/4.5 (not digital-compatable) and 25mm f/4.0 Leica screw-mount lenses....

https://cameraquest.com/voigtbl.htm

.....and now offers 10mm, 15mm (updated for digital sensors), and 21mm superwides for Leica M.

https://www.voigtlaender.de/lenses/vm/?lang=en

Any of those should be available for under $1000.

The only Leica-branded superwides that: work for film, might just squeeze into your budget (or close), but might be troublesome on digital except for B&W pictures, or maybe with the M11, are the 1960s-70s 21mm Super-Angulons f/4.0 or f/3.4. They often can be found for around $1100-1200. They only meter with the M11's off-the-sensor metering - they sit too close to the sensor or film for reflected-off-the-shutter-curtain M metering M6/MP-M10.

They will be the most distortion-free, because they were designed by Schneider-Kreuznach based on the symmetrical Zeiss Biogon optical formula.

I.E. smaller versions of those company's 65-90mm architectural/landscape lenses for 4x5 view cameras. Or the 38mm Biogon for Hasselblad's Superwide  medium-format camera.

Like chris7273, I use a Voigtlander 21mm f/4.0 Color-Skopar for M-Mount - alongside a much-more-expensive, but brighter Leica 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH for low-light action pictures. Either of those requires stopping down to f/8 to make the corners as sharp as the center of the image, but they can get there. Neither is quite as distortion-free as the Super-Angulons - but can be corrected, if needed, in digital post-processing. And do allow metering on Leica film, and pre-M11, cameras.

I have not used the Zeiss ZM 21/25s enough to comment (others can), but their MTF charts look pretty good at all apertures.

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I have a 24mm Elmarit M. It is excellent and one can find a good copy used for under $1700.00. USD
I also have an 18mm Super Elmar M. Excellent, as well, and can get a good one at under $2000.00 USD
Good luck and happy shooting.
Mark

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Posted (edited)

Hardly ANYTHING ever made so far in M mount can beat the price/perfromance ratio of Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4 lens.
But it is a Chinese lens, meaning sample variation is a thing and if it takes a hit (wall, floor, etc.) you will have a designer paperweight.

Voigtlander 15mm and (discontinued) 12mm are AWESOME, so is the Zeiss 18mm ZM. All are under 1000$ used.

Edited by Al Brown
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