In praise of the Mandler lenses

[NZDavid]

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Good review. I use, or have used, several of these lenses, including the 28 Elmarit and the 90 T/E. Both great performers, and the T/E is amazingly compact. I liked the 28 but swapped for the 24 ASPH, which has brilliant definition.

 

But it really seems to be matter of degrees of brilliance, or differing tastes. I don't think there has ever been a really bad Leitz/Leica lens (only if it has deteriorated in condition.) You really have to compare them with lenses from other manufacturers to realize how good they are -- even the oldies.

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[Photon42]

Hey guys - thanks on commenting! I would never have come across this nice review otherwise. Not the style of reviews which puts me off (pun intended )

 

Cheers

Ivo

[Guest maddoc2003jp]

Very good review. So except for the 21/3.4 Super-Angulon-M all my M lenses are (or were) Mandler designs. I now use the 35/1.4 pre-ASPH, 50/1.0 Noctilux, and 90/2.0 Summicron-M pre-ASPH. Two other lenses designed by Mandler that I have sold were the 28/2.8 Elmarit-M III (with cut-out in the hood) and the 50/1.4 Summilux pre-ASPH. Reason for selling these lenses was that I never got along with 28mm and I have replaced the 50mm Summilux with the Noctilux.

[wda]

Andy, a fascinating and informative review with super pictorial examples. The Indian head-dress with the 28mm is simply stunning!

 

My lenses seem to straddle Mandler's reign. I have the first version of 28mm Elmarit which was made in Canada in or about 1966. As was my first version of the 90mm TeleElmarit. The first is noticeably soft in comparison with the most modern 28mm Elmarit, although the TE is an acceptable performer, particularly when stopped down.

 

Once again, thank you.

Edited April 13, 2009 by wda

[JBA]

Great thread. I wouldn't have guessed that so many of my lenses were designed by the same person. I have both the 50 Summilux and Summicron M lenses, and the 19, 90 and 180 Apo R lenses, and absolutely love them all.

[amoebahydra]

Lenses designed by Dr Walter Mandler are also my favorites. In comparison with contemporary lenses, they provide me one more parameter, field sharpness, for me to manupulate.

[rosuna]

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Current designs are miles ahead of the classical ones: better color correction, aspheric elements, floating groups...

 

Mandler's designs are really good, even for today standards, but current optical designs by Leica are top class, state of the art, and classical Leica designs (70s, 80s) weren't. They were superbly manufactured, the glass selection and coatings were great, the best materials... but optically I agree with Puts, they were mainstream designs. Very good, but also the best designs from Zeiss, Nikon or Canon had that level.

[pgk]

Current designs are miles ahead of the classical ones: better color correction, aspheric elements, floating groups...

 

Mandler's designs are really good, even for today standards, but current optical designs by Leica are top class, state of the art, and classical Leica designs (70s, 80s) weren't. They were superbly manufactured, the glass selection and coatings were great, the best materials... but optically I agree with Puts, they were mainstream designs. Very good, but also the best designs from Zeiss, Nikon or Canon had that level.

 

Well I'm not really arguing but .... the 80/1.4 I'll admit shows its vintage wide open (still likable though), but stopped down to f/8 it remains a staggeringly good lens. Canon's 100mm macro comes close (unlike the 85/1,2 which whilst superb wide open doesn't seem to deliver at f/8) but my 80 is a lot older, and clearly so well built that its unlikely to be prone to the problems associated with much lighter and mechanically/electronically sophisticated designs. I'm really not sure just how much better the 80/1.4 design really could be at f/8.

 

Mandler certainly sorted this lens although to be fair the same cannot be said for some lenses such as the 19mm v.1 which does show its age and has a tendency to flare which is simply not up to today's designs. The 50/1.4 M is another lens which I really like (I've never tried the asph though its reputation is extremely good) and which also produces superb results stopped down.

 

I've owned and used other Mandler designs and found most to be very good even by today's standards. Interesting thread.

[lct]

Current designs are miles ahead of the classical ones: better color correction, aspheric elements, floating groups...

Perhaps but i still prefer my Mandler lenses to any other ones at a few exceptions. Might be due to the digital dynamic range i don't know but current Leica lenses are often too contrasty for me.

[rosuna]

Erwin Puts points to the Canon 55mm f/1.2 FD lens as an example of sophisticated design (1975) with ASPH element and floating groups. Leica was unable to set large scale serial production for aspheric elements, and the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 (1966) was replaced by Mandler's Noctilux (designed in 1969). The first Leica lens with floating elements was the Summilux-R 35mm (1984), and the first zoom designed in Leica was from 1995... Mandler worked on Double-Gauss optimization, APO lenses and retrofocus designs, and it seems he was aware of Leica's loss of leadership in optical design.

 

I am not sure aspheric lenses are a must. Look at Zeiss designs (for lenses of moderate speed, and/or large sizes). However, aspheric elements are a powerful tool. Floating groups is another example. Leica has incorporated all these instruments to optical design quite recently. Current designs are far better. The new Noctilux is a good example (the price is a problem though).

[atruse]

This is a great thread.

Being from Midland myself, and having many friends who work at Elcan, its a shame that i never had the chance to meet Mr. Mandler.

Since i am only 22yrs old, and still fairly new to photography, i wish i could have seen elcan in its prime like my father did.

[adan]

atruse: My wife is Canadian (Penticton/BC), and I glory in the fact that most of my lenses were made in Midland - the exceptions being my 15 Voigtlander (an honorary Mandler lens in its handling of color and contrast), my 50 f/1.4 (Midland design, Wetzlar built), and my 135 TE f/4 (Wetzlar drawn and built), which is slightly more crisply germanic in its drawing, but for the long-distance subjects I use it for, where haze and atmospherics become a factor, that is acceptable.

 

Ruben: I guess it just comes down to how one defines "miles ahead".

 

Some APO/ASPH Solms lenses definitely improve some shortcomings in the earlier generation lenses: the 35 Summilux ASPH does much better in terms of coma and off-center sharpness than either the 35 'lux or 35 cron v.4; the 90 Mandler Summicron shows more green/purple fringing than the APO version; the 50 f/1.4 ASPH @ f/1.4 is astonishing in the right light.

 

Others have made strides in reducing size - the 28 'cron, Elmarit ASPH and previous Elmarit are much smaller than my v.3 Midland 28, and the 21 ASPH cut the diameter to 55mm from the Midland 21's 60mm.

 

But when it comes to the overall feel of the image, especially in digital or slide photography, I still find the Mandler designs to be "miles ahead" in terms of rich tonality and the handling of color rendition (as opposed to color correction). For me, it's as clear a difference as that between a Beaujolais and a Bordeaux - one is bright and gay, but the other has infinite depths.

 

It has been my consistent experience with the M8 that the current designs (except the f/1.4s) push detail off the ends of the tonal scale, where even raw processing cannot recover it. It is normal with them to have exposure set to -1.00 (using ACR), shadows to 0, contrast to 0, and still have a "hot" image. Whereas with the Mandler designs, the same lighting will give exposure "0", or even plus a bit, shadows at 5 or higher, and the midtone contrast can be set as high as 50, giving a boost to midtone separation and saturation. In other words, at least a stop, and more like two stops, of additional dynamic range. And generally a bit less noise, through not having to dig into the shadows as much in post-processing.

 

I also find the older design telephotos to be more forgiving for RF use. They usually have longer focus throws, which allows for a more precise vernier touch in putting the RF images together carefully.

 

And the residual spherical aberration means that while they are not always as precisely sharp as the APO teles at full aperture, the zone of "reasonably sharp" covers a slightly wider depth of focus at the image plane. The width of the bright area, left to right, in this example: File:Spherical-aberration-slice.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

All this is why I posted this thread in the first place - on MFT charts, and in some imagery, the new advanced designs from Leica are certainly state-of-the-art - or even ahead of the art, when it comes to the 21 and 24 Summiluxes.

 

But over and over again, I have gotten pictures that please me more, technically, from the Mandler designs. And ultimately, it is those pictures, not the MFT charts, that I publish or hang on my wall.

[atruse]

you are miles ahead of me with experience, so its hard for me to relate it terms of usage haha.

but i do extremely value the fact that these lenses and technologies have grown up in my backyard. And its great to here appreciation from outside of the area.

I now a lot of local people who knew Mr. Mandler well. and from what i hear, he was a very great man.

 

 

unfortunately i was just on the leica website looking through their "history" section. and it did not have any mention of Mr. Mandler or the midland factory....

[j_lir]

my fav's are the 75 lux, the nocti, and the 35/2 Pre- ASPH.

i'm looking forward to trying out the 80 1.4 R soon.

[jpattison]

atruse, and anyone else who might be interested,... I came across this...

 

http://www.phsc.ca/phsc_e-mail/Vol-5/PHSC-E-Mail-V5-2-Dr-Mandler.pdf

 

John

[roydonian]

The Mandler design that is going unmentioned is the 90mm Tele-Elmarit. Currently when I want to avoid the weight of the old-model 90mm f2 Summicron, I carry either the 90mm f4 Elmar or a Russian 85mm f2 Jupiter-9. The latter gives sharp contrasty images for most of the time but sometimes flares very dramatically, giving a badly ‘washed-out’ image. I’ve always considered the ‘fat’ Tele-Elmarit a very handsome lens and flirted with buying one, but the remarks I’ve read about its propensity to flare (even with fitted with the correct lens hood) suggest it might not be a great improvement over the Jupiter-9 in this respect.

[lars_bergquist]

Andy, I have used all those lenses extensively, and I do still own a few of them (and some others, including my greatest love, the v.4 35mm Summicron). The only one I was ever less than happy with was the 90mm pre ASPH Summicron. It is simply too prone to flare -- and that shortened hood bears some of the responsibility for that. Now I am using a Elmarit-M. I did also find that the current 50mm Summicron was apt to ruin my pictures with unexpected flare phenomena, so I exchanged it for the Summilux ASPH.

 

But Walter Mandler did design an incredible line of lenses, starting with the Rigid 50mm Summicron, all of them top notch at the time, and most of them still extremely good. This thread is a suitable homage to his memory.

 

The old man from the Age of the Collapsible Summitar ...

[rickp13]

The Mandler design that is going unmentioned is the 90mm Tele-Elmarit.

 

isn't this the lens described (praised) in #6?

Finally, one of my all-time favorites from the Mandler line - although not without its faults. The 90 f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit (thin version).

 

greetings from hamburg

 

rick

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[roydonian]

The Mandler design that is going unmentioned is the 90mm Tele-Elmarit.

 

isn't this the lens described (praised) in #6?

Finally, one of my all-time favorites from the Mandler line - although not without its faults. The 90 f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit (thin version).

 

 

 

My mistake, Rick - I was referring to the original 'fat' design and forgot to make this clear.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Doug

[lct]

The "thin" Tele-Elmarit flares a lot as well. Reason why it was not much praised 30 years ago if memory serves. However it is one of my favourite 90mm lenses with the great pre-apo Summicron for Leica R. I just avoid to shoot against the light with the T-E.