I'm expanding my outfit to include a permanent addition for super-wide angle shots. I have some experience with the old 21 mm Elmarit but I hear that the newer ASPH version is marginally better in terms of light falloff but there is a MAJOR improvement in terms of sharpness. Also, I have heard good things about the 24 mm for documentary photography. What do you think for my next permanent addition? Should I get the 21 mm and be happy with that or a 24 mm (sacrifice 8 degrees of coverage) and then later the Cosina 15? I was advised by Don Chatterton that the 24/ 15 combo was very popular. Can I still get the exaggerated foreground with the 24 mm as with the 21? Creative portraiture and candids is what I plan on doing with the lens.

Thanks in advance for your input.

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), January 08, 2001

Answers

I will take the 21 mm asph and 12 mm Cosina combination. They looks more sexy, don't they?

-- Kenny Chiu (amchiu@worldnet.att.net), January 08, 2001.

I bought my 24 Elmarit ASPH as a second lens after the 35 Summicron ASPH for my Leica M system. The 24 Elmarit is truly an excellent lens, particularly if you plan to shoot large f-stops for close-up environmental and reportage style portraits. Being a newer M lens, I found that it produces very contrast color rendition with fantastic central sharpness. While the image characteristics of the 24 ASPH are similar to that of 35 Summicron ASPH, I often found 24 ASPH produced crispier and sharper center images. Every time I project my slides, I wish that I had used the 24 Elmarit ASPH more. I highly recommend this lens as a most-have for Leica shooters.

I found shooting with 21mm and 24mm focal lengths very different. I mostly use 21mm focal lens (21/2,8 Zeiss Biogon on Contax G) for landscape and travel photos, while 24mm for environmental close-up and reportage style photos. I have been using the super wide 15/4.5 for just few week and found it to be a completely different 'animal' altogether!

You may want to try either the 21 or 24 to see which one is more comfortable for you style of shooting. Then buy that lens and shoot for at lens six months (if not a year) before you move to the next step.

Cheers,

-- Cing-Dao Kan (cdkan@yahoo.com), January 08, 2001.

I owned several versions of the legendary 24/2.8 Nikkor and also a 24/2 Nikkor and try as I might I just never warmed up to that focal length. It gave me all the problems of an ultrawide without the coverage. I much prefer a 28mm as my all-round wide angle (and use a 50mm with the Hasselblad as my only wide angle)and then when I need a *really* wide lens, there's the 21. The 15 Heliar is a fabulous lens to have. It is much wider than the 21, weighs next to nothing and doesn't cost an arm and a leg (about half the 12mm, I guess Cosina is getting wise to the fact that they can be twice as expensive and still a lot cheaper than Leica!). I am never travelling without the 15, even if the 21 gets left behind.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 08, 2001.

John,

You don't mention what focal length you are using as your "core" lens. The interval for gaps between lenses would certainly help in the decision. You don't want the gap to be so small that the effort of changing lenses doesn't seem worth it... conversely, you don't want the spread to be so great that something seems missing no matter which lens you have on the camera.

If you use the 50mm lens, then the 24mm lens would be a nice transition... a noticeable change from one lens to the next. If I were using a 35mm lens as my standard, I might prefer to jump to the 21mm lens... again two totally different looks, validating the changing of the lenses. If the lenses are too close, you would just find yourself moving your body to frame rather than changing the glass. For my Nikons I have two basic kits depending on the subject. One is a 20, 35 and 105... and the other is a 24 and 85. On my Leicas I only have the 35, 50 and 90... I never have both my 35 and 50 out at the same time. I just move the camera up or back for framing.

Think about the interval between the lenses, and the answer might be more clear to you.

Good Luck.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), January 08, 2001.

John, Al raises a really good point. We should probably view each lens as a part of a well-spaced system. The only thing is that we might not all prefer the same spacing between lenses. I seem to like the idea of having each lens in the series cover half the area of the of the next shorter one. This is turn would result in a ratio between successive lenses equal to the square root of two, or about 1.414 times the previous lens. One way to do this would be with a series of: 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 70mm, 100mm, 140mm. (I'll stop there) Not all M lenses fall neatly into this series, but some do: 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm. Personally I couldn't tolerate a wider gap than 24 to 35. When I carry my 21, a 28 fills in the gap between it and the 35.

My next observation is that I have found the 24mm focal length very good for mountain landscapes and for "cityscapes" too. I don't have it in a Leica lens, though. Mine is the 24mm f/2.8 Nikkor. My 20 mm Nikkor is used less often than the 24. By the same token, my 21mm Super-Angulon f/3.4 sees less use than my 28mm Elmarit (though I haven't had the 21 very long). If I had a 24mm Elmarit, I think I would use it a lot. 21mm (and wider) in my experience can cause as many problems as it solves, by including empty foreground, and by running into details I don't want to include, like telephone poles and a microwave relay station somebody built on Imogene Pass in the Colorado San Juans! All this of course changes with one's style and choice of subject, but I have difficulty imagining finding enough uses for a 15mm lens. I have a feeling I would trade it in a month or so. I think that the more extreme the focal length is, the less often it may get used.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), January 09, 2001.

It all depends on what you have now. I prefer the 28mm as a standard wide as it is wide but not excessive and one faces little problem with empty foregrounds. I do not own a 35mm though prefering the 50mm. A 24mm would be fine too, particularly if you favored the 35mm as your standard. I have a 21mm Super-Angulon-R and I must say I use it very sparingly for the odd interior or limited space or sometimes (rarely) for intentional effect. Sometimes I think it really is a waste of time and think of selling it - but then I use it again in time to make me think it is worth keeping. For successful use you need near and far objects in the frame, but the trouble is the distance object is so often so reduced in size that the impact of a super wide picture is much less than you might expect. Also in my experience the optical performance of more modest wides is ususally better than that of extreme wides 21mm and up - not that I have used the 21mm ASPH.

-- Robin Smith (rsmith@springer-ny.com), January 10, 2001.