I have been dreaming about a classic Leica IIIc or IIIf, or IIIg and a 50mm lens for shooting purposes. With daylight savings time in effect, I've put my chrome away and I'm back to shooting Delta 400 (that film blows me away in terms of fine grain and sharpness, even at EI 800). Plenty of darkroom time at my disposal.

Anyway, I would like to shoot with a classic Leitz lens (I have the currennt 50 annd 35 Summicroms). But rather than buying a LTM camera, I'm going to mount a LTM lens on my M6 for a while. I'm thinking the collapsilbe Elmar 50/3.5 would be a good choice. Here is one on Ebay at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=129793 1117

My question is, which version or age of this lens should I look for? Are there serial number ranges to look for? How much should it cost? Where is a good place to get one (Ebay)? What about coated versus non-coated. Red dial? What should I lo0ok out for? What if there are some cleaning marks? Should I be looking at another lens, such as a 2.8 or 2.0? Any thoughts on other lenses with a "classic" leica look?

Thanks for any comments you LTM guys might offer.

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), November 19, 2001

Answers

Darn, the Ebay URL has a space in it that prevents it from working. When you paste it to the Address bar, delete the space in the number between the 3 and the 1. e.g. 1297931117, not 129793_1117

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), November 19, 2001.

I'm not sure why you want to shoot with one of the classic lenses. They are inferior in every respect from the modern lenses, especially in the area of microcontrast. I had a 50mm Summitar for a while but after a few weeks I dumped it, bit the bullet, and went for the latest 50mm Summicron. A world of difference. The Summitar was muddy, fuzzy and, compared to the Summicron, lacking in beauty. As for shooting with an LTM camera, again, I can't really see why unless you are just bored and looking for an exercise to perform. Along with the Summitar, I owned a IIIf for a while and it was absurdly inconvenient and difficult to use. It took me several minutes just to load the damn thing. And every time I fired it I thought it was going to self- destruct. I also went through a Serenar 85mm, and a user M3, which I finally managed to drop and totally demolish. I now own an M6 TTL and two Summicrons and I couldn't be happier.

If you go to my Goth Project and look around you will have no trouble picking out the Summitars and Serenars from the Summicrons. Then you can judge for yourself.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), November 19, 2001.

Sorry, the Goth project is here.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), November 19, 2001.

The only "classic" 50 lens I really like is the 3.5 coated Elmar. The compact size and jewel like construction are enough reason to own one in my opinion, and the image quality is very good and does have a different signature than the "eye popping, cherry red" look of the newer stuff. The only drawback is a funky set up for changing the aperture. I shoot mine at 5.6 most of the time, and it has nice "bokeh" and is very sharp at 5.6. A few cleaning marks are no big bother, but a totally worn off front coating is. Unless the lens has been cleaned internally, it will have a slight or moderate haze that needs to be cleaned. Figure $60 to $80 for a cleaning. I bought mine on ebay, but I made sure they would take it back if it was a dog. Turned out to be nicer than I expected.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), November 19, 2001.

I don't have all the answers to your questions but I'll tell you what I know. I have two early uncoated 50mm F/3.5 Elmars and I bought them over the later coated, red dial versions because they were good and cheap. I had them cleaned but there are traces of fungus and cleaning marks and the chrome is just ugly. Still they are very good performers. I use them on my IIIf and Bessa R usually at f/4.5 with 400CN and I am always very pleased with the performance. The proper lens hood is very important with these old lenses, especially the uncoated versions. Expect to pay $150 for a good clean uncoated Elmar and about $100 more for a coated non-collector condition lens. The lens hood will set you back another $75 if you are lucky. There are of course other alternatives such as the Canon 50/1.8 which I wholeheartedly recommend. If you like fuzzy pictures the Summar is a good lens. One of the sharpest LTM I have happens to be a cheapy Industar 50/3.5 Tessar copy I got for $50 and its aluminum mount has that greenish corrosion. Choices are limitless with LTMs. However don't expect top performance since you have modern Leica lenses in M and R mounts for that. Leica photography should be fun and classic Leitz screw mount bodies are just that. Have fun!

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), November 19, 2001.

Thanks people. I know that my current lenses will be superior to the older lens. I am doing this for two reasons, first to gain an appreciation for what Leica used to be (it was the best in its day) and also to find subjects that benefit from the inferiority of the older lenses (I am thinking of family portraiture here). Oh and add a third reason, just for the shear fun of it! Heck, I may even resort to pushing some Tri-X and seeing what I get when printed on fiber based, glossy paper. Maybe even had color a print or two.

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), November 19, 2001.

While I would disagree w/you that Leica glass was "best in its day" (Zeiss was usually much better, as were many, if not most, Nikon & Canon LTM lenses), I do like the look of vintage glass & agree w/you that using old equipment (if you ever get your LTM body) can give you an appreciation for what the photogs of yesteryear had to work with. I would also suggest you try shooting color film--uncoated lenses tend to mute the sometimes oversaturated (& overwrought) colors of modern emulsions.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), November 19, 2001.

Your thinking is sound about doing portraits with the older lenses- they can capture a look that can not be duplicated by current computer designed multicoated $1000 lenses. It's about the only thing I use my older lenses for, otherwise I prefer the flare free, super sharp fast current lenses. I still have an old shot of my son as a baby on my desk that I took on the first roll I ever shot with a Leica. It was taken with a hazey 50 collapsible Summicron that I later sold and wish I had back. Lovely tonal range and not too much contrast at the wide apertures.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), November 19, 2001.

Why use an LTM lens on an M6? Compactness? Well, the old Elmar f/3.5 would certainly be dinky, but you could also get the latest collapsible Elmar or the old collapsible Summicron if size is an issue. So I agree differences in character, quality, signature - call it what you will- are what matter. I think there are appreciable differences between individual examples of the older lens, making dogmatic statements like all old lenses are fuzzy, dubious. Go for something different! I like my old Summar. Not as contrasty as a modern lens, but that can be an advantage, and resolution is high. Otherwise, the Elmar or Summitar wold be good bets. German photographer Alf Breull has a good website with examples of LTM pictures.

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), November 20, 2001.

Dan: I'll cast a vote for the 50 3.5 Elmar - although I last used one closing in on 30 years ago on a IIIc in college. Some people criticize it for low contrast, but it was the lens that first showed me what 'micro' contrast really was (although I didn't know the name for what I was seeing for 20+ years). Much snappier pictures than with the Canon 50 1.8s I used around the same time (SLR and LTM versions).

One fun aspect is that it has an f/22 setting. At f/22 (yeah, yeah I know, diffraction - boo hisss) the 50 has so much depth of field it starts to look like a 35 - which was nice, seeing as I didn't HAVE a 35. Great for environmental portraits and the Gene Smith 'Nurse midwife" look.

I recently bought a Leica thread-to-M adapter 1) so I could try out any LTM lenses I run across, and 2) in preparation for eventually adding a Voigtlander 15mm. But I specifically chose the one that brings up the 50/75 frames in the M, because I just KNOW I'll eventually want to get a 50/3.5 Elmar, too.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), November 20, 2001.

As a matter of interest, about six months ago I sat down my six year old daughter and took pictures of her with the following lenses, all wide open 50 f3.5 nickel elmar, 50 f2 summar, 50 f2.8 elmar, 50 f2 taylor hobson, 47 f2 ektar, 50 f2 dual range summicron, 50 f2 collapsible summicron, 50 f2 modern summicron all wide open.

I printed the pictures up to 10x8. There were 3 pictures per lens. I asked a group of non-photographers to put them in piles by lens. The summicrons were mixed up. The rest of the lenses were distinguished.

I then asked them all to pick the favourite picture by lens out of all the pictures i.e. told them to look at detail, the out out of focus background etc rather than the expression of the sitter etc. All picked the summar.

Before anyone asks, there isnt really a point to this. I was just interested academically in the result. However, since then I have been using that summar a lot more with a very good reception.

This is a short summary - one day I will do a proper write up of it and send it into viewfinder or something like that.

-- Mark Eban (markeban@compuserve.com), November 20, 2001.

Fascinating, Mark! I hope your daughter enjoyed the pictures too!

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), November 21, 2001.

Actually, her patience is rather limited, putting a premium on working fast and then getting out (Capa at the D Day landings). I was planning to use the noctilux as well but the expressions had deteriorated to the extent that I thought they would bias any viewer no matter how objective. However, it is an exercise I would like to repeat, also with other lens series eg 35mm and 90mm, with a professional model who has to smile when I say!

-- Mark Eban (markeban@compuserve.com), November 21, 2001.

Mark, I eventually plan to perform a similar experiment, only comparing non-Leica to Leica glass.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), November 21, 2001.

Dan, try to find the latest version of the SM Elmar 3.5/50 coated having the red scale and f-stop values from 3.5 to 22. The older lens has ones from 3.5. to 16 (or18). It’s the best. I have 4 version of the SM Elmar. There are two version of optical design in SM Elmar 3.5/50 family: pre WWII lenses have the convex-flat front element, while post WWII ones have both convex surface of the front element. The last is working better than the previous at corners wide open. This is classic and very good performer. It would be more interesting to purchase at once an IIIF or IIIg equipped with the Elmar 50mm f3.5 or f2.8. The last is very good too having additional 2/3 f-stop but larger and heavier. Of course the lens must be in perfect condition.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), November 22, 2001.