Hi, Has any of you idea of the quality of the new 135/3,5 apo for the M series? I would be grateful of your opinion. Thanks Joe

-- joe pelizza (breglumasi@hotmail.com), February 07, 2002

Answers

Jay... oh Jay... your comments are needed here!

:-))),

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 07, 2002.

Fantastic in a word. But the 135mm is always a little bit of a pain on the M6 as the frame lines are so inadequate. Some maintain (i.e. Jay) that it is not really much better than the Tele-Elmar that preceded it which cost a third the price. Erwin Puts raves about it. As it is an APO lens it probably does have that extra kick to the image compared to a non-APO lens, but this is only seen in comparison. Bokeh may be worse than the Tele-Elmar (?). I have the Tele-Elmar as I thought the performance/price increase was just not worth it. Built in hood is nice, but it also takes inconvenient 49mm filters, unlike the Tele-Elmar which takes good old 39mm.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), February 07, 2002.

Are you going to be always shooting on a tripod? Do you take photographs primarily to check resolution under a microscope? Does $1000 mean very little to you? If you answered "yes" to these questions then by all means buy the APO-Telyt. Otherwise, get a Tele- Elmar. If any of your other lenses are E46 filter size, you might consider the last version, with the pull-out hood. It will cost you about 1/2 the APO. Otherwise, the E39 version will cost about 1/3.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 07, 2002.

Okay, now I can answer... I took Jay's advice a few months back and bought an E46 version Tele-Elmar. (Only I did not really think I wanted a 135, I just saw how cheap the older versions were and thought it would be neat to have one for the few times I did want one!) As it turns out, I found it to be a very sweet lens! So sweet, that it is difficult to imagine the APO could be any better. Speaking of which, I find it essentially as good as my 90APO/asph. BUT the 135APO is a few mm shorter and a few g lighter than the E46 version I have, and if you really need that extra half a stop, the APO might be worth the extra $800 or so to you.

;-) Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 07, 2002.

When you're hand holding, and camera shake is magnified as the lens reaches out, there's much to be said for speed here. My 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit with its eyes is a royal pain to carry around, the eyes mask out all but the 135mm frame, but that extra half+ to whole stop (f/3.4 or f/4) makes for shots that are 50 to 100 percent sharper, as most resolution problems with hand holding are due to camera shake. I'm sure that the new apochromat blows the proverbial doors off of my 30 year old Elmarit, but that's on a tripod.

Once you're on a tripod, why not shoot at f/8 and get a bit more depth of field as well? BTW, most lenses are very close to each other when stopped down below f/5.6. Have a look at photodo.com and their MTF tests.

Well. There's also something lovely with buying the very best in the world. Even if you don't *really* need it.

A rant on 135s: As long as I can get close to my subject, I don't use it. My 90 Summicron is used far more often, and my 50 and wide angles most of the time. My 135 gathers lots of dust. Execpt for sports and theater, it never gets used.

Whatever you buy, enjoy.

-- Tom Bryant (boffin@gis.net), February 07, 2002.

Joe. In my view (I've said this before and before that), the 135/3.4 Apo Telyt may be a wonderful but it is NOT worth the price. The reason is that the pre-Apo 135/4.0 Tele-Elmar is nearly apochromatic and is so close in performance that you would never be able to tell, without Erwin standing next to you with his MTF machine. The 135/4.0 Telyt is one of the cheapest Leica M lenses you can buy (a decent one with perfect glass can be had for about $ 400 USA), while the 135/3.4 Apo costs about $ 1000 more.

It's just that the 135 mm focal length is not very popular among Leica M users, so the demand for these lenses is low, and you can buy them cheaply. I would get the 135/4.0 Tele-Elmar (any vintage, they never changed the optical formula, only the barrel construction, so that the later ones have E46 and built-in hood, earlier ones have E39 filter size and take clip on hood IUFOO/12575). The earlier ones are less expensive than the E46 version (which was made in small numbers).

If you buy a Tele-Elmar instead of an Apo-Telyt, the money saved can be used for another lens.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), February 07, 2002.

I should have mentioned that another feature of the E39 version of the Tele-Elmar is the optical cell unthreads from the focusing mount, and can then be used either with a bellows or short-focusing-mount on either a Visoflex reflex housing, or with a 14167 adaptor, on any R body.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 07, 2002.

BTW, I should have mentioned that I like the 135 on the M... This is still somewhat puzzling to me as it is a focal I never really liked on my 35 SLR's -- but for some reason on the M it is more like using a 180 on an SLR... Curious.

:-),

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 07, 2002.

What a timely thread! I would like to buy a 135/4 Tele-Elmar for my recently purchased M3. Can you folks clarify something for me? Is there any difference between the earlier lenses and the later lense beside filter size and pull-out vs clip on hood? If I go for an E39 version is there any particular vintage that should look for? Is there a place that lists the serial numbers for this lens and at what point it changes from one version to another? Thanks!

-- Steve Rosenblum (stevierose@yahoo.com), February 07, 2002.

The 135/4.0 Tele-Elmar was introduced in the 1965, and the last unit was made in the mid 1990s. There were many changes into barrel configuration, including the type of knurling, the presence of an internal light baffle on the back of the lenshead only in the earliest units, engraving variations, and the above mentioned change from E39 to E46 (along with the addition of the built-in lenshood).

As Jay posted, the E46 version does not have a detachable lenshead, and so cannot be used on a visoflex unit or a visoflex/bellows combination (if that is your inclination).

Leitz/Leica has NEVER published any change in the optical formula of the 135 Tele-Elmar, so I assume the optical arrangement is the same for all vintages of this lens. Of course, many authors have pointed out that the coating technology has improved over the years, so the later lenses might have benefitted from improved coatings. This is a theoretical consideration. In practice, any vintage 135 TE should be suitable, as long as the glass is clear and unscratched.

I personally prefer the appearance of the earliest TEs, the ones with the elegant scalloped focussing ring. Good luck. Be sure to get the proper lenshood with the E39 version lens (called IUFOO or 12575).

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), February 07, 2002.

"Is there a place that lists the serial numbers for this lens and at what point it changes from one version to another?"

Leica M lenses. For 135mm Tele-Elmar, scroll to the bottom of the page.

-- Gerald (hsus@netzero.net), February 07, 2002.

Hello Joe. Quote from 1969 original Leica lense handbook .."the 135mm TELE-ELMAR introduces new standards of handiness,ease of operation and optical performance: its resolving power,contrast and chromatic correction are so good that its full aperture is at the same time the optimum f-stop." Joe, three years ago I sold an early version to a friend and recently repurchased a 39mm filter size, newer focusing mount version. Why? ..despite the squintier image in the finder,the lens simply delivers the image.IMHO, f5.6 is it's best aperture. Regards.

-- Sheridan Zantis (albada60@hotmail.com), February 08, 2002.

Joe

As a follow up. It is always nicer to have a faster lens, for camera shake avoidance reasons, and so the current Apo will always be strictly speaking more useful for shots at or near infinity. And it has Apo quality at full aperture. But remember that at f3.4 the focussing accuracy with a 0.72 for closer focussing will not be so good. This is why Leica always kept the non-goggle 135s at f4 which was the best compremise between wide aperture and focussing accuracy throughout the range. I suspect that Leica have introduced the faster lens now for a number of reasons: 1) the demise of the f2.8 Elmarit, 2) the advent of the 0.85 with more accurate focussing and 3) the realisation that you can always focus anything at infinity so the wider aperture lens is still useful even for a 0.72 M.

I did not feel the extra $1000 was worth it, but you may disagree.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), February 08, 2002.