I am using 75% of the time the 2/35A, 20% the 2/50 and 5% the 2,8/90. For interiors and townscapes I miss from time to time a wider angle. Would anyone recommend me in this case a 28 mm? I would in no way dispose of my 2/35A - but find, due to the perspective, the 24 or 21 less usable than the 28 mm. Thanks for your comments.

-- Andre Bosmans (a.bosmans@pandora.be), April 13, 2002

Answers

There is a much greater difference in coverage angle between seemingly small differences in focal length in the wide angle territory. I find 28mm to be ideal for townscapes, but too restrictive for interiors, where a 21 or 15 is my choice. I have never found a purpose for the 24mm lens although it is reputed to be one of Leica's finest achievements optically.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 13, 2002.

Hello Andre,

just a coincidence, but these focal lengths - at least viewfinderwise - are covered by the new LEICA w/a-finder ...

My suggestion: Why not getting this finder first, prior to the lens you choose in the end, then you have ample time to check which outfit suits you best. Even with a .72 v/f the additional finder is more pleasant to use with the 28 mm lens.

Regards

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), April 13, 2002.

Andre, I am with Jay on this one. I use a 21 for interiors quite a bit of the time. The 28 is very good for townscapes, although this is a subject matter of low importance to me. I do not own the 24, but have seen results which are impressive. The distortion of the 21 is manageable with practice; it is a great lens. FWIW Good luck.

-- David (pagedt@chartertn.net), April 13, 2002.

I used to own both a 28 and a 21. I really didn't use the 21 alot and traded it for a 150mm Hassy lens many years ago. I did use the 28 alot but also traded it for more Hassy stuff when that was what most of my work required.

Back into Ms I've now got the 24 ASPH. Lens performance is outstanding. I used to think the 35-28 spread wasn't enough so that is why I got the 24. As soon as I did the 28 ASPH came out of course but I am happy with the 24 for exterior and interior shots.

One thing about the 24 I notice is that people especially seem round. Odd way to describe it but in some recent shots indoors with bounce flash off a wall of all the lenses the 24 gave so much shape for lack of a better word than even the 35 ASHP $ummilux. Of course the directional lighting was part of it but the efect was more apparent than the 'lux . Also incredible edge sharpness.

So if you like the 35 as I do I feel that the 24 is a nice step wider.

Don't like the 21-24-28 finder though, prefer a straight 24 finder

-- Neil Swanson (neilsphoto@yahoo.com), April 13, 2002.

I believe that personal tastes play a large role at this end of the spectrum. Although I often found the 28mm too restrictive, I personally don't care for the extreme perspective of most 21mm-class lenses. Thus, I opted for the 24mm and have been pleased with its extra coverage, such as that shown in the image below in an old train station in Gilroy, CA, without giving the typical tell-tale "ultra-wide" perspective.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), April 13, 2002.

Like others, I at one time carried both a 21 and a 28. Then I got a 24 and found that, for me, at least, it could do the job of both the other lenses. I've stuck with the 24 ever since, and if I felt a need to go wider I would probably get a CV 15.

But it's all a matter of taste and personal preference, so, while our input may help, it still has to be your decision.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), April 13, 2002.

Hello Andre,

Ah the pleasure of problems like ours, what lens to get next. The general rule of thumb is that if you are undecided about a 28, 24 or 21, get the 24 which is inbetween the 28 and 21.

Questions: How much can you spend; how fast do you need your new lens to be? the Leica 24/2.8 costs a goodly sum but is second to none in that range as far as Leica mount lenses go. Leica's 28/2 is simply one of the best lenses ever made for a 35mm camera, but it is not cheap. Leica's current 21/2.8 ASPH is the best there is--but that comes with a price. All three are a king's ransom and a pain to carry around.

Now I am thinking. Suppose you wanted the 28/2 or 24/2.8 so badly it hurt and you got it and you still wanted a 21. What if you got the Voigtland 21/4? It is not quite as good as the 21/2.8 ASPH but it is very good--best than the old Super A 21/4 and 21/3.5. It is is also wonderfully light.

Ah well, do have some fun testing the various lenses. The nice thing is that it highly unlikely that you will make a wrong choice.

Best wishes,

Alex

-- Alex Shishin (shishin@pp.iij4-u.or.jp), April 13, 2002.

Hello Andre, I faced the same question last year, and decided on the Leica M 24mm. A good friend let me use his 21mm, and I had problems controlling the wide angle effect. Picture taking was fun, but you have to use the lens a lot to understand how the 21mm can distort the image, both positively and negatively. The 28mm appeared to be only slightly wider than the 35mm 2.0 I was already using. So I purchased the 24mm, and have been very pleased with the results. The lens is more forgiving, is just as sharp as the 21 &28, and can be more accurately used with a .72 viewfinder M6, without the external finder. Good luck with your quest. Frank Ricatto

-- Frank Ricatto (luttmann@nerc.com), April 13, 2002.

Andre:

I have the 35 and 24asph, and thought I wanted something wider than the 24 so I tried the 15. (More than once I'd bump into walls when I was backing up trying to get just a tad more in the image...) I found the 15 too wide for most of what I wanted to do, so I got a 21 Elmarit instead. It was no where near as good optically as the 24, so I took a well respected lens tester's advice and "traded up" to the 21asph. Now I had a new dilemma: the new 21asph was a bit better than the older 21 non-asph, but still not nearly as good optically as the 24, but I really liked the perspective of the 21... (I'll disagree partly with others here and say that IMO the 21 and 24 both require careful composition and leveling to avoid uncomfortable perspective distortions yet it is a bit more critical with the 21.) Now enter into the equation that I found the chasm between 21 and 35 too great, and I ran across a pretty good deal on a used 28asph, so I thought I'd temporarily try it out. (The nice thing about buying high quality Leica glass is I've found that you can try them out temporarily and still sell them pretty easily for essentially what you paid for them!) But "temporary" has turned to more permanent as I find I can do a lot of what I used to do with the 24 with the 28, and the 28 is outstanding optically, AND the images it produces feel significantly wider (at least to me) than those from the 35.

So now my dilemma is do I get rid of the excellent 24, and keep the lesser performing but wider 21, or give up the often wanted extra width of the 21 in favor of the excellent imaging characteristics of the 24? The short answer is if I did not have the 28, I'd keep the 24. Since I have the 28 I'll probably sell (regrettably) the 24 and keep the 21 for the bit of extra width. BUT, if someone with a 35 told me they felt they would rarely need the width of the 21 over the 24, I'd tell them to get the 24 and suppress any urges they had to try out the 28 ;-)

PS: FWIW, before the 28 and 21, I used the 24 about 10%; 35 about 50%; 50 about 25%; and 90 about 15%. After the 21 and 28, I use the 21 about 5%; 28 about 30%, 35 about 30%, 50 about 15% and 90 about 15%... The remaining 5% is extra time spent changing lenses!

Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), April 13, 2002.

24mm. There is no substitute.

Seriously, it's a matter of personal taste. As a photojournalist my *ideal* set of focal lengths has always been 24, 35, 50, 85/90 and something long (135 or if using SLRs 180/200).

With anything wider than 24 the picture often becomes more about the perspective effect than about the subject matter (just my opinion, no offense meant to anyone else).

-- Gary Voth (garyvot@vothphoto.com), April 13, 2002.

I've been though a lot of this in the last year or so. On my own, for fun 30 years ago the Leica 28 was my favorite, and also when I shot educational slide shows and filmstrips (remember those?). When I shot newspaper later I used my Olympus 21 a LOT, and the 28mm hardly ever, and wished there was something wider I could afford. Then I quit and got rid of a lot of stuff, and then two years got back in, and started buying Leica to get a good kit again.

I'd kept my Olympus stuff, and the first thing I realized now was that the 21 wasn't getting any use at all. Then I bought a 15 (it would have been my newsguy dream lens) for the "new" Leica, and it's fun, but too wide to use all the time. I got a 25 Voigtlander because it was cheap, but again, it felt too wide for what I do now. Then I bought the 28/1.9 Voigtlander, selling the 25 and a 35 I never used to pay for it. Suddenly heaven--in the last month the 28 hasn't come off the camera.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that I'd used all that stuff before, and I knew that I'd liked various parts of it at various times, and should have known exactly what it all did, but it took a lot of messing around to find which was the lens that fit the way I work NOW. Listening to other people's advice isn't going to help you, I think, and boy, K.G. Wolf's advice to get the finder first is GREAT advice. Hang it on your camera for a month, and see which lens you wish you had at the end of that time, then buy it.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 13, 2002.

that post got me in the middle of a very similar dilemma. after 6 month in Leica world I have 35lux asph,50cron,75lux,135apo. I need something wider. but I really care for the quality. I had the 35cron asph for a while and I miss it. from Jack's post I learn that the 24 is better than the 21, and 28 is famous for being best. but how good is the 24? how far is it from the 28/2asph? how flat is the field? I don't know if it is a meaningful question, but can it be compared to the 35/2asph? (Jack, I would appreciate if you could add a word on that matter) I thought about 28asph+21voig, one for the quality, one for the eye, does it make sense? or is the 24 better than the combo? I hope it is not inpolite to ask a question in the middle of someone else's post (Andre's) but I would be framed for posting another question, so similar, during the weekend, when all are "watching"...

-- rami (rg272@columbia.edu), April 13, 2002.

Me, I would never base my choice on which lens is sharper. Do you ever really do anything to tap the limits of a lens' abilities--how many 24x36 enlargements from Kodachrome 25 slides do you make a year? What good is the sharpest lens in the world if the focal length is one you can't get along with, and won't use to take pictures with? I just sold my "sharpest" lens because in the two years I've had it, I used it just twice. On the other hand, if you're just buying stuff because it's the best, who cares what focal length it is? So you should decide if you're a photographer or a fondler. If the first, buy the one that does the job; if the second, buy the one that makes you feel the best. Either is right, but they're not the same problem.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 13, 2002.

Michael, there are many factors that makes a lense "better" than another. sharpness is only one of them, one that is relevant to enlarging a photo. but lenses have very different characters. in the case of wide lenses, different lenses handle space differently, even if they have the same focal length. that character shows on any size of a print. In my experience there are genuine differences bet 35asplux/cron. they handle space very differently. I prefer the crom, but need the lux. So if you are answering my question (which I assume you are, since you have just answered another) my question was simple: how are the 24asph vs. 28asph in terms of flatness of the field. and about your second comment, about what do you buy a lense for. I am really new in the Leica world, just over six months. but in this short period of time I realized that each leica lense has a typical character. the 75lux is a lense I have used allot, and I really feel that the lense educated me, by its abilities, although I had no interest in that focal lense before. I am trying to use the lense in a way that will allow me to take advantage of what it can do, I worked with many Nikon lenses in the past, and I did not have such experience with Nikon. so your attempt to find a theoretical test that would determine who is a photographer might be questionable. I myself would never in my life could have afforded a Leica, if not for my photography. cheers,

-- rami (rg272@columbia.edu), April 13, 2002.

Rami:

IMO, the 24 and 28 are in essentially the same league with the 35asph 'Cron... and they may even be a touch better. They are truly stunning optics.

Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), April 14, 2002.

Thanks Jack, I am starting to think that your advice- to get the 24 and to avoid trying the 28 was not meant as a joke. Cheers,

-- rami (rg272@columbia.edu), April 14, 2002.

All 3 of the lenses mentioned are extremely high quality. Some reports state that unless we all shoot ASA 25 film on a tripod we can't even realize how good they are.

Me I shoot Tri-X 75% handheld so I am supposedly never seeing what they can do. OK but I can see that the Leica lenses I own have somehing my VC 75 doesn't have. I like the look of my 35 ASPH $ummilux over the old 'cron I had.

And in my use with the 24 people/things/space has so much of a 3D look to it that the 35 ASPH does not seem to have. I'm not faulting the 35 at all but the 24 has a look.

Users of 28s and 21s (I haven't owned either in 10+ yrs) may say the same. Is it 'cause of the ASPH element(s)? Don't know but I like it.

I takes a while to envision how the image will look with the 24 (same with 21) because there is that wiiiiiiiider look and extra depth that you don't give a second thought about with a 35. At first I never seemed to be close enough with the 24, there was just too much wasted space. I'm still working on it.

I'd like to hear other users (Rob Appleby) of the 24s thoughts on if they see this extra dimension in their work or their feelings about the 24 in general.

-- Neil Swanson (neilsphoto@yahoo.com), April 14, 2002.

Rami--Please understand I'm not trying to trash you. I'm just indicating that the 28mm, 24mm and 21mm lenses are not just different versions of the same wide angle lens--they offer completely different viewpoints, apples vs oranges, and that would be my prime issue.

If you like what a 21 does, for intance, a 28 is not a substitute for it, even if you like the quality of the 28 better. The difference between 21 and 28, is, for instance about that as between 35 and 50. Given that you use your 35 75% of the time, would you give it up if I convinced you the 50 was sharper? I don't think you would. So would you give up a 21 for a 28 if you used the 21 75% of the time and didn't care for the 28mm view? I think you *might* be falling into the trap of thinking these lenses are much of the same thing--wide wides as a general category, and that the 24 is somehow a compromise between them, and I don't believe they're the same at all, and don't merit a head to head comparison.

By the way, for interiors (pix for a friend who sells real estate) my favorite lens by far is the 15mm Voigtlander.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 14, 2002.

Michael, Yes, I can see how I could be understood that way, and I agree it would be silly to do that. however, as I pointed out, there is another sense in which character of a lense does matter. I use the 50cron much more than the 35lux, but I guess if I would still have the 35cron, I would have used it more than the 50. I like the 50 better and one of my reasons for that is the superb results. I guess I am mixing two differnt questions, which is what you point out. In terms of type of use, I think the 28 is not only for "main subject" but also for street and landscape, 24 really in between, still not over dramatizing the main subject effect, and 21 is mainly for that effect, that is at least how I use wider lenses. I use all the focal lengths (as I found by using nikon 20-35 in the past). and I don't have budget for all three, or even two. that's why I though of doing the 28cron 21voig combo. but that would be giving up 24, and in looking at my portfolio I find not many, but central pictures I have done with a 24. so obviously, there wouldn't be a clear answer here since the question is higly subjective. but that not to say that opinions would not matter here. I think there is, mainly in the Leica world, such thing as a lense that once you try it "you are taken by it". in my experience the 35cron,75lux are paradigmatic examples for that.

-- rami (rg272@columbia.edu), April 14, 2002.