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Wonder why Leica never made a nice little 35-90 zoom?


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I think I would prefer 28mm at the wide end. But yes, I do see your point. The Tri-Elmar is the closest thing that they did. But notice that it is an f/4 and it would have to be bigger if it was a 28-70. How much bigger? I don't know.

 

I tried to do a camera size comparison between the Sony A7 + 28-70 kit lens and the Leica M + the Tri-Elmar. The TE was not available, so I chose the 90/2 APO, which is slightly longer and slightly wider. Perhaps this is how big a 28-70 Tri-Elmar would be. Have a look:

 

Link: Compact Camera Meter

 

I think f/4 is perfectly fine. There is so much unnatural attention given to super fast lenses that if you didn't know better, you'd swear that you could never get a shot at f/4 unless it was midday in summer. "Muh low light performance!" Actual photographers, unlike armchair ones, actually do use narrower apertures and they do get their shots. Back in the day, way before my time, many films were ISO 32 or less and maybe you had an f/2 lens to shoot with. That's the equivalent of f/8 and ISO 500. And that's not taking into account your 90/4 or 28/5.6 or 135/4.5.

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Back in the day, way before my time, many films were ISO 32 or less and maybe you had an f/2 lens to shoot with.

Unless I've misremembered, back in the '50's Kodachrome was ASA 25 (then, a good bit later 64), and the 5cm f2 Summicron was a very Fast lens. Still a performer today. I don't know how attractive a zoom would have been / is to the hardcore Leica customer base - the ones I know are prime lens folks.

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A zoom lens is impractical on a rangefinder camera. The closest analog would be a multi-focal length lens like the Tri-Elmar, which was made in two ranges and very expensive. There is no provision for a continuously variable viewfinder. Focusing is also a problem, since it it wholly mechanical in a Leica LTM or M camera. In order to work, the zoom lens would need to be parfocal, i.e., the focus would not change with focal length. It is possible to design a parfocal zoom, generally at the expense of other desirable characteristics. It is an highly desirable feature for cinematic lenses, along with low focus breathing. These lenses tend to be large, heavy, and extremely expensive. For most cameras, automatic focus largely makes parfocal lenses moot. The Tri-Elmar lenses simplified the design by making it parfocal only at three selected focal lengths.

 

I have one (mostly) parfocal, non-breathing lens, a Sony PZ 28-135, which is the size of a traffic cone and weighs 2-1/2 pounds. It is far less expensive than Zeiss cinematic zoom lenses, which start at $12.5K, and can exceed $100K in other brands.

Edited by Ed_Ingold
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Unless I've misremembered, back in the '50's Kodachrome was ASA 25 (then, a good bit later 64), and the 5cm f2 Summicron was a very Fast lens. Still a performer today. I don't know how attractive a zoom would have been / is to the hardcore Leica customer base - the ones I know are prime lens folks.

Kodachrome was ASA=10, Kodachrome II was ASA=25 (in my opinion, the best color film ever made),

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Unless I've misremembered, back in the '50's Kodachrome was ASA 25 (then, a good bit later 64), and the 5cm f2 Summicron was a very Fast lens. Still a performer today. I don't know how attractive a zoom would have been / is to the hardcore Leica customer base - the ones I know are prime lens folks.

Kodachrome went from ISO 10 to ISO 25 in the 60's. Kodachrome X, ISO 64, later called Kodachrome 64, was a completely different emulsion. While the most popular Leica lens was the f/2 Summicron 50, it was rarely used wide open. Kodachrome 25 was an outdoor film, used at f/8 and 1/125. It was not a low light film, and especially of little use indoors, unless your schtick was purple or orange, respectively. I rarely used f/2 at the time, because the imprecise method of focusing and shallow depth of field were of little practice use for news and documentary photography. Still it was there if I needed it. Most of my photography was with Tri-X film, which had risen to ISO 400 (without any perceptible change in the old 225 nee 180 emulsion itself).

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Wonder why Leica never made a nice little 35-90 zoom?

When you're dealing in "zooms" for an M camera, there are considerations not present with an SLR (framelines, for one). The original Tri-Elmar was so over-engineered (to bring up three different frameline sets depending on which FL was selected - 35/50/28), Leica lost money on each one they sold (so I'm told by a reliable source). The WATE, however, required less engineering and operates with one frameline set and is corrected for the widest FL, but still clicks into three distinctive focal lengths.

 

Engineering a sort-to-long "zoom" for an M camera is more complicated than you think!

When you come to a fork in the road, take it ...” 

– Yogi Berra

 

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No clue about the engineering side of things. - What I know: I am not happy seeing "lens" or "hood" instead of "subject" in my VF (& dare to assume that I am neurotypical in that regard). While Tri-Elmars looked nice to have I'd add "but not at that price tag". - Cheapo SLR zooms felt like an affordable alternative to a bag full of primes.

I am not sure about the Leica market back in Tri-Elmar days but would guess used stuff was already new Leicas worst enemy and the RF community treasured compact lenses? Leica themself marketed the M system as "nice for what it is", suggesting to get complimentary SLRs, to do the SLR thing with.

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Leica Vario-Elmar-R 35-70 f/3.5 zoom lens.

Its an R lens working on a SLR. Difficult to visualize zoom on a range finder as it isn't view through the lens, hence the Tri-Elmar. The other system for range finder Leica's are the old Visoflex [sp].

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No clue about the engineering side of things. - What I know: I am not happy seeing "lens" or "hood" instead of "subject" in my VF (& dare to assume that I am neurotypical in that regard). While Tri-Elmars looked nice to have I'd add "but not at that price tag". - Cheapo SLR zooms felt like an affordable alternative to a bag full of primes.

I am not sure about the Leica market back in Tri-Elmar days but would guess used stuff was already new Leicas worst enemy and the RF community treasured compact lenses? Leica themself marketed the M system as "nice for what it is", suggesting to get complimentary SLRs, to do the SLR thing with.

 

At about the time of the tri-elmar maybe a little before, the prices on certain used Leica RF lenses especially 4th generation Summicron 35s and 50s came down quite a bit. This was before digital cameras and adaptors were available for Leica lenses. I'm not sure what you paid for brand new Summicron 50 Asph or the 35 Asph, over 2 thousand U.S.D or more, but you could get the latest pre-asph versions in great condition for 6-800 dollars before digital became the dominant light capturing system. When that flipped, the prices of the used lenses rapidly went high as well, probably driving up the price of new lenses to laughable amounts. Its why I've never sold any of my Leica lenses. If I sold a 50, and then decided in a year or two that I want back, its going to be expensive. So I just hang on to the ones I have and they get used on every mirrorless digital system, like Fuji.

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  • 1 month later...
How many LTM SLRs did Leica make, or with M mounts

 

Actually, it was done for them by Krasnogorsk in the form of a "Leica-based" SLR, the early Zenit-S (LINK) [but not M in any case]

 

Zenit-S.jpg.256b46c6c6aadb39ebe7ee6ebe569214.jpg

LTM but a different lens to film-plane register

Edited by JDMvW
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