f3.5 35mm Summaron serial number below 1,150,000

Concerning the above lens ID, (1) compatibility with M2, (2) image quality, and

(3) reasonable cost for lens in good optical condition. I would appreciate your

input on the above items. I can currently mount a screwmount f3.5 35mm Elmar via

adaptor but have not yet tried it. Would a summaron be a good step up in quality?

The 35mm Summaron is much better than the 35mm Elmar. It doesn't have the fall-off of the Elmar and is sharp even wide open. A great walk-around lens!

A good 35 3.5 Summaron (ie with minimal or no haze) is hard to beat. Physically a gem better build than anything from CV, rivals 35 f2 Canon except for speed. Very sharp wide open. IMO it's biggest drawback Vs CV is the clamp-on lens shade (lose it and you're out big $$).

John, does the summaron accept the 12585 lens shade that fits the f2.8 50mm Elmar M model and the screwmounts 50 mm summicrons and summitars? I have one of those (and you're right - anything with Leica on it costs big bucks. I would love to have a 35mm summicron, but that is out of the question. Once again, I think the model I have in mind is the first series of summarons.

Kerry, Sherry Krauter cleaned up my LTM Summaron and I really like the lens. I'm using Summaron 35 #1,153,938 LTM with an adapter on a Leica CL but it should work just fine with the adapter on your M2. I have no idea what a usuable Summaron goes for today. Reading your question further, I just tried a 12585 shade on the Summaron and it isn't even close to fitting. What would fit and it much more common than the actual Summaron hood, is the 50/90/135 two piece hood that fits the Elmar 50, 90 and Hector 135. You would have to separate the two hood pieces and cut down the inside piece in order to have a hood for the Summaron, but it does clamp on. Using it intact would not work as even collaped you would be cutting off part of the 35 field. I measured from the mounting flange to the front edge of my Summaron 35 clamp on hood, it is only 1/2" in depth and even fully collapsed, the 50/90/135 Elmar/Hector hood is 1 1/8" deep. I'd be tempted to try the 1" blue painters masking tape and make a srick on hood with a couple of wraps of the tape. Hope this helps.

All the same, just give the Elmar a try before discarding it - well stopped down it's wonderful. for example, it suits the English rural landscape so well I have never been tempted by another 35.

I'm not absolutely sure but I think the old, extendable Elmar hood when fully collapsed is OK for 35. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Unless the Summaron's front outer rim extends farther forward - which I guess it does.

 

The SOOGZ adaptor ring will allow the 12585 hood to be used on it, as long as that doesn't push it too far forward, also.

My Summaron wears a "Summaron Elmar 3.5cm" clamp on hood. It's perfect for 50 and 90 Elmars as well as the f3.5 Summaron. The lens is tiny, compact without the hood...but without the hood it's very prone to flare. In addition to fearing loss of this hood, I fear loss of my Leitz 35mm bright line finder, which you'd want with an M3. Maybe two years ago someone posted pics of a latch system he'd built to lock the finder to the camera...involved a piece of automotive feeler gauge and a dot of silver solder, the whole tiny spring thing attached to the accessory shoe by small screws...I need to do that for my very fine old IIIC, which almost never uses other lenses.

I should have stated that the version of the summaron I am interested in has a bayonet M-series mount. I would guess the optical quality is similar to the screwmount version. I am still a little uncertain about the M summarons with and without goggles. Can I assume the one without goggles is compatible with the M2 and instantiates (sorry, I couldn't think of a better word that this clunker) the 35 mm brightlines in the finder. John, I agree the brightline accesory finders are wonderful compared with the LTM viewfinders. I have ones for 50 and 135 mm. Another Leica item that is priced beyond reason. I also have managed to accumulate an IMARECT, a Nikon vari-finder, and the Voigtlander turnit. I much prefer to buy Leica items from reputable dealers, or members of photo.net, rather than evilbay, but the supply seems to be drying up. I gotta start using all this stuff. My main limitations are RA and an artificial knee that is forcing me to learn to walk all over again. The beguiling delilah of digital just seems to require less energy from snap to print.

Per Erwin, the optical cell for the LTM and M Summaron is identical. Reading his analysis further, there is no question the Summaron demonstrates improved performace over the Elmar. The design of the 35 Elmar predates the 35 Summaron by at least a decade. Image preferences differ widely, if possible see if you can try them both. The M2 viewfinder was designed to show the 35 field without the goggles needed for the M3.

Choice of lenses is a question of personal taste and of what you want from your photography and under what conditions you are making images. The old Elmar is useless wide open but it doesn't matter to me because I only want to use it in reasonable light. And the reason I love it is not because of any 'old look' to the images (a term usually meaning soft, blown-out highlights); I'm a painter and am very particular about the handling of light and shade and treatment of detail, which seem to me truer to what the eye and mind register (mine, anyway) in the old 35 Elmar and other older Leitz lenses, than more modern ones. Even the coating of lenses removes something from the images they make, though obviously adding much in performance. The word 'performance', here, might be that of an athlete; the older lens is a dancer.

 

Anyway - don't disregard your old glass.

Response to hoods, and which fits this or that...

 

In many cases, just keep it simple. Many of my photos are taken with the use of a decent staw hat - just hold it to shade the viewfinder image, and you should be fine. A Leica - and many other cameras following the same basic design - should fit snugly to the lines of your skull - eyebrow - nose - cheekbone - giving a good bracing surface for a one-handed shooting position; the position that Oscar Barnack made possible with his original prototype that fits a man's hand so perfectly. You just need hold the camera firmly to your face. But if you have someone along with you, they can hold your hat to shade the lens. That's all you need...

I have a goggled Summaron 35mm 3.5 nr. 1437404 and I can tell you it is a very worthy lens on an M6, though it tends to look like some device out of a Terry Gillham flick. It is not fast to operate if you like to move the aperature ring around alot when you are setting up a quick exposure but it gives a strong performance with color, resolution and smoothness between in and out of focus areas. I bought mine on eBay, where I got all my Leica stuff, for $97. It cost me an additional $180 for Sherry Krauter to CLA it. She noted that these lenses are often in need of a CLA at this point in time, if they haven't been done earlier. I had oil on the blades, haze and an alignment issue. Now it is perfect. Goggles are worn and a bit dinged, but that's easy to disregard.

 

Sherry says the 2.8 version is considered by some of her clients to be as good as a Summicron 35mm. Didn't say which version.<div></div>

I have an early summaron f3.5 35mm without the goggles. These very early ones were made for use with an M3 which did not of course have 35mm framelines so the lens does not have the appropriate notch in its back end to bring up the correct framelines - even on later cameras that are usually equipped to take 35mm lenses. So be aware that you will need a supplementary finder on any M series camera with the earliest of these lenses. One other slight hitch is that these lenses have an infinity notch and the lens has the toggle / arm thingy that engages it. When I use this on my M4P there is a tendancy for the "thingy" to bind on the camera's frame selector lever (near the right of the lens mount as you look at it from the front.) Apart from that its a darn nice lens. There is an even earlier screw mount version (optically identical) that could be used with the approrpriate M adapter on later cameras to bring up the correct framelines but be aware that the binding may still be an issue.