Tri-Elmar

[gary_ferguson1]

Love it! The Tri-Elmar is my favourite Leica optic for carry everywhere street and travel photography. Outside there's no problem with f4 that Tri-X or Delta 400 won't solve. It's fully useable wide open, my Canon 24-70 f2.8L is only "fully useable" at f5.6 so the Tr-Elmar's not a slow lens in reality.

 

Compared to prime lenses it's a stunning performer, in my view it's better than the 50mm Summicrom and the previous generation 28mm f2.8 and 35mm f2.0.

 

Downsides? Sure, there's no free lunch. The worst offence in my book is viewfinder intrusion, you'll lose a very big bite from the lower-right quadrant so check before you buy that you can live with the loss.

[paul hart]

I had the version 2 and used it almost exclusively while it was with me. I couldn't distinguish the image quality from what I get from primes. It's a great daylight, travel lens. DOF scale is so messy as to be unuseable. Lens hood is awful, intrusion into the VF is irritating.

 

Lens itch and a desire to keep things simple made me sell it and reduce to a 35/90 combination.

[ray_moth]

Something else I forgot to mention: the Tri-Elmar also allows you some latitude in selecting the size of the metering area, thereby making it more or less selective. It's great for getting closer to spot metering: for example, you can set the 3E's focal length to 50mm, take the light reading and set the shutter and aperture accordingly, then set the focal length to 28mm and take the shot. Of course, you can also work the other way around, if you specially want a broader metering area.

 

(Please note that this is NOT the smoke-and-mirrors trick, recommended in a certain well-know author's M Leica book, wherein he describes how the preview lever of an M camera can be used to achieve this effect!)

[sid_chatterjee]

If you are reading this old post then you are probably interested in the Tri-Elmar (3E). Right now Don Chattterton, (253) 549-7900, has the 1st version for $700. It's in Mint- with box. This seems like a good deal.