Lens shootout

[vidom]

After reading many opinions on different lenses in this forum and

after reading Erwin Puts' book, I still had some questions. I own

some more or less vintage LTM and M "normal" (35 and 50 mm) lenses

and I wanted to find out which of these would meet my personal

requirements under real world shooting conditions, as opposed to

shooting newspaper pages or USAF test charts. So I decided to do some

comparative testing of my own. Some of the results came as a surprise

to me, and as all this has been subject of the forum discussion

before, this may be interesting for some of you. Your mileage may

vary.

 

I use my Leica gear for B&W exclusively, so I'm interested in

resolution and contrast, not in colour reproduction. For my test, I

used EFKE 25 film in a Leica M3 mounted on a heavy wooden tripod. I

took pictures of a medieval brick church at a distance of

approximately 100m, lots of fine detail there. Light was soft and

diffuse without shadows. The film was hand-developed in ID11 1+1. You

can have nice acutance effects developing EFKE 25 in a high acutance

developer, but I didn't want any "sharpening" effects to influence

the images. Sorry I can't share pictures here as I have no means of

scanning them in good quality. So here is what came out:

 

Summicron 50 (latest lens design, made around 1980): this is my most

modern 50mm lens. I used this as a reference for this test. It is

sharp and quite contrasty over all of the picture wide open, only

marginally improving in resolution and contrast when stopped down a

bit. You all know this, this was to be expected.

 

Summicron 50 (rigid, 2nd lens design, late 50s, a little foggy

inside): Compared with the latest 'cron, this is a little soft at the

edges wide open, needs to be stopped down a bit for critically sharp

images. Stopped down to f4, I cant't see much difference in

resolution, but the difference in contrast, compared with the

latest 'cron, is stunning. The 2nd generation 'cron is known to be a

low contrast high resolution lens, and the slight fogging in my lens

seems to add to the effect. If you know it, you can compensate with

increased print gradation, so this is still a very usable lens.

 

Summicron 50 (1st Version collapsible SM): This was so disappointing

that I think my lens has to be defective. It is very soft all over

the picture wide open, not improving very much when stopped down to

f4. Only at f8 the results are satisfactory, similar to the 2nd

generation 'cron, with relatively high resolution and low contrast.

 

Summitar 50 (post war coated, early 50s): This was a pleasant

surprise for me. It's very soft at the edges wide open, but from f4

there is quite high resolution over most of the picture. Contrast

seems to be marginally higher than with my 2nd generation 'cron

(which propably shows that the fog inside the 'cron degrades contrast

significantly, the 'cron should be better!). Over all, this comes

quite close to Summicron performance when stopped down a bit, and my

Summitar is a much better picture taker then my 1st generation

Summicron!

 

Elmar 3,5/50 SM post-war coated: This was the next nice surprise.

While contrast and resolution wide open are relatively low (yet still

usable), this gets a lot better with stopping down to f8. At f8 there

is an image with high resolution and good contrast. OK, the

latest 'cron is better, but the Elmar comes surprisingly close. This

is a much better lens than I thought it was!

 

Elmar 3.5/50 SM pre-war uncoated: Resolution is the same as the

coated post-war one, but although this is a very clean lens, contrast

is visibly lower than with the coated one. Erwin writes that due to

the few lens elements and a lens construction that deals well with

flare, coating didn't have much effect on this lenses performance -

after my test I think it does!

 

Jupiter 8 2/50 (early 60s SM, very clean): This lived up to it's

great reputation. It's fingerprint to me looks similar to the

Summitar's - soft at the edges wide open, but improving fast when

stopped down. At f8 it challenges the better ones of my Leica lenses

with high contrast and high resolution.

 

Industar 50 (3,5/50 SM, rigid, coated, early 50s, not perfectly

clean): Results are similar, but not quite as good as the results I

got with the uncoated Elmar. Lower contrast and lower resolution wide

open, resolution getting better when stopped down, contrast stays

weak. This may be a better lens if you have a clean one.

 

Jupiter 12 (2,8/35 SM, late 50s, very clean): This is a fine

performer. Wide open it has medium contrast and relatively high

resolution in the middle, getting very soft at the edges. Stopping

down to f4 increases resolution in the field, and at f8 there is a

high contrast high resolution image all over the image field.

 

Summaron M 2,8/35 (late 60s, very clean): Results are hardly

distinguishable from the ones I got with the J 12. I think resolution

in the middle is higher with the Summaron at the wider apertures, but

in the field the J 12 is better. At f8, I can't see much difference,

but contrast of the J 12 seems higher.

 

Summaron 3,5/35 (SM, early 50s, foggy): Resolution is similar, but

not quite as good as with the other 35s, but contrast is very much

lower. The fog insinde the lens is definitely showing an image-

degrading effect here. Yet, this is not as bad as it seems, I had

some very pleasing results with this lens, but I had to increase

contrast when printing.

 

So what are my conclusions? First: There is no real competition for

the latest 'cron from any of the lenses I tested. Stopped down, many

of the older designs seem to be capable of quite high resolution, but

the latest 'cron's contrast is unrivaled all over the aperture range.

In B&W film development you have to buy higher contrast with coarser

grain, so there will be an advantage using this lens even if you

compensate other lenses lower contrast with longer development times

or printing with higher gradation; this is even more true for low

contrast higher speed film, where higher contrast of the image the

lens produces is much more important than high resolution, as your

film will not be up to the lenses resolution anyway. This leads to my

next point: even very slight fogging seems to degrade contrast

visibly, whereas resolution doesn't seem to be affected (even this

may be different in high contrast shooting situations, when flare

gets worse), so don't believe the salesperson who tells you that a

little fogging can't be seen in the results.

 

That said, I was very much surprised by the high image quality nearly

all of the old designs were capable of when stopped down a bit, the

great exception being the collapsible Summicron. I do not print

larger than 24x30cm out of 35mm negs - nearly all of my lenses are

capable of taking critically sharp negs for this print size!

 

Share your own experiences!

 

Regards

Peter

[andy_aitken]

Excellent real world lens info! Thanks Peter.

 

Perhaps if we all tried to do a comparison of our lenses like this we could build up a better picture of the relative merits of various LTM & M lenses. I've a few Leica fit lenses in the 35-50mm range so I'll try to do something similar soon.

 

How about it folks?

[paul_neuthaler]

Helpful,Peter. Thanks.

[travis1]

When you say "better.." from lens to lens, was that based on personal preference? If not, what's it based on?

 

Do most of the people here like high contrast tack sharp lenses or moderate contrast not-tack sharp lenses? I believe it's subjective. At the end of the day, it's important to stick with the lenses you like, not necessary the "better" ones.

 

Thanks for the info.

[peter_evans4]

That's a refreshingly level-headed and informative review. Thank you!

[richie chishty]

Nice review of the lenses, Peter! It's nice to know that the current generation of 50mm Summicrons are better than their predecessors, and probably better than anything out there.

 

In my own informal usage of several generations of Leica 50mm lenses I had the same experience. I finally decided to use the current generation 50mm Summicron lens exclusively. I liked the lens' high contrast and high resolution signature and saturated colors in my photos.

 

My second favorite 50 was the DR version. The build quality of this beautiful lens was phenomenal. But I just did not like the low contrast photos at larger apertures.

 

I also tried out several Elmars and Summitars, and a collapsible Summicron. At f8, they were decent performers. But I shoot a lot of photos at f2. The performance of the current 50mm lens at f2, plus its nice bokeh at f2, made it my preferred 50mm lens.

[vidom]

@Travis: Sorry, I wasn't precise. "Better" is supposed to mean higher resolution, higher contrast, as these are the things I was interested in when I did my test. I'm totally aware of the fact that low contrast, low resolution and a huge amount of flare may form a very pleasant image (which is why many people - including myself - love a Summitar wide open for portraiture). But this is not what my test is about. I was cheating anyway - real life Leica photography doesn't mean schlepping around a heavy tripod to me, so I wouldn't shoot EFKE 25 in real life photography. Before my test, I thought I wouldn't see much difference between the lenses using APX 100, which I regularily use, so I decided to use this slow film. To define what I wanted from this test: I simply wanted to know which of my lenses (and at which aperture) could be trusted in case I'd need it for a critically sharp 24X30 cm print.

[jim_mcbride]

Thank you, Peter Volle, for sharing your "real world" experience with these lenses,

including your film choice, developer choice, time, etc. This information is of much

practical helpfulness to people who want to take pictures. For B&W work I have

standardized on D-76 myself and almost always shoot Tri-X @ ISO 400. My 50mm

Collapsible Summicron-M gives low contrast negatives with acceptable sharpness if

stopped down to f8. My DR Summicron gives better contrast and sharpness as long as it is

stopped down to at least f5.6. Sorry for the heresy, but my sharpest and most contrasty

lens is a 50mm f1.8 Nikkor stopped down to at least f4.

[ronald_moravec1]

How can you even think of comparing images if one of the lenses is foggy inside. Even a small amount will degrade tonal relationships.

[vidom]

@ Ronald: You're right, of course, and what you say is exactly what I found out. Please consider that this is just a comparative test of the lenses I own and I was, for my own personal reasons, interested to find out just how much the fogging actually affects the image quality, because I take pictures with most of these lenses.

[chris_david]

I appreciate the inclusion of a fogged up lens. There are quite a few out there and it's interesting to see how it affects performance.

[aizan_sasayama]

The collapsible Summicron hadn't been polished and recoated, mayhaps?

[ed_berns1]

Peter,

 

Great 'real world' comparison. For those of us without the various lenses to compare, it is quite helpful. In particular, I found your comments about the Summitar interesting as a recent use of a post-war, coated, example provided surprisingly pleasant -- sharp and contrasty -- images!

 

Thanks for doing the hard work!

 

Ed B.

[les_lammers]

Thanks Peter,

 

I have some of these same lenses and will be sending them to Focal point for CLA's. Hopefully, by the time they are returned, I'll have a scanner and can post the images. I think I will do B4 and after

CLA shots.

[pensacolaphoto]

What an excellent informative write-up this is. Thanks. We all have different lenses of different qualities (and fogging), so it is an interesting experiment for me. Maybe others can follow Peter's steps and show us their findings with their fogged and unfogged lenses.

[carey_russ]

Peter, interesting. I have both a collapsible Summicron and Summitar in LTM and, in a

similar test, noticed that the Summitar had much better contrast and resolution in the

center. The Summicron was better toward the edges. Both lenses are clear and

unscratched, but I was thinking that maybe something had happened to the`cron

sometime in it life. Apparently not.

If you *really* want flare and interesting effects wide open, get a Summar.

[dan flanders]

It is gratifying to have a review that does not depend upon shooting newsprint or test charts on a flat wall. Everyone should make such tests of chosen lenses and settle on the ones that satisfy personal tastes. I suspect that the problems with the collapsible Summicron are unique to that particular lens since my example is significantly superior to my Summitar and only marginally inferior to my rigid second version. However, for my purposes they all have to take a backseat to the Summicron C which projects several mm less than the collapsed 'cron and only a few more than the reverred RS Elmar.

[stuart_richardson]

Interesting to hear about your collapsible 'cron. I just picked one up and think it does very

well in comparison to the modern version, though it flares severely on occasion. Here is an

example of the fine detail it can render handheld. Film was delta 100 and it was developed

in Xtol 1:1. The crop is 100% using a 4800 dpi scanner. <P><img src="http://

www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~srichardson/neighbors-cat-collapsible2.jpg"><P> <img src="http:

//

www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~srichardson/neighbors-cat-detail.jpg">

[richard s.]

Peter - excellent post. Thank you.

 

Stuart - that is a fantastic shot of the cat, really invokes memories of my own cat from my

childhood!

 

Am considering a collapsible 'cron for myself, so this thread has been particularly helpful. I

guess that the moral of the story is to acquire one with as clean glass as possible.

[stuart_richardson]

Thanks Richard --- to be honest though, mine has some light cleaning marks on there as

well. I think it is about avoiding haze and off-axis light. If you can do those two things,

then it's fantastic.

[vidom]

I have to add that my ranting about my collapsible Summicron may have been based on a faulty test set-up, maybe it wasn't correctly de-collapesd or the adapter used to put it on the M3 wasn't aligned correctly - this is the price to pay for unprofessional set-ups. Further comparison, using it on a LTM Leica showed results much more similar to those of the Summitar, in fact hardly distinguishable, but nor really better.