Reuniting a Leica IIIf with its rightful lens

[aa]

I have a user IIIf that looks pretty nice. (The serial number

546,xxx indicates that it is a IIIF)

 

When I bought this body about 2 yrs ago, I was undecided on a lens

and some kind person on this list sent me a 1939 90mm Elmar, which

is the only lens I've used so far with this body.

 

I'd like to buy a lens from 1951 that Leica would have sold with

this body. However, it dawned on me that perhaps at the time Leica

just sold the bodies to people and they selected a lens separately?

 

From what I've seen on Ebay, Elmars, Summars, Summitars are my

choices? In 1951, if someone bought my IIIF, what would be the most

likely lens that would have been used?

[Troll]

Leica didn't bundle their bodies with lenses. In 1951 you could have bought a (50mm) Elmar, Summitar, or Xenon from Leitz. If you have a leather case with your camera it will give you a good idea of which was the original. The case for the Elmar had an almost flat front, for the Summitar it came out about an inch, and for the Xenon probably 2 inches. That year, many owners chose to go with LTM Nikkors, which Horace Bristol had discovered while covering the Korean Police Action.

[ronald_moravec1]

Post war Elmars were coated and give a more modern appearance to the pictures. Pics from uncoated ones suchas yours have less contrast and less saturated colors.

 

Red scale Elmars were the last 3.5 50mm made The distance scale has red numerals. Earlier coated ones were black.

 

Coated lenses have a blueish color to the front. The coatings are very soft and requre care if they mist be cleaned so they do not scratch.

 

Post war Summitars are also coated. Some prewar ones were coated later.

 

Both these are subject to intern hazing that can be seen if yu shine a pen light thru then. Usually they can be cleaned.

 

SherryKrauter.com has 50 mm 3.5 in mint condition. She is a qualified repair person with a lot of following so that lens is a good one. Look in the screw mount lens section.

 

At some point, a 2.8 screw Elmar was made as was 2.0 Summicron. However these were not available in 1951.

 

3.5 Elmar`s take lovely pictures. I use mine inplace of moders lenses all the time.

[vidom]

I'd recommend a coated clean Summitar. I's fairly soft wide open (nice for portraiture), from f4 on it is quite sharp (at least in the middle). As for aesthetics: It looks great on a IIIf. All in all the Elmar may be the better performer, but stopped down there is not much difference and for some shots you may want those additional stops.

[ronald_moravec1]

One more thought. The uncoated lens you now have gives a relatively low contrast picture. Almost all print processing today is done on what is called commercial paper which is relatively high in contrast.

Your lowish constast lens balances that out.

 

Changing to a high contrast lens gives pictures I consider to have too high a contrast. As a result I use a wedding lab that prints on professional portrait paper which has lower contrast.

 

All the Ritz, Konica, Noritsu mini labs use this commercial paper. My local drug store uses a Kodak ink jet and those are quite contrasty.

 

When I compared uncoated and coated lenses on the sme roll of color film, I thought the uncoated lens made better pictures.

 

Those uncoated lenses also tend to require a lens shade more often than uncoated ones.

 

The summitar lens is nice and I would not sell mine, but it has some quirks in that it uses filters made for that one lens. The proper sun shade is a special 2x3 inch folding box like affair that will be quite cumbersome. If you are lucky, a smaller round shade can be made to fit if you have enough old parts and some epoxy and tape. This is a hit or miss affair and camera stores usually do not have the junk boxes of older filter rings and sun shades that used to be available.

 

If you do black and white work in your own darkroom, you will be happier with coated lenses. Same if you print your own color and you have the easy option of portrait paper.

 

I guess you have some decisions to make. I can only point out things you will realize until after the purchase when it may be too late.

 

One final idea is that the new Cosia Voitlander 50 mm 2.5 is in a screw mount, is very small and works and fits well on a 111f. It will be new with none of the quirks the old leica glass has. It will produce pictures similar to the latest modern glass that leica produces. Cost is only $225 or so. CameraQuest.com .

 

After you decide, ask about dealers where good equipment can be purchased. I would stay off E-Bay.

 

A friend has some Nikor lenses that a virtually new and in perfect condition. There are several 2.0`s and a never used 1.4 that looks like it came out of the box yesterday.

[james_elwing]

I think you are on the right track. In 1951, for a 50mm, you could get Elmar f3.5, Summitar f2 and Summarit f1.5. All these lenses were coated and shutting down to f16, could be used as standard lenses for general photography. (the older Xenon only went to f9, even the Summar only went down to f12.5)All should out perform your old 90 Elmar

I would go for 1950, '51 or '52, because buying a new lens with that body could easily have that much variation in stock.

You obviously have numbers against years to ID 1951, so I assume you have lens SN against year; if you don't, 1950 is 756001 on, 1951 is 840001 on, 1952 is 950001-1051000. Summicrons didnﾒt start ﾑtill 1953.

 

I think it's a good time for hunting lenses. Get yourself 1951+/- coated 90 Elmar and 135 Hektor at the same time; in reasonable optical condition they are quite cheap. A good 35 Summaron may be a little more expensive, or require a little patience. Then you would have a kit.

[terence_mahoney]

For an all-round 50mm lens, a coated Elmar of contemporary age (determinable by its serial #) would be perfect, assuming you've a mini-torch and can find a copy that is either clean or at least cleanable.

 

For a faster lens, the Summicron is by far the best, with the Summarit, Xenon and Summar dropping in performance quality in that order. However it was acknowledged at the time by professionals that the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 in Leica thread-mount was in fact superior to any of the Leitz offerings of the day, and was their overwhelming choice. The tables weren't turned until the advent of the second optical formula of the Summilux in 1962.

[aa]

Thank you for the excellent responses!

 

I shoot 100% black and white film, develop myself, scan negatives, and then print a few on polycontrast paper with appropriate filters.

 

I appreciate the advice on the contrast/coated issues as they will help in shotting/film/printing decisions.

 

For low contrast/older looking pictures, I think ultimately, I'd like to get a 1930's Leica body to go with the uncoated Elmar I have and add an uncoated 50mm lens. But for now, for my IIIf, I'll start looking for the lens mentioned here.

 

Thanks again for your help!

 

Sincerely,

Andrew Albright

[john_shriver]

Note that earlier Summitars only stop down to f/12.5, like my wartime coated one. So if you want f/16, be sure to get one that "goes there". That will also make it contemperaneous with your camera.

 

A later Summitar will also have the wide square-bottom groove around the front for securing that latest (and by far most common) version of the SOOPD shade. Mine has almost no groove, I had to wait to find the screw-clamp version of the SOOPD.

 

Personally, I think the SOOPD shade is cool, not cumbersome. Leica went to all the trouble of making a more complicated focusing mount that didn't rotate the lens barrel so you could use an effective rectangular shade. So use the right shade. It is cleverly designed to not block the view on a screwmount Leica.

 

Yes, Summitars use strange filters, but they aren't at all rare.

[terence_mahoney]

"I shoot 100% black and white film, develop myself, scan negatives, and then print a few on polycontrast paper with appropriate filters."

 

Why do you print scanned negatives on polycontrast paper with filters? I can understand using a digital projection-enlarger if you shoot a digital camera and want to make old-fashioned prints, but why bother to scan negatives rather than just use an old-fashioned enlarger?

[aa]

Terrence,

 

Let my clarify, I scan all my negatives with my digital scanner as a replacement for printing contact sheets. I think this is a faster way to view images, and anyway, I have limited darkroom time.

I grade any halfway decent images with a grade of B- or better.

 

I then print the original film negatives using a traditional darkroom on images with an "A" or better grade. Depending on any film/lens/exposure contrast issues, I can usually solve any problems with different enlarger filters.

[ronald_moravec1]

Different contrast grades of paper will not resolve the problems with uncoated lenses except for overall low contrast scenes.

 

I have done contrasty scenes with both on adjacent frames. The darks are not as dark and have lower local contrast and the bright highlights are devoid of detail where detail shows with the coated lens. Overall they looked similar, but the difference was in the details at either end.

 

Recently cleaned 3.5 Elmars were the samples used, both recently internally cleaned and both used the very deep 50/901/135 lens shade.

[summitar]

The 12585 lens shade fits my summitar and summicrons. I think it was Ivor Matanle that said that the SOOPD looks like a mousetrap designed by a maniac. Apparently they do a good job.

[ronald_moravec1]

Doesn`t fit my v- groove one. Maybe the very last ones had a larger diameter considering there was a barn door shade that fit both.

 

The v grove one will not keep a shade on. It is 1 mm too small in diameter. Wrap tape on it to keep the shade on, then the cap doesn`t fit. And there is always an end to the tape that peals and frays.

 

Now Andrew knows what he is getting into!