Your best wide angle lens advice for limited budget to be used with M8.

[HK71]

Hi All,

just simple: limited budget to company my 50mm summarit to be used with M8 in street photography. Any "the one and the only"

wideangle lens advise for M8? I'm considering 28mm f/2,8 Zeiss Biogon and 28mm Voigtlander f/2 Ultron. I would appreciate any

experiences with any of these two.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hakan

[Alex_Es]

<p>Both your choices are good. The Biogon is an excellent lens. The Ultron is good, quite good in fact. You might consider a used Elmarit 28/2.8. Leica build quality is second to none. Remember that on an M8 28mm equals around 37mm on a 35mm camera, or an M9. </p>

<p> </p>

[taeyoung_youn2]

<p>Hakan Karademir// If you need a wide angle lens in streen photography, I think a 28mm lens could be a bit narrow on your M8. If you don't have any particular reason for a 28mm, I think you may be interested in either 21mm or 24mm lens.<br>

A 21mm equals around 27mm and a 24mm equals around 31mm on your M8.</p>

[ray .]

I have a 21 Biogon and absolutely love it..... for film. On the M8 I found its contrast too strong, tending to

blow out highlights or darken shadows, depending on exposure, in scenes with shadows and sun. It's

great on the M8 in even lighting though. I'm pretty sure the Voigtlander lenses are more middle of the

road contrast-wise, if not quite as sharp. At least that's what I experienced with a borrowed 21 VC on the

M8. At any rate, you'll probably want a 21 or 28mm for that camera.

[Alex_Es]

<p>In fact the 28mm would be dandy for street photography. It would be midway between a 40mm and a 35mm, both good street lenses. Go with the Ultron if you need the extra stop, but mind that the Biogon and Elarit will be better optically and have superior build quality. The latter is very important if your lens gets lots of everyday use.</p>

[stuart_richardson]

<p>I would take it one step farther and suggest you get the older 28mm f/1.9 Ultron if you can find it. This lens is a screwmount lens, so you can purchase a screwmount to bayonet adapter that is already six-bit coded. The 28/1.9 is a great lens and works very well on the M8 (it has moderate contrast which compliments it well). Additionally, 28mm and wider lenses really must have coding if you intend to use them with an IR blocking filter and color photography. If you don't, you will have very cyan corners. <br>

But, I also agree with Taeyoung in that the 28mm is not THAT wide on the M8. It is a great standard-wide lens, but not much of a true wide angle. When I was shooting the M8, I found that the 18mm f/4 Zeiss was a superb wide angle lens for the M8. It became about a 24mm and it was extremely sharp with low distortion. The only issue is that you will need and external viewfinder and you will have to code it, which can mean changing the lens mount (you need both the code and the correct framelines, to get the correct lens, and the 18mm had different framelines than the 18mm wide tri-elmar...the situation is different now I think, so you may want to research it if you go this route). </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>If an equivalent 37mm view is acceptable, which it seems to you to be (as your 50 is really a 67mm lens on the M8), I would go for either the f1.9 or f2 VC 28mm lenses. I have the f1.9 version, but understand that the newer f2 is even a bit better. Nice thing about the f1.9 is its LTM mount and possibility of using it on my IIIf with a mini VF for a true 28mm effect. It is often good in street shooting to blur the background (or sometimes even the foreground) and the f2 versus f2.8 gives you that bit more leaway of selective focus. Below 28mm, the availability of inexpensive fast (f2 or wider) wide angles is limited, but if you like close up street shooting they (like the 21 or 25mm VC f4 lenses or 18mm Zeiss) can be useful, otherwise the 28mm (M8 37mm) VC lens is a good choice. You might want to check Erwin Puts' Leica-VC-Zeiss test results, or those of Ken Rockwell.</p>

<p>A lens that can give a very flat rather than curved field is an advantage (like an enlarger lens) when it comes to acroos the sensor evenness of focus on the M8 (and presumably even more so, the M9).</p>

[steve_levine]

<p>I owned both the 21 and 25 CV Skopars, and I was very pleased with the performance of both. For the money these are both great lenses IMHO.</p>

[ronni]

<p>I'm in similiar condition, looking for wide lens for M8, due to limited budget probably I wil go to 21 and 25 CV Skopars.<br>

Any body has these lens, please share the result...</p>

<p>thanks</p>

 

[wentbackward]

<p>I used a CV 21 colour skopar on the M8 too. Some slight barrelling but very sharp. Might be a bit slow for street. I recall I could frame it roughly to the edges of the finder so didn't use an external viewfinder. It's very high quality lens and took some lovely full length portraits with it in tiny apartments here in HK.</p>