leica old glass favourite (pre 1970)

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Jean-Marie</p>

<p>Here's another picture taken with the Summar at F2 1/100th using XP2 film (no flash)</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Jean-Marie</p>

<p>Here's another picture taken with the Summar at F2 1/100th using XP2 film (no flash)</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>I dont know hat happened there. Here is the pic</p><div></div>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Peter Werner</p>

<p>I also like the Hektor but the 135mm version. It is a little soft but I have taken some acceptably sharp pictures. Here's one from a few years back.</p><div></div>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>I currently own all the lenses that you mention other than 3: the 28 elmarit, the 28 hektor and the 35 f2.8 summaron. They have different applications. I like them all for different reasons. The summarex is quite rare and rather heavy. The 35 elmar is tiny. I do quite a lot of wide angle stuff and therefore love the super angulon. (The 28 summaron is also good but a little slow.) I have the 4th version 35 summicron which is excellent but I also love the signature of the 3.5 summaron. My favourite standard lens is not mentioned - the non collapsible summicron. The 50 elmars are excellent too if you get a clean one. I have both 135's mentioned and personally prefer the hektor. I too like the little f4 90 and prefer it to the faster elmarit. The f2 90 has been most useful to me, however, because of its speed.</p>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>I ought to have mentioned that the f3.4 super angulon is considerably better than the f4. Vignetting is significantly reduced in the faster lens.</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>ALASTAIR Happy you mentioned the super angulon; the 3.4's iris produces a <strong>square</strong> opening, doesn't that affect the bokeh negatively? Ken Youknowwho claims that the f4 is superior because of its rounder aperture. Also: how does the 3,4 handle <strong>shooting in the sun</strong>? And why would the R version of the super angulon start with a 3,4 and change into an f4 later (the opposite of its M counterpart!)?</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>ANTHONY Nice sandwich effect! With the drummer in between the out of focus band members. Again, nice detail/rendering in the shadow; partlly explainable by the characteristcs of XP2 I suppose, handles terrible well in low light. And so does the Kodak C31 film. With their dense 400asa emulsions they allow you to be more than a stop out either way too. Hated these films until I discovered their low light userfriendliness. Now i use almost nothing else. The nikkor zoom landscapes are shot on XP2 too.</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>ANTHONY I was too tired to realise that you wrote SUMMAR for the boatbuilder. I thought I read collapsible summicron (probably because the image is so clear and everybody complaining about the softness and flare proneness of old glass). ! You must have a very clean sample and probably it is coated as well to handle the contrast of the boat vs the sky so well.</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2790915">Jean-Marie Dederen</a> - In fact my SUMMAR is not coated. It's a 1936 version but as I think I mentioned it was never without its lenscap and the previous one owner was fastidious. I also bought a 90mm Elmar and a 135 Hektor from the same widow. I was very fortunate and it started my Leica photography.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>ANTHONY I was too tired to realise that you wrote SUMMAR for the boatbuilder. I thought I read collapsible summicron (probably because the image is so clear and everybody complaining about the softness and flare proneness of old glass). ! You must have a very clean sample and probably it is coated as well to handle the contrast of the boat vs the sky so well.</em><br /> Just to be clear - this shot is an example of "good" flare - flare spots are usually ugly, whereas even flare all over a picture is not conspicuous and can help get a long tone scale onto a negative. In this shot the contrast between the area on the left side of the boat and the foreground in shadow is quite high, and probably would not have recorded well with. for example, the latest Summicron. whereas the Summar has done a great job - as I and others have said, a Summar is quite sharp when stopped down 3 stops or so and provided it is not badly scratched.</p>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>Jean-Marie, I have both the f3.4 and the f4 super-angulons. Bokeh is not an issue for me because with this focal length I almost invariably want everthing in focus. My f3.4 s-a is like new whereas the f4 version is not. I find that the slower version has a lot more flare but this may simply be down to the fact that it is not completely clean. The only reason that I use it is because the faster lens has a bayonet mount and won't work on my screw mount cameras.</p>

<p> The first R version of the super-angulon was optically identical to the rangefinder f3.4. If I'm not mistaken this version protruded too far into the body of the camera and required the mirror to be raised; you have to use an external finder. The f4 version works as a conventional SLR lens. By the way this latter lens has an excellent reputation.</p>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>I think the f4 super angulon is inherently more prone to flare simply because it has more elements. Without checking up I think the f4 has 9 elements whereas the 3.4 only has 8 or perhaps it is 7. I think most people would agree that the f3.4 is a much better lens. I hadn't really thought about the aperture blades but I hardly think this is a significant issue.</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>ALASTAIR The super angulons are really pricy an not all that available! Welcome to leica world I suppose, I have bought all sorts of nikkors (pre-1980) and I thought they were expensive. But in comparison to leica counterparts they all of a udden seem cheap! How does the 3,4 handle shooting against the sun?</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>DAVID I didn't actually see the reflection on the white cabin wall on the left. I also didn't see the second builder inside, sticking his hand out of the window. The shadows are long and the boat is partly shaded. The cameralens obviously enjoys the benefit of being shaded as well. And the scene is sidelit. Not much chance for flare if Anthony used a hood. Maybe he used a yellow filter as well? Still, I find it amazing how the summar handles the contrast of the shaded area and the beach, sea and sky it faces.</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2790915">Jean-Marie Dederen</a> - I always use a lenshood whatever camera I am using and my summar was always fitted with a FIKUS (adjustable) lenshood. There is a slight blanking out of the corner of the viewfinder with this hood but one soon gets used to it.</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Here is another picture taken the same day with the Summar but at F8 with FIKUS lenshood. No filter</p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p>Oh dear that didn't work</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>Not much chance for flare if Anthony used a hood.</em><br>

Just to repeat - with an uncoated lens, flare occurs with every shot. An uncoated lens loses around 4% of light at every glass/air surface - this means that with a 6-element lens total losses are 22% - this 22% does not form an image but essentially gets spread (scattered) evenly all over the picture. Single coating cuts losses to 1.3% per surface/5% total, while with multi-coating the figures are 0.25% per surface/1.5% total. Localised flare (spots) is usually displeasing, general flare isn't and is in fact an essential part of the vintage look of old lenses. A lens hood stops rays of light which are just outside the picture area and are most likely to cause localised flare. </p>

[anthony_brookes5]

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1459982">David Bebbington</a> - so does that mean that the lens simply passes less light or is there some other adverse effect on the image ?</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1459982" rel="nofollow">David Bebbington</a> - so does that mean that the lens simply passes less light or is there some other adverse effect on the image ?</em><br>

In the percentages stated, the light which enters the lens (of course this is the same for coated and uncoated lenses) goes on to form an image OR be scattered evenly over the image as flare (which means a given exposure with an uncoated lens will show more shadow density than one with a coated lens but the image will have lower contrast, so you may need to up the development time). Example: Uncoated lens - 78% of light going through the lens is image-forming, 22% is flare. Multi-coated lens - 98.5% image-forming, 1.5% flare. </p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>DAVID I think that my nikkor would have generated a much wider DOF at f8. Seems that leica lenses are designed for better DOFcontrol? The summaron 35/3.5 scale I checked had 30 mtrs printed next to the infinity symbol. On a similar nikkor the scale jumps from about 10 mtrs to infinity. </p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>ANTHONY/DAVID Would a yellow (light, medium or dk) filter have made any difference to the control of flare? In black and white that is. Some recommend that you could almost keep it permanently on your older lens types? </p>

[dhbebb]

<p>I don't think depth of field varies with lens brand - of course the subjective appearance of out-of-focus parts of the image can do so! Filters will never reduce flare - a dirty or poor quality one can make flare worse. The big thing about filters especially with the Summar, with its soft glass, but of course with other lenses as well, is to protect the lens from scratches.</p>

[jean_marie_dederen]

<p>DAVID Surely not every brand of say 35mm focal lenght lens displays the same DOF scale? With respect to the interesting flare data above, do these figures represent a 'worse case scenario' or rather an average. Phrased differently: how does the quality of light affect these numbers? Would say late afternoon light have a lesser effect on the drop in image forming light in uncoated lenses? </p>