vidom

<p>"Also the camera shuts down =-screen goes black--when reviewing pictures in the rear screen."<br>

This is a well-known feature/bug that came with the last firmware update; nothing wrong with the hardware. I suppose they change it again with the next update. I don't know about the other issue, my M9 doesn't do anything like it.</p>

<p>Peter</p>

<p>The one on the picture is the second version in black, made sometime in the late sixties or during the seventies, with a built-in two piece telescopic hood. Nothing unusual about it. There never was a 2/90 where the hood covered the aperture ring. The one on the pic was followed by a thinner and lighter non-apo 2/90, which was followed by the apo 2/90, which is the latest design.</p>

<p>CV cameras have double shutter blades to prevent light leaks when changing lenses (funny enough, they copied this idea from the 1950s Voigtländer Prominent, which had double shutter blades on its Compur shutter), so there is no danger with modern CV cameras.</p>

<p>As this one hasn't been mentioned yet: I'm keeping a couple of Contax RF bodies alive just to be able to use my Biogon 4.5/21. And I love all of my Contarex lenses, which are the only reason for me to own two C'rex bodies.</p>

<p>I agree that it is not a dog, but considering it a serious alternative for a Summicron would be a mistake. It all depends on what you want it for. It is really showing its age. Wide open there is relatively low contrast, high resolution only in the middle of the frame, and to get the edges sharp you have to stop it down a lot, beyond 5,6 - the 'crons (both versions) are critically sharp all over the frame at 2,8 or 4. I like my Summiluxes a lot, because they really glow in a very old-fashioned way, which sometimes becomes my style of photography. There you are again - the famous Leica "glow" that really is the effect of imperfection. If you want sharp, get a 'cron or a Macro-Elmarit 60, which in my humble opinion is the best choice for almost everything.</p>

<p>Erwin Puts writes something to the effect that the Elmar wide open is better than the Hektor at f/11; this may be correct as far as numbers are concerned, but in my personal experience from looking at pics, the Hektor is not so bad either. If you need the edges of the frame sharp from wide open to f/8, you'll probably be better off with the Elmar; beyond f/8 the difference becomes quite small. If you work close-up, the Hector may be a better choice as the Elmar is a tele construction calculated for best performance at infinity with relatively low performance at short distances. You'll probably have to pay a bit more for the Elmar as it is relatively rare in LTM; for occasional use, the Hector may be better value.</p>

<p>Michael, you already have a 35mm Voigtländer Skopar, want a Leica lens but not a 40mm lens, the new lens should outperform your Voigtländer and must not be more expensive than $ 500 - sorry, such a lens does not exist. A Summaron - any Summaron - would be a major step back from the Skopar image quality-wise, it's a late 1940s (or, with the 2,8: 1950s) design compared to a modern lens. That said, the 3,5/35 Summaron is capable of nice pics (if you are) when stopped down considerably. When the Summaron is used wide open, images are fairly soft at the edges - which may be a nice effect for some pics. If you want one, watch out for fogging; there is no Leica lens more prone to fogging than the Summaron 3,5/35.</p>

<p>Steve Gandy has a feature on this camera on his site Cameraquest. I happen to own one myself. The camera has some issues, but if you know them it can be used as a reliable camera. One thing is that the camera should not be used with alkaline batteries but with the highest possible capacity rechargable batteries you can get. Don't try the camera with old rechargeable packs, all cells have to be new. Another thing is that the contacts that connect the battery compartment with the camera body are very often corroded, thus causing trouble with electricity. If these contacts are clean and the rechargable batteries fresh, the camera shall probably work without problems, if you succeed working out how to use it. The problem of cameras suddenly dying is mostly a problem of the battery compartment being not properly connected to the body or with weak battery cells.<br>

If it works, the camera is a delight to use and - with Contarex - virtually the only 35mm pro grade camera that allows for bw zone system work. Did I mention the Zeiss lenses?</p>

I guess that in the highly religious Leica community the 2,8/24 is mostly disregarded because of its Minolta heritage. Looking at it a bit more rationally, you'll find that it is a fairly sophisiticated design with floating elements and a very satisfactory performance; only in very demanding situations the wide-open performance may be behind the latest designs, but I bet that most of us wouldn't see any difference.

Tom, it doesn't help to compensate on the ISO speed dial as the deviation is non-linear. I forgot to mention that

a zinc-air cell (such as a Wein Cell) should do as well; I have not tried this myself and I'm not sure whether

these cells - which consume oxygen - get enough fresh air in the closed battery compartment of a Rollei 35, and

you'll have to change this type of battery more frequently. I own two Rollei 35s, I had one re-calibrated a few

years ago, the other works with an adaptor, both work fine.

Be aware of the fact that the meter uses a PX 625 mercury battery, so you'll either have to find a battery adaptor or have the meter re-calibrated for 625 (i.e. U 625) alkakine cells if you want to use the camera's meter. Make sure the lens is collapsible without much force. Check if the aperture changes when turning the aperture dial. If you have the opportunity, shoot a film and look at the results. Prices for Rollei 35 are so low at the moment that buying a camera that needs any maintenance or repairs - even cleaning the shutter - shall make no economic sense.

Some of the smaller Billingham bags are perfect for small RF outfits; alas, cheap they are not.

Positively yes. It's a pre-war chrome collapsible 2,8/50 Tessar that might have been sold with a Contax II or III, yet if will fit any Zeiss Contax RF. They didn't continue making it after the war because it didn't have much of a reputation for wide open performance - the 3,5 was much better.

What do you mean by "old style signature similar to the Elmar C"? The Elmar C is a fairly high performance lens that does not have anything such as an "old style" performance. For a comparable performance of an ltm lens consider a CV 3,5/90 Apo-Lanthar (which I own, but do not like very much as the short throw makes precise focussing difficult). All of the old 4/90 LTM Elmars - maybe with the exception of the rare three element Elmar that is said to have much better performance - do indeed give an "old style" signature, which doesn't even come close to the C-Elmar's performance.

I can answer No.1: The LEDs disappear once you leave AE mode; manual is non-metered. If you had a contacts problem the LEDs would flicker or something like that.

Thanks, Ronald. I already have the M-version of the same lens type, so I know what kind of beast I get, and, yep, it's approx. twice the weight of the camera. I don't really care about the weight, but I wonder how much of the 90 frame of my IIIg's finder is obstructed.

 

"only 35`s had the adapter factory added with a grub screw, no cement.

Anybody could have bought a red dot and added it."

 

According to Laney, all of the early M 90 Summicrons were LTM lenses with factoriy-added adaptors, the red dot being the only difference as soon as the adaptor was removed. Laney seems to be the only author mentioning this with regard to the Summicron 2/90. The one I've bought comes without an adaptor. Now, this is intriguing - there are supposed to be some 500 original LTM Summicron 2/90s, but they also didn't produce more than a few hundred M Summicron 2/90s per annum in the early years of production, so I just wonder how many red dot LTM Summicron 2/90s are around. A german Leica dealer offers three LTM Summicron 2/90s of this type at the moment, all of them with red dots. I have yet to see one without one.

I have bought a beater (but apparently clean) LTM Summicron 2/90, relatively

late type (the one with the built-in collapsible shade); I have not received it

yet, and I can return it and it was really cheap so I don't really mind about

collector's value and things like that; actually, I want it as a user lens for

my LTM outfit. That said, I'd still like to know what I have. I don't know the

serial number yet. The lens has an M-mount red dot, so it may be rebuilt from

one of the early M lenses that originally had a LTM/M-mount adaptor glued on.

OTOH I had alwalys thought that Leitz didn't make these adaptor-M-lenses on a

regular basis anymore when this type of Summicron 90 came out. Now these are my

questions:

 

Does anyone know for how long Leica made LTM lenses that had M adaptors glued on

that were sold as M lenses, and if they did it with this particular type of

Summicron 90?

 

Do LTM lenses exist that were sold by Leica as orignal LTM lenses which have a

red dot?

 

Are there any compatibilty issues with early M lenses (with the originally

glued-on adaptor removed) when used on LTM cameras?

 

Thanks! Peter

Why don't you just try and have your own experiences with all these lenses?

 

Ok, as you've asked: As a rule, Tessar-Type lenses need to be stopped down two stops for maximum performance. The 3,5/50 Tessar is a gem indeed.

 

Like all old wide angle lenses, the Biogon 2,8/35 is soft at the edges of the frame wide open; stopping it down a bit takes care of that, stopping it down a lot causes diffraction effects that degrade the picture a bit. I'd say best performance is at f8, maybe f4-5,6, if the edges don't have to be critically sharp. Still, it is getting old by now, and there are worlds between it's performance and that of a modern lens such as a Summicron Asph 35.

 

I don't know why the 1,5 Sonnar has such a great reputation. It is ok for an early superfast normal, but the performance of any slower Contax RF lens (Sonnar 2/50, for instance, or your Tessar) is better at comparable stops in my experience. A vintage Voigtländer Nokton would also be a better choice.

 

The 4/135 Sonnar - at least the coated post-war one - is one of the best performers of all the Contax lenses; it is better than any 135 Leitz made for LTM. It's sharp wide open and at an optimum at f5,6.

 

The Planar 2/50 is a very capable performer even by today's standards, but like most f2 double gauss lenses it has a performance peak between f4 and f 5,6. It can be used wide open without problems.

 

All this is quite academic - your photographic techinque and your artistic vision is what really counts, and you'll be able to take great pics with all lenses you have, but you may want to use the time shooting instead of spending it at the screen asking about your gear.

The difference in "fingerprint" is quite obvious: Compared with the TE, which is sharp and contrasty all over the image even wide open, the Hektor is quite soft anywhere but in the middle of the frame and has visibly lower contrast wide open, slowly improving when stopping it down.

Chuck,

 

no reason to die. All the Contax (and Contarex) lenses mentioned were as good as it got the time they were made, but time hasn't stopped, neither has technology. The old lenses are nice shooters today, but none of them ist very sharp at the edges wide open; I know, I've tried them all. Your plastic Nikon will blow them away with ease. Yet, as a collector's prize, they are hardly surpassable, and it's fun to use them.

 

Ciao

Peter

I's not a bug, it's a feature. In the beginning, there were no high speed lenses for the Contarex (the first 35mm wideangle and 135 mm telephoto lenses were no faster than f4,0), so they used a clear screen to get a very bright image in the finder with these lenses, the downside being that you could only use the split-image prism and the prism-ring in the middle of the screen for focusing. DSLR manufacturers still do it today - just try to manually focus a Digital Rebel using the screen. Later Contarexes had interchangeable screens so you could also have a full focusing screen at the price of a much darker finder image.

 

Zeiss wanted to sell Contarexes to those who had originally bougtht Contax RF cameras; those users were used to using only the middle of the finder image for focusing. Zeiss severely underestimated the importance of being able to use all of the screen. Same problem with the fist Leicaflex.

David: I own an early post war coated Elmar (~1948) that stops at f16; as far as I remember, Laney writes that these have been made for some time after the war, but in the early 50s they changed the smallest aperture to f22. Apart from the strange serial number the lens mentioned in this therad looks exactly like mine. I think this is simply a faulty engraving, one number missing from the s/n.

1. What, exactly, do you mean with "sharpness"? Acutance? Resolution? Contrast? MTF? Photodo-ratings?

2. A forty year old Zeiss Planar for a Contarex is a wonderful lens, so is a 50 year old Contax Sonnar, but neither of them is famous for great wide open performance by modern standards. I know, I'm using all of them. A 4th gen. Summicron (M or R, it's the same cross section) blows them away. It is an entirely different question whether you like the performance as it is - old Zeiss lenses - any old lenses - may be great shooters, but that has nothing to do with "sharpness", whatever that may be.

3. Will you be able to see the difference?

Hi Vick,

 

Simon is wrong. The SL66SE magazines do work with the older SL66(E,X) without restriction. Older magazines link with the SL66SE mechanically (but the meter doesn't work because of the missing film speed information). Be aware of the fact that, unlike earlier versions that take both 120 and 220 film, the SE backs are for 120 OR 220 film, so don't buy the wrong one.

I second the recommendation for the original Leica SBLOO finder. I own both one of those and a Voigtländer 35 brightline finder, and the Leica one suits me better optically as well as mechanically. The plastic foot of my Voigtländer finder finally broke. A VIDOM/VIOOH/IMARECT universal finder is not a good alternative - try one and you'll know what I mean.