Leica lens test/evaluation

[denishr]

... on photo.net, under the title "Lens shootout".
Relatively nicely written, evaluation in "real-life" situations. Good read for those who are interested in relatively vintage lenses in 35mm-50mm range for their Leicas.
Anyway, here's the link (I don't know if I'm breaking any rules here providing a link to photo.net...)
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AGO3

Regards,

Denis

[peter_n]

Thanks for the link Denis - a well executed and reported test.

I too have a 1949 coated 5cm/f3.5 Elmar and like the author, was surprised at the quality in comparison to my current Elmar-M. I keep a 1/2 stop light yellow filter on the front of that lens which improves the contrast he talks about.

[Brian Sweeney]

Fog inside a lens has a large effect on the contrast, even light fog. These "hello Kitty" world test are from my Summarit before and after cleaning. Note the color shift; the entire roll before the cleaning showed the haze; it was not as heavy as you might think.

Before:

[Brian Sweeney]

And after. Both close focus and wide-open.

What a difference a trip to Essex made!

[Brian Sweeney]

This is with the Type 1 Rigid Summicron, also wide-open at F2 just for comparison. This lens is a fine performer. This lens was also CLA'd at Essex. One small (about 1/4") portion of an interior coating was removed on a prior CLA, no real effect on images.

[doubs43]

Denis, thanks for the link. That's an interesting and well-done report.

The author mentions a foggy f/3.5 Summaron 35mm lens in LTM. I purchased one a couple of months ago with exactly the same problem. After cleaning the elements, the lens is excellent and the attached image was taken with it on FP-4 and a yellow filter.

Walker