Look of Images by SLR and Rangefinder Lenses

[raid]

I wonder whether SLR lenses have a different look than a corresponding rangefinder lens, other than maybe the ages being different.
I will plan a simple test of several lenses with focal length 35mm.
I can use the following lenses:

Summaron 35mm/3.5
Summicron 35mm/2 (goggles- eight elements)
Canon 35mm/1.8
Canon 35mm/2.8

Canon 35mm/2.0 FD (for SLR cameras)

I have Adapter B for using a Canon FD lens on a Leitz camera, so I will be able to use the 35mm Canon FD lens on the same body as the rangefinder lenses. I always wondered whether there is a difference in the look of the photos taken by SLR lenses vs. rangefinder lenses. Is it only the relative size that is different or are the clear optical differences?

What is your opinion on this issue?

[ywenz]

glass is glass imo

[ErnestoJL]

I guess the only difference you´ll find is that depending on the quality or condition of the lens itself.

SLR WA lenses are mostly of the retrofocus design, but I´m almost sure that many modern WA for RFs are too. Suposedly those won´t show any difference in regard of a pure WA lens, provided the correct adaptor is used.
The only "problem" you may find is if the RF body is TTL, a pure WA (like the Zeiss Biogon) may interfere with the metering in some way.

Ernesto

[sf]

Originally Posted by ErnestoJL

I guess the only difference you´ll find is that depending on the quality or condition of the lens itself.

SLR WA lenses are mostly of the retrofocus design, but I´m almost sure that many modern WA for RFs are too. Suposedly those won´t show any difference in regard of a pure WA lens, provided the correct adaptor is used.
The only "problem" you may find is if the RF body is TTL, a pure WA (like the Zeiss Biogon) may interfere with the metering in some way.

Ernesto

what does retrofocus mean? I'll look it up.

[Oldprof]

The pictures taken with rangefinder lenses tend to have parallax problems. This defect is strangely absent when using SLR lenses.

[Toby]

retrofocal designs have the rear element of a WA lens moved to the front to clear the mirror box of an SLR. In theory RF wide angles should be better because they can be designed without this compromise, they should also be cheaper to make but no one bothered to tell leica or zeiss that... In the real world I don't know whether the extra R+D muscle of SLR firms would help to negate the diadvantages of the SLR WA. This may also mean that a more meaningful test might be with 24mm or 28mm lenses. I'm not sure if 35mm is wide enough.

[ghost]

i doubt you'd learn much from that selection of lenses. you should compare several sets of contemporaneous and comparable lenses. the obvious is leica m vs. leica r.

[raid]

I could include the CV 25mm/4 vs. the Canon FD 24mm/2.8 and the Mnolta Rokkor 28mm/2.8 against the Canon FD 28mm/2.0 and the Canon RF 2mm/3.5.

I don't have any Leitz R system.

[bmattock]

Originally Posted by ywenz

glass is glass imo

Glass is glass, but coatings differ, as do corrections for aberrations, and changes in glass composition affect light transmission. I like to experiment with different types of lenses of similar focal length on my 35mm SLRs and MF - just getting started with LF. The differences are obvious on some of them.

That said, I doubt that there will be enough of a difference between the lenses described here to notice - perhaps contrast increase or decrease.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[ErnestoJL]

Toby: thank you for the answer. You were awake when I was still sleeping!!

The main benefit of using SLR lenses on RFs is that those lenses were designed to be mounted on thicker bodies that RFs have, allowing anyone to use an adapter to place it into the right position regarding film plane.
It is obvious that this will make the RF not working in most cases, but anyway allows the user to have usable lenses of any focal lenght focused manually.

Thinking of it, I have many M42 lenses and two Contax / Kiev bodies... hummm tempting idea!!

Ernesto

[raid]

I have a 7.5mm fisheye lens that can give very interesting images, and with the adapter, it can be used on any Leica camera. Just imagine the cost of a 7.5mm Leitz/Zeiss lens!

I still prefer the small and lighter rangefinder lenses to SLR lenses, but this approach opens possibilities for non-cost explorations into the world of Canon FD optics.

[Will]

Originally Posted by raid amin

I have a 7.5mm fisheye lens that can give very interesting images, and with the adapter, it can be used on any Leica camera. Just imagine the cost of a 7.5mm Leitz/Zeiss lens!

I still prefer the small and lighter rangefinder lenses to SLR lenses, but this approach opens possibilities for non-cost explorations into the world of Canon FD optics.

Then there are the M42, Contax RTS, Nikon AIS..

Raid,

Any experiences in scale foucsing?

[raid]

Originally Posted by Will

Then there are the M42, Contax RTS, Nikon AIS..

Raid,

Any experiences in scale foucsing?

Will,
Do you mean that I could use another adapter with Adapter B and then use M42 lenses on a Leica camera? I do have a M42 to FD adapter, and this way I could use both adapters! I wouldn't know which adapter I would need with the Contax and Nikkor lenses though.

[bmattock]

There are adapters made for M42 -> LTM. There are also adapters made for T-Mount -> LTM. One has to be careful, they have a different thread pitch. The T-Mount is more plentiful and better-known. A common trick is to use T-Mount ultra-wide and wide lenses on a LTM or M-Mount camera; however, one must be careful not to block the viewfinder with the lens itself. You won't get RF, of course, but DOF on a very wide lens is often such that you don't have much to worry about with focusing. Just that a big SLR lens can block a viewfinder pretty easily.

There was an M39 mount which is NOT an LTM mount, even if they will physically interchange, so one must be sure not to get the thin double-threaded ring that is an M42->M39 adapter - that won't work.

And there is at least one person here on RFF who regularly puts his Canon FL (early FD) mount 19mm on his LTM camera. Don't recall who it is that does that, but it works.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[Joe Brugger]

Glass is glass only in the sense that beer is beer. There are a lot of different recipes, from Coors Light to Pilsener Urquell and beyond. Hardness, refractive index, light transmission etc etc etc can all be tuned.

[sf]

Glass is not glass. Or it is but there is glass, and then there are other glasses.

My standard 80mm on the Mamiya 645E has a very different look in every respect than the Bronica RF645's 65mm. Or the 100. And the Pentax 75mm on the 645nII is very different from either. There are so many factors that affect the performance of lenses that you can look at 10 different 50mm lenses and they will all look different on prints. The look of my standard lens on the D70 I used to have is totally different from the standard lens on the Canon AE-1. Both are 50mm f/1.8 lenses.

The look of the Kodak Ektar 127mm on my old Crown Graphic. Or maybe it was 135mm, I don't remember. It is completely different from the look of the 150mm Caltar. Forget angle view. The colors, tones, highlights, details, everything is different. Coatings and glass are to blame for that. I actually preferred the ancient Ektar for its very high resolution and very soft, low contrast look.

[principe azul]

They say that RF wides will tend to have less distortion than SLR wides but be more likely to vignette. Looking at various reviews seems to bear this out, whether the lenses are Leica or Soviet, Nikon or Vivitar.

I'm not sure whether my CV 35/1.7 is retrofocus, but its rear element sits only 1cm or so away from the shutter curtain - a design possibility impossible for an SLR lens (except the mirror-lockup lenses, of course).

I've never checked it against my old Nikkor (SLR) 35/1.4, which I liked, too. But it would be worthless to generalise from those two alone, as nearly thirty years separate their designs, and the CV has the advantage of not having to stretch to 1.4.

I can't see that any of this affects the 'look' of a lens, except in that the design compromises of an SLR lens *might* aversely affect bokeh, aberrations and so on. And except that really close focus with a wide is possible with SLRs, but not with RFs.

[raid]

Originally Posted by bmattock

There are adapters made for M42 -> LTM. There are also adapters made for T-Mount -> LTM. One has to be careful, they have a different thread pitch. The T-Mount is more plentiful and better-known. A common trick is to use T-Mount ultra-wide and wide lenses on a LTM or M-Mount camera; however, one must be careful not to block the viewfinder with the lens itself. You won't get RF, of course, but DOF on a very wide lens is often such that you don't have much to worry about with focusing. Just that a big SLR lens can block a viewfinder pretty easily.

There was an M39 mount which is NOT an LTM mount, even if they will physically interchange, so one must be sure not to get the thin double-threaded ring that is an M42->M39 adapter - that won't work.

And there is at least one person here on RFF who regularly puts his Canon FL (early FD) mount 19mm on his LTM camera. Don't recall who it is that does that, but it works.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Bill: I did not know that there is an adapter for using M42 lenses on LTM bodies. The idea of using such adapters is only practical for wideangle lenses or for normal lenses used at a smaller aperture setting.

I have a 50mm/2.0 Luxon lens by Roeschlein-Kreuznach and it has what seems to be a a 39mm mount, but there is no correct rangefinder coupling with it with LTM bodies. It is meant for the Paxette (I think). I am still hoping that someone here will be able to help me shim it appropriately.

Regards,
Raid

[raid]

I just recalled that I have an adapter for Pentacon 66 lenses => Canon FD body. I could then add the adapter B to this adapter and use MF lenses on a LTM body. It doesn't make any sense, though, since the MF lenses are not as sharp as 35mm lenses (overall) and they are large and heavy, and you would be having a wideangle lens become a normal lens, such as the wonderful 50mm lens.

[photodog]

Raid, if you add a Canon adapter P with a Canon adapter B, this is what you get. It's not rangefinder coupled but able to focus at infinity. I've tried the Canon FL/FD lenses and the Takumars are smaller and lighter.

[raid]

Originally Posted by photodog

Raid, if you add a Canon adapter P with a Canon adapter B, this is what you get. It's not rangefinder coupled but able to focus at infinity. I've tried the Canon FL/FD lenses and the Takumars are smaller and lighter.

I should try this out with a Pentax SMS 50mm lens or maybe the 35mm lens. The SMC lenses are very sharp and multicoated. Glad to hear that such a coupling works.

[bmattock]

Originally Posted by raid amin

Bill: I did not know that there is an adapter for using M42 lenses on LTM bodies. The idea of using such adapters is only practical for wideangle lenses or for normal lenses used at a smaller aperture setting.

I agree, I would not prefer to scale-focus a 'normal' lens with that sort of setup.

I have a 50mm/2.0 Luxon lens by Roeschlein-Kreuznach and it has what seems to be a a 39mm mount, but there is no correct rangefinder coupling with it with LTM bodies. It is meant for the Paxette (I think). I am still hoping that someone here will be able to help me shim it appropriately.

Regards,
Raid

The Luxon is for the Paxette, and if it has a rangefinder tab at all, it is for the 'Super Paxette'. Nice lens, I have one too. You can find out more about it here, although you probably already know about this:

http://www.cameraquest.com/braun.htm

The flange-to-film distance for the Paxette is 44 mm. The flange-to-film distance for the Leica is 28.8 mm. Therefore, you need an adapter that is 44-28.8 or 15.2mm in order to do scale focusing. I don't think that you could build an adapter to match the rangefinder tab of the Paxette to that of the Leica - the scale distance (from closest to farthest focal point) is different. So even if you got the two of them to agree on one distance, all the others would be off by an ever-increasing amount.

I have a Jones for the Super Paxette - I've got dozens of bodies and nearly all the lenses you can have. It's a fun camera, neat, quiet, but badly made and the best of the lenses are nowhere near as good as your basic FSU LTM lens. Wish it was different, I love the Paxette. But it's not a great camera or lens system, it was made to a price during the 1950's when Britain had import restrictions on German goods due to WWII.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[raid]

Bill: Thanks for the information on the lens and the matching camera. I only have one lens (Luxon) and no camera for it. When I bought it on ebay, I thought I was getting a lens for LTM. It seems hopeless to consider matching this lens to a Leica camera.

Regards,

Raid

[Will]

Originally Posted by raid amin

I just recalled that I have an adapter for Pentacon 66 lenses => Canon FD body. I could then add the adapter B to this adapter and use MF lenses on a LTM body. It doesn't make any sense, though, since the MF lenses are not as sharp as 35mm lenses (overall) and they are large and heavy, and you would be having a wideangle lens become a normal lens, such as the wonderful 50mm lens.

Raid,

You are using the sweet spot (Center) of the 120 lense, the 80mm Biometar is a great lens for B&W.

I owned the 50mm Flektogon SC before, wonderful lens and is smaller than the 50mm Distagon for hasselblad.

Please try a 50mm in your test, and tell us your experience of scale foucsing with a 50...

[raid]

I may do a more comprehensive test then. I have some great 50mm lenses, including the FD 50/1.2L and the SMC 50/1.4. Now I have to find my "model" .... :-)