Elmarit M-asph..

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

 Hi Luggers, 
 Is there anybody who has already some experience with the Elmarit
 M-asph. f 2.8/24 mm? And if so, why did you choose this lens and does it
 meet your expectations. I once read an article (Camera Magazine) where
 this lens was compared to it's R-counterpart. It was said that this
 about twenty year old R 24mm lens (almost) equals the new ASPH
 M-version. Can anybody confirm this? It's too bad that I couldn't find
 anything about this 24 ASPH M-lens on the, by me very appreciated,
 websight of Erwin Puts. 
 Alexander Koning
  >>
  Dear Alexander, I have been using the 24/2,8 ASPH for 6 month, as well as
having tried it last year at Photokina and later in Brighton, UK in November
96. It is a very good piece of glass. It is more of an evolutionary lens than
a revolutionary lens. It has the same type of signature as a 21/2,8 Elmarit,
but lacks the "snap" of the later version of the 21/3,4 Super-Angulon. Very
even image across, slight edge softness at wide open ( negligible in all but
the most stringent application). The finder suffers from the usual top mount
finder problem, a/ it is not very precise and b/ it shows less than what
appears on the neg and c/ it is clumsy. One day Leica will probably release a
M6 with a high eyepoint finder that allows us to actually see the 28 mm
frames or even the 24 frames in the finder, even if you wear glasses. I had a
21/3,4 and a 21/2,8 modified according to my design and put the goggles from
the 35 Summicron on the lenses and had the mount modified to key in the 28
frames. The effect is a approx. mm frame in the cameras finder (on M6/M4P)
and pretty close to 21mm on a M4 or M2. There is a mask in the finder for the
M6/M4P that cuts in. The 24 is a perfect candidate for this conversion. I
dont think that the 24 R comes close to the performance of the M 24 ASPH, at
least not wide open, although I haven't used the R lens for a long time. It
does focus closer than the M-lens, that's about the best I can say about it.
I have only shot about 100-125 rolls with the 24 ASPH but so far I haven't
had any problem with the lens that I can blame it for. In the beginning it
took some time to get used to it, I kept thinking that it was a 21 and had
some very close crops on it, but now it works fine and it is now part of my
"travel" pack of lenses.
Tom Abrahamsson