Re: [Leica] Is there a 75mm Summicron-M?

["Dr. Joseph Yao" <yaojkfdr@netvigator.com>]

Paul Chefurka wrote:

> Cosina is coming out with a 75/2.4 that looks pretty promising.

I sent fellow LUGger Adrian Bradshaw in Shanghai a Voigtlander/Cosina
Color Heliar 75/2.5 a month ago and I am reposting his impression of
this lens to the LUG:

Joseph


Subject: [Leica] Voigtländer Color Heliar 75 User Report
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 99 20:25:50 +0800
From: apbc <apbc@public1.sta.net.cn>
Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
To: "Leica Users Group" <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

Just thought I would add my observations from my first few rolls taken
with the Cosina/Voigtländer 75mm/2.5. 

This is an excellent lens that is in my opinion fully up to the Leica
standard. It has exemplary sharpness and a smooth natural
tonal rendering that makes my b/w nicely printable and colour glow. Now
having said this I would say it is not quite the
magical lens thge 75 Summilux is. I have had the latter for many years
and when I use it I am always impressed by how
much more information is felicitously rendered by it compared to the
lenses I use most of the time. Of course it is a fine low
light lens but IMHO it is special in bright light too, taming impossible
contrasts quite well EXCEPT in night shots where it
picks up a number of disconcerting internal reflections in street scenes
with point source lighting in the frame. The 135 Tele
elmar is guilty of this IME too. Not so the Color Heliar which seems
pretty flare proof even with single coated filters.

I found the rendering at full aperture very good, not bitingly sharp but
not the clear drop from the mid apertures visible in
say the Summilux 75 or 50 or even the Summicron 50 for that matter. It
is a very usable setting in all cases however.
Vignetting is not detectable in normal shooting. Evenness of sharpness
and contrast is excellent. Colour rendition appears
slightly warmer than the 15 and 25 Cosina lenses: i.e. closer to the
Leica M standard of today but still a tiny bit cooler
IMHO. Not at all obvious though. There is certainly the 'roundness of
image' I like in other Leica lenses and find lacking in
the Canon EOS lenses I have used for most of my professional work over
the last 8 years. I would deifne this in terms of
natural contrast, colour saturation and sharpness that holds up in
enlargments rather than the harshness that some 'sharp'
lenses excel in.

In all I would say it is a keeper and a very good deal.

On the mechanical side I am sorry to say the picture is not so good: the
black paint finish is wearing off after a few days'
(professional) usage revealing an appalling brass colour: just like my
old M4 black enamel which makes Jim Marshall's look
pristine. Why they couldn't make it of zinc which just crumbles on
impact and goes pustular when worn I don't know :)
Pity my M4 doesn't have a 75 frame. 

The lens hood and cap are made of what appears to be metal: HAHAHAHA
don't they know that real Leica extremities
moved to plastic years ago and made sure that weird sizes (got that
right with 43mm filters) must be accompanied by lens
hoods that don't work with non-Leica filters (i.e. everything except UV,
YG and Orange)?? Mine works with B+W, Hoya
and Leica filters. Still the cap fits (over the hood) and although I
miss the struggle with soft plastic jammed on the end of the
lens or the non struggle of soft plastic not gripping the filter rim or
the non-availability of a cap for my hoods it still seems
like a Leicaworthy experience.

The only real shortcoming of this lens IMHO is that the focussing ring
has rather shallow 'scallopping' and is a little
slippery compared to either the current Leica style or the earlier
'scallopping' on say 50 summiluxes and summicrons.

The rangefinder cam and the aperture and focussing rings are all spot on
and with the original Voigtländer LTM-M adapter
the lens lines up perfectly on my Ms with the focussing and aperture
indices at the top. I wish the cam on my 90 Summicron
had been so accurate and that the index on my late model 50 and 35
Summicrons had held true in use. Still, early days, this
lens may turn out to have been made with whale oil (it is Japanese after
all) or have a plastic inner barrel (like the 35
Summicron M or the 50 Summicron R) or even to be an imposter from the
ludicrous land of Sigma. In the meantime even if
it melts it will have got me some great shots and costs less than the
last lens service fee I got from Solms...

Briefly I would say that the Cosina/Voigtländer lenses seem to me to be
much closer to the Barnack idea of what Leicas are
for than the ever growing size of M lenses of recent years (not to
mention the almost laughable excess of the R8 and recent R
lenses). Sure we are impressed by the optical and mechanical quality of
the Solms creations but surely the whole point of
35mm from Barnack's point of view was that it is compact and portable
yet capable of producing adequate quality for most
practical purposes. Solms seems to think that 50% extra weight for 20%
extra enlargability or some other excuse for
engineering over practicality is the way to go. I disagree and would
venture to suggest the market in general thinks likewise.

Soon I will redress the balance and tell you all how much I love the R
system which I have been cautiously moving into over
the last few months...but I shall also relate why EOS will remain my
main professional system despite my love of Leica
optics (of which I have used all but a couple of the M series and quite
a few Rs).

Bests from Shanghai

Adrian



Adrian Bradshaw
Editorial and Corporate Photography
Shanghai, China