Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I too have been watching the furious and passionate (and informed) debate between what seem to be the two fairly close ends of the Leica lens spectrum: the great and the merely near great. It often seems the near great can only be recognized by some succeeding lens design achievement, vis the 35 Summicron and the ASPH 35 Summicron. Like Dan I rarely have the opportunity to experience more than one version of a lens at a time. My first Leica lens was the collapsible 50 Summicron, a miracle lens for me because it came with a camera I, with weak eyesight, could actually focus. The first images I printed (using a collapsible 5cm Elmar as an enlarger lens) showed me levels of sharpness, especially wide open, and what I have come to appreciate as Leica grain (rendered in TriX) that I had never experienced. I followed that purchase with a 3.5 Summaron 35, and again, shooting wide open (yeah, 3.5 isn't that wide) achieved what for me was breathtaking depth of field and center crispness that I no longer was looking to improve. Early shots with that, in a dark poolhall in Provincetown, gave me images I could not otherwise have hoped to produce. Both lenses still serve me well. They have been supplemented with what I now know to be a fat Tele Elmarit 90 2.8, which to my eyes is sharper than either of the older lenses. This was purchased for me in 1969 in Singapore with no knowledge other than it was a Leica lens: no testing, no reading, no LUG feedback. A shot in the dark that turned out to be lucky. Later, in a trade, I got a Super Angulon 21 f3.4, which also astonished me, and continues to do so. On the other hand, I now know, or am at least aware, that later lenses are "better," if that means first of all better corrected, or faster, meaning essentially that what I do I could do in less light. I have always been pleased by the way the Leica behaves in the dark, and so it would be unnatural for me not to want a Noctilux to get that extra two stops, for example. Until I hit the lottery, I will have to find those two stops in ei 3200, or continue to practice shooting at 1/4. All of which I guess is to say that the least of the Leitz lenses are (perhaps this is just a rationalization) not too bad a compromise. Nonetheless I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a first-version (thanks to LUG I now know these things) 35 Summicron and will possess a glass extra half stop and I expect to see some improvement as the Summaron moves toward retirement. While I am ready to be surprised, I don't expect to find myself running from the darkroom with a dripping print to show my skeptical wife what an improvement in corner sharpness we can now enjoy together. bill