Canon LTM M8/0.95 Photos From Today

[M. Valdemar]

Well, you have:

1) Your garden variety Canon f0.95 on the left, which was sold on the Canon 7. This had a proprietary bayonet mount for the Canon, which was a flange which mated to an outside bayonet surrounding a common Leica thread mount on the camera.

2) Canon had a surplus of these lenses which were expensive and didn't sell as well as expected. They were rebranded "TV Lens", which had a different mount. The rear element was not cut to fit a rangefinder coupling on a Leica, like the rangefinder model. There were two types, one with a c-mount adapter and one with a dedicated c-mount, hence, the word "TV lens".

Both lenses can be modified for the Leica M-mount. The TV lens requires more work to modify, the rangefinder lens is fairly straightforward. The optical formulas were identical and the lenses perform equally well on M-digital cameras.

3) They remind me of the Ernostar, in a totally emotional way.



M-modified RANGEFINDER lens on the left, M-modified TV LENS on the right.



PS: All these people who are talking about "calibrating" their modified lenses to focus accurately on M cameras do not know what they are talking about. These lenses have an internal factory "built in shim" which is VERY precise and aligns the lens to the film plane. If you monkey with this, you probably ruin the lens.

If you can't get a sharp shot, your focus technique is bad, or your rangefinder on the camera is misadjusted. If your lens is not sharp, ADJUST THE CAMERA TO THE LENS, NOT VICE VERSA.

 

[Charlie Lemay]

M. Valdemar,
Don Golberg at DAG Camera Repair knows what he is talking about and the "precise shim' on my Non TV lens took photos like the soft ones at the top of this thread on my Canon 7 until he replaced the deteriorated shim. He also did adjusting to my 50 1.2 and both became stellar performers after that calibration. I would bet most of these lenses are similarly out of adjustment based on their "poor reputation."

 

[Mackinaw]

Canon had a surplus of these lenses which were expensive and didn't sell as well as expected.

Can you give a reference as to where you've heard this? Seems contrary to what other Canon rangefinder gurus have told us throughout the years.

Jim B.

 

[M. Valdemar]

This is part of my correspondence with someone who works on these lenses:

There is a spacer on the lens that fits between the optical core and the focusing helicoid. This spacer controls the exact backfocus distance of the lens to the film plane and its accuracy is critical to the performance of the lens. Since the helicoid is linear in its movement and the entire lens moves as a group any change to this spacer, which is precisely machined and matched at the factory, would have consequences to other points of focus.

Since I also know Don Goldberg (and I also knew his father Norman Goldberg, of Pop Photography), I have asked him about this previously and he does NOT change the internal "shim" in these lenses.

 

[M. Valdemar]

I recall this from reading numerous old photography magazines.

There was one article about these lenses I read a few years ago, but I can't remember where I read it anymore.

What do you feel "other Canon rangefinder gurus" said? I am certainly not a Canon rangefinder guru in any respect, but I have studied these 0.95 lenses.

Can you give a reference as to where you've heard this? Seems contrary to what other Canon rangefinder gurus have told us throughout the years.

Jim B.

 

[Charlie Lemay]

I guess don must have lied to me then when he told me he had to rebuild the shim in my lens to bring it back to correct focus. Maybe I should have saved the money spent to improve the performance of my lens and just shot the blurry images the Canon engineers intended.

 

[Ororaro]

He rebuilt it on my summilux 75 too. I believe Don 100%.

 

[M. Valdemar]

Only the Canon 0.95 has this "shim" we're talking about here.

 

[laptoprob]

Nice shots of the lenses, thanks. But what work is needed to change the mounts of a rf 0.95 lens to M-mount? Just the mount or also cutting glass?
In other words, do you have a pic of the standard rf 0,95 mount?
I tried to ask gdi since he mentioned this, but no luck so far.

 

[Ororaro]

Only the Canon 0.95 has this "shim" we're talking about here.

Ah ok!

And thanks for the information on all the 0.95 variants... I had no clue.

 

[Hacker]

He rebuilt it on my summilux 75 too. I believe Don 100%.

I hope Don is right about my lens I just sent off to him. If he is wrong, I have to send him my camera for adjustment and that means my other 50 lenses which focus perfectly right now will need adjustment 🙁.

Check this out note on a Canon 50mm f0.95 that had alignment issues from a tech who has done dozens of conversions: http://www.eastcamtech.com/CanonLens.htm.

 

[gdi]

Valdemar,

At the risk of "poking a stick at a Hornet's nest" I must point out that there are several errors in your posts above...

There are several corrections:

- There is also a version of the TV lens which was RF Coupled and came with a C-Mount adapter and was packaged with a TV label - so that makes three versions, all repackaging of the same basic lens. Yes, this last version seems to be the ultimate way to liquidate stock of the RF lenses (they are exactly the same except of the label), I guess it would be great if you had a Canon 7s and a C-Mount movie camera.

- It is absolutely true that the lenses may need to have adjustments to the infinity shim - particularly if used on an M8, film is much more forgiving. Yes, it seems to make sense that no adjustment would be needed, because the bayonet mount holds the base flange of the lens against the LTM mount of the Canon 7 and simply attaching an LTM adapter directly to the base flange would place it at the same distance on an M. But I found out it is not always that simple - at least with an M8.

- Anyone with a reasonable amount of coordination and common sense can separate the lens cell from the focusing mount, and therein lies the shim. It can be replaced with one of a different thickness to adjust infinity focus. This will not harm the lens in the least if you are cautious - don't just a hammer, angle grinder or jaws of life for this work.

- Adjusting the camera RF to match the lens will most certainly work. However this ham-fisted approach will render any other previously accurate lens out of calibration. I have 8 other lens that focus accurately, would it not be foolish of me to make them all useless by adjusting the camera to match the one lens with a problem?

- Canon 0.95s are not the only lenses that use shims to adjust for infinity focus. Any number of Noctilux owners will confirm that, as well as Ned with his 75 and Charlie with the 0.95.

I am not looking for an argument, but I have had multiple of these lenses apart and this is the way I see it.

 

[gdi]

Nice shots of the lenses, thanks. But what work is needed to change the mounts of a rf 0.95 lens to M-mount? Just the mount or also cutting glass?
In other words, do you have a pic of the standard rf 0,95 mount?
I tried to ask gdi since he mentioned this, but no luck so far.

I work during the day, I'll reply to your PM...

Thanks

 

[gdi]

M. Valdemar,
Don Golberg at DAG Camera Repair knows what he is talking about and the "precise shim' on my Non TV lens took photos like the soft ones at the top of this thread on my Canon 7 until he replaced the deteriorated shim. He also did adjusting to my 50 1.2 and both became stellar performers after that calibration. I would bet most of these lenses are similarly out of adjustment based on their "poor reputation."

EDIT - in support of Fred's comments above, the attached scans are from my Canon 7 and the 0.95

Charlie, you refer to my shots as soft compared to yours, maybe you could post something larger (like 100% crops?) to help me compare.

Here are some scanned film reposts (beg your pardon) of more appropriate subject matter that may or may not look sharper. I don't think my lenses are any less sharp than others I have seen, but I am happy to be proven wrong.

 

[Mackinaw]

What do you feel "other Canon rangefinder gurus" said? I am certainly not a Canon rangefinder guru in any respect, but I have studied these 0.95 lenses.

This topic has come up before on this list and others. Camera historian, Randall Hooper, published a superb several issue spread on Canon (and Nikon) rangefinder lenses several years back in the "Viewfinder," the LHSA magazine. He states that Canon produced 17,439 50/0.95 lenses (Canon 7/7s mount) from August 1961 'til January, 1970. In the way of comparison, Nikon produced about 2,500 50/1.1 lenses for the Nikon rangefinder camera line. Im not sure how many of the Zunow 50/1.1 lenses were produced back in the 1950s', but I'm sure it didn't approach the level of the Canon 50/0.95. Hooper considers the Canon lens to be very popular.

Jim B.

 

[kevin m]

So Canon made more .95 50mm lenses than Leica has M8's. 😱

 

[John Shriver]

Canon generally used collimation shims in their 50mm and wider lenses. I've had several of these lenses open.

Leica, at least in the earlier years, either used parts selection, or filed down the lens mount, to do infinity collimation. I think Canon had a better approach.

 

[Charlie Lemay]

gdi,

Your stuff looks great. I was referring to the overall softness in the original poster's images. That was similar to the results I got before Don worked on it. I find what little is sharp to be sharp enough at the minimum focusing distance, which is usually where I'm at.

 

[gdi]

Thanks Charlie, I am the original poster, BTW. I agree that the sharp areas of close shots with lens are very limited when shooting wide open - and I think this gives the impression of OOF shots to a lot of people.

From what I can tell, your shots look about as sharp as the ones I can get with the lens. It is, as you say, sharp enough for the situations in which you are likely to use it at 0.95. But there is no doubt, this lens is not as sharp as many other slower 50s at their max.

The flexibility of a lens like this to produce very sharp stopped down shots while holding F.95 "in reserve" seems to be lost on a lot of folks, and that's ok....

 

[Charlie Lemay]

I posted some test results back in 2006 comparing the .95 to a current Noctilux and found to my surprise that the Canon was sharper it the center than the Noctilux. Of course the outside edges were much softer with the .95, but pictorially, that is not usually a bad thing for the wide open, zone system, dayligh,t close focus shots I usually take. Both lenses were tested on a tripod. Shutter speed was 1/1000 of a second for all shots. http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0099xZ