Looking for 50mm M39 Suggestions!

[raid]

I would pick an interesting LTM 50mm lens with minimum focus distance 1m. There are several options for such a lens.
The Rigid Summicron is maybe my favorite 50mm lens, and I have many excellent 50mm lenses. Don’t ignore the Sonnar 5cm 1.5 or the Konica 50mm 2.4 or the J3 after getting adjusted by Brian S. A forgotten lens is the Canon 50mm 1.5.

 

[aw614]

How accurate if an FSU rangefinder was adjusted for a Leica standard would be at minimum focusing distance? The Nikon F2 can couple way past that soft click on my Zorki. But I never tried shooting it or adjusting the cam for that lens on it. (I hate adjusting the minimum focusing distance on the FSU RF and left it optimized for any FSU lenses I have)

A few lenses I have (need to test when I get home), stop coupling to the rf cam on my Nicca, Canon, etc at their minimum focusing distance. LLL 35mm 8E, and the VC 21mm F4 are the ones that come to mind for me.

 

[Coldkennels]

How accurate if an FSU rangefinder was adjusted for a Leica standard would be at minimum focusing distance? The Nikon F2 can couple way past that soft click on my Zorki.

Depends a lot on the body you're using. A FED 2 (the original long-base one) or either a Zorki 5 or 6 would be the best. All the others have too short a rangefinder base length to really be that reliable at the extremes.

I recalibrated my Zorki 5 to the Leica standard a long time back. Works a treat... just don't mount anything with a partial cam like the various LTM 135mm lenses on it!

 

[rick oleson]

A little late to the party here, but I have two LTM Nikkors from the 1950s, one f/2 and one f/1.4, both focus to 18 inches. Would that meet your requirements?

 

[Persimmon]

A little late to the party here, but I have two LTM Nikkors from the 1950s, one f/2 and one f/1.4, both focus to 18 inches. Would that meet your requirements?

On a film camera ? Or do you mean for use on a digital camera ?

 

[rick oleson]

On a film camera ? Or do you mean for use on a digital camera ?

On a Leica IIIF. The focus ring has a detent at 1 meter, where the rangefinder quits working; then goes on beyond that down to 18 inches. I’ve always wondered about the value of an f/1.4 lens that focuses to 18 inches with no rangefinder, but there it is. The f/2 and the f/1.4 are both made like that.

 

[rick oleson]

On a film camera ? Or do you mean for use on a digital camera ?

Here are both lenses - you can see the “1.5” distance mark at the top on both of them. The focus ring turns almost a full circle getting there.

 

[Persimmon]

On a Leica IIIF. The focus ring has a detent at 1 meter, where the rangefinder quits working; then goes on beyond that down to 18 inches. I’ve always wondered about the value of an f/1.4 lens that focuses to 18 inches with no rangefinder, but there it is. The f/2 and the f/1.4 are both made like that.

Thanks for the info.
I thought for film you initially were implying that it was rangefinder coupled. Now I understand.
I am currently looking around with a view to purchasing a Leica iiif.

 

[WoodallP]

Light Lens Lab Elcan 50mm f2

Not much to choose from given those parameters!

Isn’t this just M? I’d be interested if it wasn’t I must admit. LLL seem to have cooled off on LTM.

Edit: oops, didn’t notice it was an older thread.

 

[TenEleven]

Isn’t this just M? I’d be interested if it wasn’t I must admit. LLL seem to have cooled off on LTM.

Edit: oops, didn’t notice it was an older thread.

They do make the ELCAN in LTM.
Or, I should say "did make" because it's all sold out and does not look like it's coming back in stock either.

That said I agree that LLL always seems to treat LTM as a sort of "throw in" - their main focus is undoubtedly M mount lenses.

 

[rick oleson]

Thanks for the info.
I thought for film you initially were implying that it was rangefinder coupled. Now I understand.
I am currently looking around with a view to purchasing a Leica iiif.

Rangefinder coupling is a function of the camera body primarily - the rangefinder in the IIIF is not designed to follow a lens beyond 3 feet, no matter what the lens is. For the M3, the Dual range Summicron had a set of accessory "goggles" that mounted to a shoe on top of the lens and sat in front of the rangefinder windows, to make the rangefinder work at close distances - I'm not sure what the in-camera close focus limit of the M3 rangefinder was. The Nikkor LTM lenses provided the same close focus capability, but with no provision for coupling or correcting the rangefinder (that I know of) for the close range.

 

[TenEleven]

Rangefinder coupling is a function of the camera body primarily - the rangefinder in the IIIF is not designed to follow a lens beyond 3 feet, no matter what the lens is. For the M3, the Dual range Summicron had a set of accessory "goggles" that mounted to a shoe on top of the lens and sat in front of the rangefinder windows, to make the rangefinder work at close distances - I'm not sure what the in-camera close focus limit of the M3 rangefinder was. The Nikkor LTM lenses provided the same close focus capability, but with no provision for coupling or correcting the rangefinder (that I know of) for the close range.

The two M3's I had tapped out somewhere between 1m and 0.8m.

You definitely do not get the "full 0.7m" or even closer of later Leica bodies on a stock M3. Kanto can modify them to go a bit closer, but how much varies body per body, and even then you basically never get 0.7m unless you are exceptionally lucky. Sometimes you also get basically no extra close focus. At least this is what I was told upon inquiring with them.

I read the above statement as the tolerances in each part of the RF assy have to work out in your favor. That, I assume, is what they exploit with this "hack".

 

[shawn]

You definitely do not get the "full 0.7m" or even closer of later Leica bodies on a stock M3. Kanto can modify them to go a bit closer, but how much varies body per body, and even then you basically never get 0.7m unless you are exceptionally lucky. Sometimes you also get basically no extra close focus. At least this is what I was told upon inquiring with them.

I read the above statement as the tolerances in each part of the RF assy have to work out in your favor. That, I assume, is what they exploit with this "hack".

My serial 1.1m M3 was CLAd by YYE and he adjusted the close focus on it too. It tops out at about 0.75m or maybe slightly closer than that. The RF moves the entire range of a Voigtlander 50mm f2.5 (0.75m) and on a Hexanon 50mm f2 the RF moves below the .8m mark but stops moving before the 0.7m mark.

 

[Coldkennels]

I thought for film you initially were implying that it was rangefinder coupled. Now I understand.
I am currently looking around with a view to purchasing a Leica iiif.

If you're looking at a IIIf, you might want to consider the Leitz-made 50mm LTM lenses purely because they can (almost) all focus using the rangefinder accurately to 0.5m on a IIIf... with the right tools.



The widget on this IIIf is an early version of the Dual Range Summicron concept - the SOOKY. Unscrew the lens, collapse it, hook the bayonet at the back of the lens' collapsing tube into the SOOKY, and screw the SOOKY onto the camera. The round lens in front of the RF window changes the focus point, the frame in front of the VF window has a moving cropping frame to adjust for parallax (with amazing precision, I should add), and then you focus with the helical in the SOOKY instead of the one on the lens.

There's three versions:
NOOKY: for the 50mm f/3.5 Elmar
NOOKY-HESUM: for the Summar, 50mm Hektor, and the Summitar
SOOKY: for the collapsible Summicron (and, I believe, the 50mm f/2.8 Elmar)

All work the exact same way, so you just need to get the right one for your lens(es).

They're obviously not the fastest thing to mount, but when you need to focus between 50cm and 1m, they work perfectly. The biggest issue is depth of field, because wide-open with the f/2.0 lenses, you basically have a sliver to work with at 50cm:



This was with the Summar at f/2 and 1/30. In normal circumstances you really want to stop down a bit to have a more sensible depth of field!