50 Summicron DR, First Impressions

[rover]

Well, this week's Summicron has worked out quite well.

I shot at the Memorial Day Parade in town with it mounted on my M3. I like the results. Focusing is sure and easy, the apeture ring is a little small, but usable.

Here are some shots on Tri X shot at 1250, developed in Diafine.

I did 5 rolls today, 3 to go.

 

[rover]

Here is another one.

I should have finished scanning before starting this thread.

 

[ray_g]

Very nice, rover. BTW, did you get that goggle issue resolved?

 

[rover]

Goggles are pretty close to being inline. It is a trial and error exercise right now and my patients are a bit worn. I will take up the task to try to get it perfect soon.

Here is one more. There is a lot of posting in the gallery right now so I will post this one here too.

 

[StuartR]

I love the old summicrons in black and white. Tri-x in Diafine seems to be a very good combo for them. Interestingly, I think Scala is as well.

 

[Doug]

Looking good, rover! Pleasant bokeh, over-all nice look. Like those first two headstones; the first for the inscriptions and the second for the pictorial value... And it looks like you were able to open up a ways from f/16; did you have an orange filter, or ND?

 

[rich815]

Nice shots Rover. Have you had any other Leica (or non-Leica rf) 50's to compare it to? Thoughts, if so? I have a Summitar 50/2 and a very sharp Jupiter-8 and wonder if a newer 50 rigid Summicron or DR Summicron would be worth an upgrade....

 

[rover]

Rich, I am in the process of shooting all my 50mm lenses.

Yes, I do have a collapsible Summicron, I haven't used it exclusively on a roll yet though so have forgotten what shots are from it.

I really like the M3 too, it is a 50mm machine!!!

Doug, my standard for Diafine is now to shot at 1250 and 1/1000s. I use a yellow filter and just open up as much as possible. In bright sun light that is around f8 and the shadows get me wider.

 

[Lear]

I had a DR cron, mint (with box and all), had great tones, but really nasty flaring (normal for a lens of the era). I found it to have awfull bokeh in a lot of situations I used to shoot it at (mainly OOF lightbulbs in cafes and streets). Ended up selling to a Honk Kong collector. Taking into account when it was made, it was quite close to the 45G, although not as good (a few decades in optics desing made the little difference).

Diego K.