A portrait lens for my M240 ... suggestions?

I used a 90mm Macro Elmar f4 with an M240 for this shot

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The 75/1.4 Lux is not shabby.

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The Nikkor 105/2.5 Sonnar

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Elmarit 90/2.8

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Summicron 90/2 built-in hood and heavy and gorgeous

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Canon 85 1.9


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The Canon FD 85/1.2L and the Zeiss Planar 85/1.4 QBM are among my favorites for portraits.
 
Another vote for the CV Color Heliar 75/2.5, and the Leica Summarit 75/2.5. Both are excellent lenses and can produce super portraits. They are similar in character, with Leica having an edge in saturation, sharpness and contrast, but the Voigtlander is no slouch, either. The Heliar has a very slightly more 'vintage' feeling due to a little less contrast and saturation, but you have to see image side by side to really get the difference.

The Voigtlander is also much lighter than the Leica, as well as far cheaper, of course. I picked up the Voigtlander on a whim and found it to be wonderful, although admittedly, I use the Summarit more often.

M9 - Tulip Festival by Archiver, on Flickr
 
Interesting that this thread should pop up ... I've come to the conclusion that nothing much beats the C Sonnar when it comes to portraits.
 
Keith said:
Interesting that this thread should pop up ... I've come to the conclusion that nothing much beats the C Sonnar when it comes to portraits.
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I like my C Sonnar (if we are talking about the Zm 50 version) but the min focusing distance is quite far out. Man.

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An alternative that I really like is the Helios 40-2 85mm 1.5 lens.
I use it in the Nikon mount with a Fotodiox adapter for my Leica.

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rbelyell said:
the bokeh in that first c sonnar shot is very distracting to me. is that typical with that kind of background?
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That's what it does. But you can control it by choosing your background. If you look at the fence to the lower left, it is relatively smooth. The highlights with multiple circles are due to leaves being back lit (as is the subject).
My old Summicron 50s also do this, but with a slightly different effect.

It is only once we get to modern lenses that we have the modern smooth blurred bokeh rendering which can be less distracting. But that's the thing, it is all down to personal taste as there is a fine line between distinctive, distracting, smooth, and boring.
 
Here is another image using the Helios 40-2. This was a bokeh test, and you can clearly see how the background subject matter influences the look. Again, the fence blurs smoothly while the leaves turn into a swirling mass. This is the exact same lens that was used in the portrait of the water colorist above, with a completely different result even though both were shot at 1.5 and have the same camera to subject distance.
It's all about choosing your background and choosing your lighting.

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Huss said:
That's what it does. But you can control it by choosing your background. If you look at the fence to the lower left, it is relatively smooth. The highlights with multiple circles are due to leaves being back lit (as is the subject).
My old Summicron 50s also do this, but with a slightly different effect.

It is only once we get to modern lenses that we have the modern smooth blurred bokeh rendering which can be less distracting. But that's the thing, it is all down to personal taste as there is a fine line between distracting, smooth, and boring.
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I find the Sonnar's OOF much more pleasant than the rather caffeinated (jittery) effect a lot of the CV lenses produce.
 
Elmarit-M 90 has a very refined look. Everything seems to look good with that lens. Or the obvious: just use the C Sonnar.
 
Richard G said:
Elmarit-M 90 has a very refined look. Everything seems to look good with that lens. Or the obvious: just use the C Sonnar.
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It makes sense for me and even though people go on about the Sonnar's minimum focus distance being a hindrance I don't really see that. We are all using cameras with sensors that provide more resolution than we can use so it only requires a slight crop to counteract this with very little change in image quality.
 
Can someone answer a question about the Zuiko 85mm f2. I have a very early version which has a beaten up front element and seems a little soft at f2 ... it was ok with film but the 240 really shows it's shortcomings. Is the later version of this lens significantly better?
 
Keith said:
Can someone answer a question about the Zuiko 85mm f2. I have a very early version which has a beaten up front element and seems a little soft at f2 ... it was ok with film but the 240 really shows it's shortcomings. Is the later version of this lens significantly better?
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The Om 85/2 is a very famous lens, and not soft WO at all. But you want v3, for sure. V1 is different lens. V2 new formula. V3 great coatings.

85 at f/2 DOF is tiny so its very easy to miss. I test lenses like that on layered subjects so I'll hit something LOL
 
uhoh7 said:
The Om 85/2 is a very famous lens, and not soft WO at all. But you want v3, for sure. V1 is different lens. V2 new formula. V3 great coatings. 85 at f/2 DOF is tiny so its very easy to miss. I test lenses like that on layered subjects so I'll hit something LOL
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Do you know the serial number ranges or other indicators to discern which versions?
 
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