Best "vintage look" rangefinder lenses of all time

What are the best rangefinder lenses (Leica, Canon,Voigtlander, Nikon, Zeiss etc.) for capturing images with the vintage look? Some are well known classics ;others are great buys you might not have thought of. I welcome your nominations and I'll be happy to share my own. Just ask the professor-

 

[Jason Schneider]

Modern lenses for the Vintage Look?

Modern lenses for the Vintage Look?

I think you missed Jason's technical explanation, which I've quoted here.

Modern lenses can't achieve "the vintage looks" - it's physics first and foremost, emotion and storytelling spooling off that.

For some reason, my earlier post on page 1 (link here) where I answered the question "What is this vintage look?" was ignored. I essentially say the same thing as Jason: vintage lenses "create low-contrast images where the tonal gradation rolls off gently into the highlights and shadows, and the midtones dominate".

For those who doubt the physics, Sean Reid calls these "sunny day lenses" (as they tame highlights and shadows in bright sun). You can read more in the following link, where he shows results from lens tests comparing modern and vintage lenses: https://luminous-landscape.com/fast-...he-epson-r-d1/

There are numerous modern lenses that can capture a reasonable facsimile of the Vintage Look, but seldom quite as convincingly as true vintage lenses such as the 50mm f/2 Leitz Summar, 50mm f/2.5 Leitz Hektor, 50mm f/2.0 and f/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar, 105mm f/3.5 Voigtlander Heliar, etc. I've personally shot with the current 50mm f/0.95 Leitz Noctilux-M ASPH., 90mm f/2.4 Leitz Summarit-M, 45mm f/2.8 Sigma DG DN, and 75mm f/1.5 Voigtlander Nokton, and all are definitely capable of capturing Vintage Look images, especially at relatively wide apertures. And they also have beautiful bokeh.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

1934_sonnar_5cmF15_2 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Xenon_5cmF15_2 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Summarit_Wide_open_2 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr





1934_sonnar_5cmF15_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Xenon_5cmF15_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr


Summarit_wide_open_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr



Hard to say which lens has the most vintage look. I have a lot of vintage lenses, and like to do comparisons. It's hard to find some lenses in good condition: The Summars, Xenon, Summitars, Summarits, early Summicrons, and 5cm F2 Sonnars all have soft glass for the front elements. The Summarit, and some others lenses such as the Canon 50/1.5 were not optimized for wide-open performance. With the Summarit: you have to change the spacing between the groups to get best performance used wide-open. Which I did for this lens.

My observation- every lens has its own signature. Vintage lenses have been around longer, so we're used to seeing vintage pictures that used these vintage lenses. Find a lens with a signature you like, use it.

 

[Evergreen States]

Also worth mentioning that film has changed a lot over the years and even classic films such as Tri-X have been reformulated to be sharper and have finer grain and less halation.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

1934 5cm F2 Sonnar, converted to Leica Mount and modified for 0.75m close focus. I've owned this lens for 20 years, one of the first conversions that I did. The Bertele Sonnar will be based on this design. This is one of the earliest that can be converted using a J-8 mount.

All Wide-Open.


Sonnar_F2_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Sonnar_F2_2 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Heavy red lighting from the train canopy.

Sonnar_F2_1b by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr


AND NOW- a very clean Summar, also F2. Walz hood used.

Summar_F2_2 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Summar_F2_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Both give a rendering that is vintage.
I think we can all see why Skyllaney chose to bring back the Sonnar...

All of these images are with the Leica M9.

 

[xayraa33]

I always find the Leitz Summitar and the 50mm f1.5 Canon "Sonnar" to always pin a vintage look to photos....some shimmed J-3s in LTM get there too.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've posted this before-

1934 5cm F1.5 Sonnar, wide-open on the M9. Perfect glass, nice bloom.

Warm November Day by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Blue of the Sky just seems to come out deeper with these uncoated/bloomed Sonnars. I have several- differences between individual lenses as Bloom is natural. But- my favorite pictures are with these Sonnars. And yes- focus is on the leading strand of hair... Nice things about swingsets, the cycles repeat.

Manassas Christmastime by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr
Another, wide-open.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Not sure if this is the best vintage look rangefinder lens of 'all time', but I've always liked the 73mm f/1.9 Hektor.


73hektor by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Canon 5cm F2, late 1940s. Wide-Open.

Marine Museum by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Not a common lens, a 1-2-2-1 double Gauss, like the Summar.

Sully Plantation by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Perfect for capturing that vintage look of "Dad, quit taking my picture".

 

[Sonnar Brian]

A coated (one of the first) 1936 5cm F1.5 Sonnar, wide-open on the M9.

1936 Coated Sonnar 5cm F1.5, wide-open by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

and another Sonnar from the same batch, uncoated-

1936 uncoated 5cm F1.5 Sonnar, Wide-Open on the M Monochrom.

Sonnar_1936_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

How to make my daughter smile- "Of course you can order dessert".

I find that single coated optics and a nice, natural bloom perform about the same. SO- a Vintage lens gives a different look than it did when new. Leave the Bloom on, well worth it.

I've had this camera for 8 years now. It almost always has a vintage lens on it.

 

[Bingley]

I also like the Summaron 35mm f3.5. I still own and use one in early M mount (the one designed for use with an accessory mount finder) and had one in LTM mount when I had an LTM camera.

While it is not technically as good as the later f2.8 lens it has something in its imaging that I find distinctly appealing. And I would describe it as a vintage look.

I agree with this assessment of the Summaron 35 f3.5. I have one in LTM. It’s quite sharp, but w/ moderate contrast so you get a lovely wide tonal range.

 

[Erik van Straten]

LeicaIII/Summar50mmf/2/TMY400/IlfordMGFB

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

LeicaM3/Elmar-M50mm/TMY400/AdoxMCC110

Erik.

 

[charjohncarter]

For me, its lenses that create low-contrast images where the tonal gradation rolls off gently into the highlights and shadows, and the midtones dominate. These are invariably older lenses, designed in the 70s and earlier.

This is in opposition to modern lenses, which produce a high-contrast look: tonal transitions are abrupt, so highlights are bright and shadows are black. I find the images harsh and "clinical", often lacking the emotion of older lenses.

This emotional effect helps me to create photographs that evoke a feeling and aids story-telling.

It's been suggested that the preference for high-contrast lenses came from Japan, and began to dominate with the decline of the European and American camera industries. Undoubtedly, technological advances such as computers and better lens coatings played their role too.

The low tonality of old is essentially a flaw - it's merely flare. However, virtuoso lens designers such as Mandler at Leica could tame aberrations and make them work with image-making rather than against it.

Of course, being old does not make a lens good! So, although it may be self-evident, I expect a lens to be sharp. A classic lens for me therefore has the twin qualities of low contrast and high resolution.

The writer and photographer Sean Reid coined a name for these classic optics many years ago, calling them "sunny day lenses". Here's an article where he describes these lenses in more detail: the entire article is worth reading, but if you want to stay with our topic, scroll two-thirds down the page to the "Sunny day lenses" heading. https://luminous-landscape.com/fast-lenses-for-the-epson-r-d1/

By the way, I couldn't care less about bokeh, provided it's not excessively weird or intrusive. Some older lens designs have "interesting" bokeh. For me, that's an "Oh, that's, err... interesting!" reaction – but some people love "swirly" circular bokeh!

I read the 'Sunny Day Lenses' part of the article. He used a digital camera (or he wouldn't be able to have done that extensive of a project), but I wonder if his results would have been altered with film.

I kept thinking how my 55 year old $25 dollar guitar was never a great instrument but over the years is so familiar to me my family say, 'you can really make a great sound out of the guitar.' Maybe that is the way of lenses too. I know with some of my lenses (I don't have many) I can pick my spot and time to shoot and the f stop to use (not that I'm a virtuoso), but many great photographers I expect are.

So for the average jerk like me some of these nuances are for us just luck.

Still, I like that the article tried to discuss (not just in the sunny day part) some kind of a cold look of what makes some great and others not.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

DR or Rigid Summicron, 35mm Summilux (pre-ASPH), 90mm Elmar (wide open), 21mm f/3.4 Super Angulon (even though it's not a Leica lens, there's nothing else that touches it.)

Phil Forrest

 

[markjwyatt]

Ok, I am deviating from the rangefinder lens, but I was trying a Meyer-Optik Gorlitz 50mm f2.8 Domiplan (Exakta VX), basically a Cooke triplet variation, and this picture looks like a classic image from the late 19th or early 20th century. Something about the "bokeh" (or lack of). I am guessing this was around f5.6:


Bare Tree by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

On the other hand at smaller apertures, it is pretty contrasty and sharp:


verticals by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr


Old Truck, front by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr

The Domiplan was a cheap East German starter lens for the Exa in the 1960s (and maybe some Exaktas).

 

[k__43]

In case that wasn't mentioned before (probably was): Jupiter-3 (50/1.5)

 

[lynnb]

My 5cm f/2 Summar has fine abrasions on the front element. The light scattering gives an even more vintage look. Taken with IIIc, Tri-X in XTOL 1+1.

Summar portrait #026 by lynnb's snaps, on Flickr

 

[lynnb]

Another picture taken with the Summar, this time IIIc, Fomapan 200 in XTOL 1+1.

Hyde Park (after Atget) #162 by lynnb's snaps, on Flickr

 

[Nitroplait]

Vintage look somehow defies age of the lens.
Sometimes what we think looks "vintage" is really the effect of fogging and defects caused by age and was not the signature of the lens when new.

To me the "vintage look" is caused by the limitations the lens designers had at the time while they were trying to do the best possible within the available resources: Which could be lack of advanced coating, access to exotic glass types, resources to calculate complex designs etc.

Among the 11 lenses I own for my Leicas, the most "vintage" signature is accomplished with the Voigtländer Nokton Classic 35/1.4 Single Coated which I bought new in 2010.
It is made as a love letter to yesteryears small gems - now unapproachable by people with normal income.

Used at 1.4 or 2.0 is like travelling back in time. Stopped down further the look becomes fairly contemporary.
Below are 3 examples shoot on XP2+. The two first are shoot wide open or 2.0. I don't recall the last, but must have been around 5.6 from the look of it.

"Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2011" Notice the lights in the upper corners.

"Yurakucho, Tokyo 2011" Notice the background light bleeding on the structure in the open light areas.

"Akasaka, Tokyo 2011"

The Nokton Classic 35/1.4 SC next to a Summicron 35/2.0 (v.3) - the first is actually my favourite.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

I agree that cloudy lenses can produce a low-contrast look. But have a look at Erik van Straten's RFC-linked photography. He uses older equipment including many of the classic lenses discussed in this thread. But I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that he only uses clean examples of those lenses. Either he pays a premium for ones that have been well cared for or lovingly restored, or he is an ace with a wrench spanner and cleaning solution. His images are always sharp where they need to be, but lower in overall contrast than you'd expect with modern multicoated glass. And the tonal range is amazing! I would be very surprised if his lenses have micro-scratches or internal haze -- I see no evidence of that kind of light scattering effect in his excellent pictures.

@Erik - feel free to contradict me if I have this wrong. But it has always seemed unlikely to me that what we are seeing in your photography is the result of post processing.