bought a Summitar

[spiderfrank]

Hi everybdy, last week I bought a Summitar 5cm f2 for my Bessa R: from the serial number it's made in 1949, and it seems to be coated.
I payed 110 euros for it, without caps and box, but the lenses look good IMHO

What do you think about this lens, do you have any tips about how to use it, to have the best results?

I made some colour slides shots with Fuiji Provia, and it seems to work well, a bit too soft at f2, but sharp from f5.6, nice colours, and a pleasant 3d effect: my impression is to have the same "presence effect" of a wide angle, with only 50mm of focal...

I read a lot of posts about the "Leica glow", but I didn't really understand what it is, and what exactly means "glow" ( it means that images shine? ) ... 😕

Thanks everybody
Franco

 

[Tom Harrell]

Hello Franco and welcome to the RFF! I can not answer your questions as I do not own that type of lens. However if you will to to "Search" on the tool bar at the top of the page and type in "summitar" you will see all of the threads that this lens is mentioned in. The differnt threads will probably answer all of your questions about it. Once again welcome to Range Finder Forum!

Regards,
Tom

 

[spiderfrank]

Yes, I know, but there are really too many (and too long) threads for my poor English!
I'll finish to read all when I'll be an old man!!! ;-)

 

[Film dino]

Difficult to define "glow", but I think this refers to the characteristic pictorial qualities or signature (Erwin Puts calls it "fingerprint" or something like that) of earlier Leitz lenses, due to the residual uncontrolled aberrations. It's not that the image is degraded to the extent that it becomes ugly, but more that the rendition is particularly pleasing or has a period look.

So new modern Leica lenses, notably the ones with aspheric elements are so well corrected that they give a "clinical" rendition, in which "glow" is absent.

Personally I don't really like the term "glow" because of this difficulty of definition. I have a Summitar, & as you say, stopped down to 5.6 it's often difficult to tell whether a picture was made with it or its successor the collapsible Summicron 5cm. Opened up, the Summitar makes a very nice, flattering portrait lens & the out of focus areas are particularly attractively smooth & "creamy"- here we go again.

David

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[like2fiddle]

Congratulations on the Summitar

The Summitar was my first Leica lens and I very much like it. It does seem to have a softness wide open and can have a fairly crisp, almost three-dimensional quality to it when closed down. I don't have many scans, but attached are a couple, one in B&W of a scanned photo which will give you an idea of what the soft focus looks like wide open. The focus is on the older lady in the center, my mother. The other is a color lab-scanned image just to give you an example of color rendition, I think photo taken around f5.6. The colors are actually more saturated than with a comparable photo taken immediately after with a Rokkor 40.

 

[spiderfrank]

Some of my "Summitar tests" first shot: f2 - Fuji Provia

Some of my "Summitar tests" first shot: f2 - Fuji Provia

 

[spiderfrank]

second shot: between f5.6 and f8- same film

 

[spiderfrank]

same as above: colour rendition looks good imho

 

[freeranger]

I does certainly render the colours in a very pleasant and subtle way. I'd say you got a bargain. Welcome to the forum.

 

[freeranger]

The cheapest summitar at the leicashop in Vienna is 190 eur....and it is described as cloudy.

 

[Leicabug]

Summitar is truly an outstanding lens for film photography. I havn't had a chance to try it on M8 but I expect the result to be bettter.

 

[sircarl]

I just bought a Summitar for my IIIf. I like it a lot at f/4 and above. At f/2 and f/2.8 I often find the bokeh really weird -- smeary streaks and sometimes even doubled images in the background. I suppose it's possible I got a defective lens. But it sure ain't "smooth and creamy," as Film Dino puts it.

 

[jkelly]

I have a 1951 vintage. You should be very happy with this lens. It's a good all-around performer. Here are a couple of my Summitar shots; the first stopped down and the second wide open:

 

[spiderfrank]

it looks like this lens has two souls: smooth wide open, and razor sharp when stopped. I must learn to remember this, every time I use it. Thank you to everybody for the comments, the tips, and the beautiful images

Franco

 

[Shac]

Franco - I have a 1946 version and as far as I am concnered I find it to be v. good for both colour and B&W. I assume you have shone a strong light through the else to look for any haze?

 

[David Murphy]

A good coated Summitar is a sharp lens -- forget about glow. These are real winners.

 

[spiderfrank]

Franco - I have a 1946 version and as far as I am concnered I find it to be v. good for both colour and B&W. I assume you have shone a strong light through the else to look for any haze?

Hi Shac, I'm not sure to understand what you mean, if you are asking if I used a torch to search for haze through the lenses, the answer is no: I cleaned the lens, and looked through it toward the sky, it seemed to me to be clear, and I decided to buy it.
On the other way I'm not an expert, so I'm not sure I could judge a lens simply looking at it. My real test was to shot with it, and look at the results...
Sorry fr my poor English, if you want me to make more tests, I can try ...

Ciao
Franco

 

[sirius]

Hi, I love my Summitar. Here are a few portraits with it.

 

[FrankS]

The red X's are sharply rendered! 😉

(All I can see are red X's. Would really like to see your Summitar portraits.)

 

[sirius]

Hmm, my attempt at embedding seems to have failed. Here they are attached.