Canon LTM Canon ltm 50mm f1.8

Canon M39 M39 screw mount bodies/lenses
From the very first roll with a new-to-me Canon 50/1.8 (chrome "Canon Lens" version). What a gorgeous lens! I'm really impressed!

Leica IIIf, shot at f2.0, APX400 new in Xtol replenished.

20210116_APX400Xtol-20.jpg
 
Horatio said:
Does this lens suffer from focusing issues like the Jupiter 3, when used on an M-type body?
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I own many examples of the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens in both early chrome and the later two tone ones and they have all worked fine on my M Leicas and Barnacks, no focus problems at all.

...The J-3 problem is many need to be adjusted because the FL is slightly different than the Leica standard and the FSU lens needs to be carefully collimated to properly function on a camera of the Leica standard of 51.6mm and shimmed (or unshimmed) to get good focus via the RF when the lens is used at the larger aperture like f1.5

Some Sonnar design fast lenses like the J-3 ( and even some Gauss design ) can suffer from focus shift and that has to be compensated for, but the Canon 50 mm f1.8 lens was always free of focus shift in my experience with them. *(the 50mm f1.8 Canon lens is not of a Sonnar design)
 
xayraa33 said:
I own many examples of the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens in both early chrome and the later two tone ones and they have all worked fine on my M Leicas and Barnacks, no focus problems at all.

...The J-3 problem is many need to be adjusted because the FL is slightly different than the Leica standard and the FSU lens needs to be carefully collimated to properly function on a camera of the Leica standard of 51.6mm and shimmed (or unshimmed) to get good focus via the RF when the lens is used at the larger aperture like f1.5

Some Sonnar design fast lenses like the J-3 ( and even some Gauss design ) can suffer from focus shift and that has to be compensated for, but the Canon 50 mm f1.8 lens was always free of focus shift in my experience with them. *(the 50mm f1.8 Canon lens is not of a Sonnar design)
Click to expand...

Thank you for the timely and informative response.
 
Horatio said:
Does this lens suffer from focusing issues like the Jupiter 3, when used on an M-type body?
Click to expand...

One thing to consider is that Soviet quality control went down the tubes in the 1970s, with the introduction of massive production requirements to maximize the generation of hard currency. There are Soviet lenses that will work fine on Leica standard cameras. The hard part is in identifying them.
 
newst said:
One thing to consider is that Soviet quality control went down the tubes in the 1970s, with the introduction of massive production requirements to maximize the generation of hard currency. There are Soviet lenses that will work fine on Leica standard cameras. The hard part is in identifying them.
Click to expand...


Using 'Soviet' and 'quality control' in the same sentence is a comical oxymoron. This is inclusive of 1917-1990.
 
 
Horatio said:
Does this lens suffer from focusing issues like the Jupiter 3, when used on an M-type body?
Click to expand...

It's built 100% to Leica specs, so you'll get accurate focus close and up to infinity. When I made test shots on my XPro2 from a tripod, there seemed to be a slight focus shift around f2.8/f4.0, but its way less severe then any Sonnar lens and probably won't show up in real life shooting (actually most faster lenses have some shift to some degree). The Canon 50/1.8 is a gem, really sharp, good contrast, smooth bokeh; from what I've seen online it seems to be about on par with the Summicrons of the late 50s and 60s. Color rendition of my chrome 'Canon Lens' one is eerily similar to my red scale Elmar, maybe a tiny bit warmer.
When looking for one, watch out, the later black&chrome versions have serious haze issues on the element behind the aperture. It seems to come from the type of glass Canon started using back then and is reoccuring and often not easily cleanable. The earlier chrome versions (which as far as I know share the same optical layout) don't suffer from this. They show up with haze but its the outgassing lubricant type and cleanable. The chrome ones are _really_ heavy tho, very solid build to tight tolerances.
 
xayraa33 said:
...The J-3 problem is many need to be adjusted because the FL is slightly different than the Leica standard and the FSU lens needs to be carefully collimated to properly function on a camera of the Leica standard of 51.6mm and shimmed (or unshimmed) to get good focus via the RF when the lens is used at the larger aperture like f1.5
Click to expand...

This came up a while ago but since it represents a misperception, I think it still needs addressing. The "J-3 problem" (really the "Russian LTM lens problem") is NOT that the FL (focal length) is slightly different than the Leica standard. The problem is that the thread pitch of the focusing helicoid in the FSU lenses is slightly different from Leica's focusing helicoid. This means the lens moves in and out at a very slightly different rate and doesn't match up perfectly to the focus cam on a Leica body.

The origin of the problem is in the post-WW2 period when German [*correction: Zeiss lens technology was granted to Russia as war reparations]. Contax and Leica standards are very slightly different in the focus pitch, and to save on production costs, the Russians (in their enduring wisdom) adopted the Contax pitch for all FSU lens production and Leica-clone cameras. The Zorki and FED cameras (the "Leica clones") have a focusing cam to match the Contax pitch, which means that all Jupiter and other FSU LTM lenses focus properly in a Zorki or FED body. But those cameras can't quite properly use Leica lenses, and the Jupiter and other FSU lenses (especially longer and faster lenses) aren't quite suited to Leica bodies.

But they're "close enough" so that wide angle (Jupiter-12 35/2.8) and the slower 50mm lenses work well enough--the focus error can be absorbed by depth of field. The Jupiter-8 (50/2) is borderline but generally useable; Jupiter-3 (50/1.5) is often adapted by optimizing it for close focus range (and the J-3 is further complicated its Sonnar characteristic of focus shift as the lens is stopped down). Longer FSU lenses (Jupiter-11 tele) are unsuitable for Leica use.

All that said, the OP asked if the Canon 50/1.8 had a similar problem. It does not. Canon lenses are fully Leica-compatible.
 
Last edited:
davhill said:
...

The origin of the problem is in the post-WW2 period when the German Contax and Leica/Leitz camera factories ended up in Russian-held territory, and the eastern bloc nationalized those technologies....
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What you say here is partially true with respect to Contax, but what is your authority for stating that the Leitz camera factories “ended up in Russian-held territory”? Wetzlar was in the American zone in occupied Germany.
 
Bingley said:
What you say here is partially true with respect to Contax, but what is your authority for stating that the Leitz camera factories “ended up in Russian-held territory”? Wetzlar was in the American zone in occupied Germany.
Click to expand...

Apparently my imagination?! Thank you for the correction, and please correct me further as I need it.

The Zeiss Jena factory (at least) ended up in Russian territory, and Zeiss lens technology was granted to Russia as war reparations, which became the root of the Russian lens industry: Jupiter, Mir, Helios, Industar, etc. are Zeiss designs, and are built to several mounts. German camera designs were declared open-source, and available to eastern or western countries, which led to several Leica and Contax clones such as Canon, Zorki (both Leica based), and Nikon, Kiev (Contax-based).

And that gets us back to the quirk of the Russian-made Leica clones, which were built to match the Russian-made Zeiss-clone LTM lenses, which were built (as previously noted) using the Contax-spec focus helicoid, very slightly different from the Leica-spec. And that is why your Jupiter LTM lens won’t focus quite right on a Leica or Canon LTM body.

I have most certainly over-simplified above. Please feel free to elaborate & correct.
 
Hello everyone, it's my first post on here!

I recently picked up a Canon L1 and 50mm 1.8 lens, both of which are virtually unused. Unfortunately the lens has got some type of haze that looks like droplets on the element behind the aperture. I've done some reading and know this lens can suffer from haze. But I'm not sure if that's what this is? Do you have any ideas? Can it be cleaned?

It would be a real shame to scrap this lens as it is in pristine condition. Maybe this is why it was never really used!!!

Steve

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2m3JXEF]P6021897 by Steve, on Flickr[/URL]

P6021893 by Steve, on Flickr

P6021894 by Steve, on Flickr
 
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