Decent Wide Angles with Low Distortion?

I own a view camera for architectural work, but it's impractical to hike it around when shooting on the street (at least from my perspective.) I found a 21mm biogon for $675, I really appreciate the feedback. This forum rules.
 
The Contax G 21 is my favorite 21. Not easily mounted to an M6, but possible. And if you're going to use it the G2 is a fine body or it. Even more $ than you're willing, but worth every penny.
 
sepiareverb said:
The Contax G 21 is my favorite 21. Not easily mounted to an M6, but possible. And if you're going to use it the G2 is a fine body or it. Even more $ than you're willing, but worth every penny.
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Would it cost around $1400 in M mount at JapanExposures or more?
 
You know, at that price ($1,400 for a conversion to M mount) you might as well just buy a new Biogon.

I've found the older Carl Zeiss Biogons (35mm and 21mm) for the 1950s Contax IIa to be excellent lenses with low geometric distortion.

I'm currently shooting with a West German 25mm Distagon for the Rolleiflex SL 35, and it also seems to have low geometric distortion.

I haven't had the opportunity to use any Leica wide angles, so I cannot comment on those.
 
I guess there is wide and there is really wide.

And KZPhoto did say wide.

IMHO it's hard to beat the CV Snapshot 25 for the money invested.
 
I am using SLR wide angle lenses on RFcameras, with the goal to find low distortion lenses at good prices. The Canon FL19mm 3.5 and the Minolta Rokkor 21mm 4.0 are both superb lenses with non-retro focus designs.
 
Avotius said:
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Tricky exposure, Colin, very well done!
 
digitalintrigue said:
55,000 yen. A mint G2 body is less. ;)

Or, a mint green label G1 is only about $250.
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This can't be correct; a G1/G2 mount 21mm lens costs over $600 on ebay, so is the cost of a lens in M mount the 55,000 yen or is this the cost of converting such a lens and you first send them the lens?
 
digitalintrigue said:
I was referring to this comment:



The conversion alone is ¥55,000, not counting the cost of the lens.
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That's what I estimated, and that's why I mentioned the $1400 as the total cost.
Y55,000 ==> $650, plus cost of lens around $700 ==> $1350.
 
My 21 3.4 was the worst Leitz lens I ever bought. True it does not distort straight lines, but the price is vignetting I did not know could be so bad. Cosine 4th law I understand. Someplace around 11 or 16 it cleans up. I understand it is normal for the lens.

I owned the new lens around two months and replaced it with the then new 21 pre asph 2.8 which I still have.
Supposedly it has moustach distortion, but I have not looked for it.

Nikkor wides for SLR are terrible, but I fix in photoshop as they start as digital anyway.
I did not know what distortion was until I got them. The 28 2.8 with CRC is the sole exception.

Biogons are reguarded as the most distortion free wides going back decades, like 1960`s. I would look there first.
 
The Super Angulon IS NOT A LEITZ DESIGN. It's a Schneider design. At the time it was designed Leica rangefinder cameras were a favorite of photojournalists, not people shooting buildings and interiors. For buildings and interiors you set up your Sinar or Cambo or Linhoff on a tripod and used your swings and tilts, stopping down as needed.
 
Al Kaplan said:
At the time it was designed Leica rangefinder cameras were a favorite of photojournalists, not people shooting buildings and interiors.
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I'd say it's still the same (well arguably they have fallen out of favour with the photojournalists, too).

Incidentally, Cosine 4th vignetting doesn't get better as you stop down. It's It's a simple mathematic result from the symmetrical construction of lenses, and the lens geometry doesn't change by stopping down. It's somewhat ironic - on the one hand, the symmetric construction of wideangles is typically praised as one of the advantages of rangefinder cameras. On the other hand, as lenses get wider, symmetric construction increasingly becomes a problem. In order to work around the inherent limitations of such constructions (such as vignetting), lens makers have to resort to the same asymmetric inverted-telephoto construction tricks that SLR makers are using for SLR wideangles.
 
jonmanjiro said:
SLR wide angle lenses have to be retro focus designs so the rear element can clear the mirror. Designers generally do a good job given the design limitation, but the average SLR wide angle lens generally has, to some extent, mustache distortion and curvature etc.
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I don't know about practicalities in functioning with the M6 but the Tamron SP17mm has superb, distortion-free performance.
 
I used the CV 25 4 yesterday. What a delight it is to use such a small lens with high optical qualities and low cost. I have the non-RF coupled version. It makes it easy to have a travel kit with high functionality:
25mm + 35mm + 50mm or 75mm
 
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